Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics

by IBRAHIM M. ABU-RABI'
In a 1946 seminal essay titled "Politics and the English Language," the British novelist George Orwell bemoaned the decline of post-World War Two English prose by pointing out that what was troublesome about some major English writing then was lack of precision, sheer incompetence, and vagueness.

This insight is at the heart of Brown's discussion in this timely book on Islam and politics. The author offers the most refreshingly sober analysis of the Islamic phenomenon; a welcome addition from someone who has spent his entire career analyzing modem North African and Middle Eastern societies by using original sources and
treating the Muslim world in the most balanced of ways. Brown focuses his analytical lenses on three interrelated phenomena: first, Islam as theology; second, Islam as history; and, third, Islam as politics. As a result, he presents an overwhelmingly clear picture of the interplay between these three factors in classical and modem Islamic societies. This type of analysis is the more welcome after the tragic attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, when every Tom, Dick, and Harry has become a specialist on Islam and the so-called Islamic terrorism. In his insightful analysis of the issues at hand, Brown cuts through the thick of it all by advocating a clear method of studying the Islamic religious phenomenon.

A scholarly approach or a scientific study of religion, he correctly maintains, ought not minimize the impact of religion on life but, on the contrary, ought to shed important light on the interplay between theology and other social and historical factors. That leads him to suggest that the Muslim people must be judged by the same "rules of logic and evidence" as other people (p. 19). Brown, just like Edward Said, is disturbed by Western perceptions of Islam and the Muslim people and is anxious to make sense of the complex historical and theological relationship between the Muslim world and the West. Once and again, he affirms the notion that Islam belongs to the Abrahamic family, that is, it is akin in its theological worldview to both Judaism and Christianity and "that the more Jews or Christians know of their own religious heritage the better able they are to understand Islam" (p. 21).

Aside from its theological core, Islam grew out of an urban environment and is "marked by an urban bourgeoisie outlook" (p. 27). Brown elaborates in a subtle way on the Benedict Anderson thesis of the "imagined communities" discussed in his classic work, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1993). Because of its Abrahamic theology, its bourgeois and urban dimension, its literati class, its Sufis, the intellectual leadership of formative Islam was able to imagine a universal community of believers who could transcend ethnic, linguistic, and geographic boundaries. Although he does not refer to Anderson's major study, Brown seems to be heading in the same direction of analysis. The Muslim notions of politics, he asserts, developed mainly in the formative phase against this background of universal imagining, and hence Muslim political theory is replete with such terms as the ummah, dar al-Islam, dar al-Harb, and dar al-Sulh. However, Brown stresses that in spite of the central role of the ulama, the main intelligentsia in classical Muslim society, in providing a universal imagining to the Muslim ummah, no corporate "church" body has ever existed in the Muslim world. The ulama, especially in the Sunni world, have more or less stood with the status quo by refusing to support opposition to the political authority. The mainstream Muslim ulama, providing legitimacy, put their weight behind an Islamic tradition that was pro-status quo and pushed their notion of orthodoxy often with the support of the political authorities. Brown clarifies the important connection between the ulama and the ruling elite in Muslim societies, a relationship of cooptation or at best cooperation: "The Sunni ulama have almost never acted in an organized fashion as if they constituted an institutionally distinct, hierarchically arranged body" (p. 33). Brown provides us with the necessary conceptual tools to delve into such central questions as the education of the ulama, their relationship to the state in the classical era, and their role in the dissemination of religious
knowledge. It is crucial to examine these points in light of the modem developments in the Muslim world, especially in light of the relationship between state and religion. In the wake of independence from colonialism, many Muslim countries created Ministries of Religious and Islamic Affairs and encouraged a class of ulama to be the official spokespersons of Islam. However, opposed to that, a new class of Muslim activists and thinkers emerged in modem Muslim societies, thus giving a new voice or representation to Islam and the problems facing
the Muslim world. It is interesting to examine the dynamics of the relationship between "official Islam" and activist Islam in contemporary Muslim societies. One can take the Wahhabi case in Saudi Arabia, the Turabi case in the Sudan, and the Shiite case in Iran. In Iran the ulama have, more or less, controlled the state since 1979.

How is one to view the relationship between religion and society in the modern Muslim world? What is the role of colonialism in this relationship? Brown admits that there have been major shifts in power relations between the Muslim world and the West in the past two centuries. Brown refers to the confrontation with the West or the Western impact but never explicitly to European colonization, the single most important event in the development of modern Muslim societies. It is in this context that one can understand the interplay between three major forces in the colonial Muslim world: Islamic forces, colonialism, nationalism, and a fourth force, Communism, in the case of Indonesia.

This interplay gave rise to the modern nation-state phenomenon with various degrees of political, cultural, and economic independence from the colonial center. The heavy colonial legacy along with the need to modernize the state without the appropriate personnel and resources to do so created many challenges for the nascent nation-states. In the Gulf states, because of oil, the challenges were of a different nature. That is why, as Brown notes correctly, in the early phase of the nation-state the "Muslim discourse" was dominated by such charismatic figures as Ataturk, Sukaro, Nasser, and Bourguiba. He notes that in the past few decades this discourse has been dominated by Islamist intellectuals and activists This is true only to a limited extent. The political elite in the contemporary Muslim world are still as powerful as ever, and dissent is rarely tolerated. In addition, a large number of the political elite are pro-West, as opposed to the first generation after independence that was, more or less, anti-West or anticolonial and stressed the importance of independent political and economic development in the Muslim world.

Why, then, the rise in Islamist politics? This statement has to be qualified. Most Islamist movements in the Sunni world have had a tough relationship with the new nation-state and the current military leadership. Some have been banned from politics (Egypt, Turkey, and Tunisia are examples). The only example of an almost takeover of the state by an Islamist movement took place in the Sudan, under Turabi. But this experiment has come to naught. It is against the above theoretical background that Brown takes up the issue of Islamism (Islamic fundamentalism) in the modem Muslim world. Here his analysis lacks some theoretical clarity, unlike that in the first part of the book. How is one to characterize the Islamist movement in the Muslim world? First, Brown is correct to assume that Islamism is a multilayered phenomenon in the Muslim world and that it traverses the past two centuries. However, one can delineate several classes of Islamism: precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. The Wahabbiyyah is at the heart of the first class, whereas the Muhammadiyyah; Nahdatu ul-Ulama of Indonesia; the Ikhwan of Egypt; and the Jama'at-e-Islami of India and Pakistan, all products of the colonial eras, comprise the second class. Of the third class, we have the Egyptian Jihad and the Taliban movements. Brown assumes that all Islamist movements are political and thus radical in nature and orientation.

This is far from true in the case of Muhammadiyyah, Nahdatu ul-Ulama of Indonesia, and even of the Tabligh Jama'at, the most dominant revivalist movement in contemporary South Asia. Islamism is, in large measure, the product of modern European colonialism in the Muslim world and the failure of the modem nation-state to accommodate protest movements in their political systems. I think that the weakness of Brown's analysis in this section stems from his failure to accept Western colonialism as a historical fact in the Muslim world. Nowhere does he use the term; instead, he uses such terms as "changes,"" confrontations,"and so forth. It is the fact of colonialism that gave rise to the modem nation-state in the Muslim world, often an exhausted and poor nation-state that resorted to both modernization and repression in its formative phase. In the 1950s, the Masumi Islamist party was repressed in Indonesia, as were the Ikhwan movement in Egypt and the Jama'at in Pakistan. That is why the relationship between Islamism and the state in the Muslim world has been complex. In the case of Wahabbism, Islamism and the state have been allied, whereas in other cases, Islamism and the state have been at odds. The state in the modern Muslim world is a nineteenthcentury creation prompted by European colonialism. As such, Islamism has never been a static phenomenon. It has invented a powerful religious discourse to legitimize itself in the eyes of the masses and to gain political and economic support. Islamism has been in crisis for the last four decades for many complex reasons: first, because the whole of Muslim tradition has been in crisis, and second, because the new guard of Islamism is not satisfied with the achievements or lack thereof on the part of the old guard. This is true in the case of Wahabbism, and bin Laden is an example.

In spite of some major theoretical flaws in the second part of the book, I think this work paves the way for grasping the Islamist phenomenon in its diverse forms in the contemporary Muslim world. My criticism of the second section is not intended to minimize the importance of this book and the solidity of its arguments throughout. Brown has offered us the necessary epistemological tools to come to grips with the complex theme of Islam and politics both in the classical and modern phases of the Muslim world.

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Islamic Liberation Theology (Book Review)

This is an ambitious and frusturating book which tries to chart a course for an "Islamic liberation theology" just as Gustavo Gutteriez and James Cone did for Christianity. Dabashi argues that the ideological division of "Islam and the West" no longer has any meaning for contemporary Islamic praxis. In fact this binary division has produced an Islamic politics of opposition to Western modernity, forcing Islamic ideologues and ideology into anti-democratic stances and revolutionary excesses which mirror or even at times outdo the worst totalitarian impulses of Western thought.

I found Dabashi's narrative interventions provocative, especially his exegesis of the life and work of Malcolm X (see his chapter "Malcolm X as a Muslim Revolutionary"), placing him into dialectical interplay with religious currents within Shi'a Islam. He also helpfully draws on Gutierrez's notion of a "historical pilgrimage" of religion in an effort to re-historicize Islamic heritage.

Unfortunately the book suffers from a lack of judicious editing and and all too often a-historic approach to contemporary issues. He inscribes categories like "the West" and "modernity", equating them at times with global capitalism, at times with the European Enlightenment, at times with the foreign policy aims of the US government collapsing hundreds of years of history into categorical oppositions. Perhaps it is the historian in me, but I found this weakened Dabashi's important arguments overall, making them far too easy to dismiss because there is insufficent attention given to problematizing the ideological weight they are asked to hold in his argument. Dabashi also veers randomly between theorization and historicization, getting sidetracked in a kind of academic word-goop which obfuscates the potential of his points. As soon as you think he is going to make a good, potentially transformative point, he veers off into generalities and post-modern language of a particularly useless nature. For example, he writes, "a whole new mode of resistance movement, neither ethnically nationalist nor religiously nativist, is now needed to confront the predicament of Muslim peoples at large." (164) The reader anticipates a description of what Dabashi thinks this mode might look like, but instead is treated to agnosticism: "It is useless to speculate what precisely the particular disposition of these modes of post-national and post-nativist resistance would be. A total distrust of ideological meta-narratives is by far the most critical feature of this emerging mode of resistance." (164)

So why is it useless to speculate on a mode of resistance that is already emerging?! I interpreted Dabashi's ambivalence and slippery language, as evidence of his desire that a transnational movement for Islamically based justice and liberation to emerge. (Malcolm X is very important in Dabashi's formulation of this and Dabashi's comparison between Malcolm X and Sayd Qutb is intriguing) But Dabashi cannot theorize about this supposedly emerging global movement because its actual existence as a historical trend is much more a matter of personal perspective than Dabashi cares to admit. The world may be global and Islam may be a global religion, but there are thousands of "imagined communities" within the global umma, and the ties which bind Muslims together are not necessarily any stronger than those which tie nations or cultures together. Furthermore, don't the bin Laden's and other globally wanted "jihadists" (whom Dabashi rejects as reactionaries) view themselves as instituting precisely the kind of transnational movement he claims Muslims need (minus that skepticism of meta-narratives bit)? Dabashi dreams of a global justice movement which will simultaneously resist global capitalism, Western modernity, and Islamist totalitarianism. But isn't this a bit much to ask of any one movement?

The tension the reader observes in Dabashi's stance is symptomatic of the gap between a "skepticism of ideological meta-narratives" and the will to power necessary to carry out any project of justice and reform in the real world. Dabashi like many intellectuals is skeptical of that will to power, seeing in it the seeds of the demise of both revolution and reform-minded projects. Yet without it, the impulse for Dabashi's "new geography of liberation" remain words on a page.

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African Islam in Tanzania (excerpt)

More materials towards a historical understanding of Islam in Tanzania. Please click the title to be taken to the full article. The latest book from Felicitas Becker called Being Muslim In Mainland Tanzania is the latest scholarly entry I know of to take up the topic of Islam and Muslims in Tanzania. We hope to review that book here in the future.

African Islam in Tanzania
By Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi and David Westerlund (March 1997)

Islam in society
Mainly on account of the leading role of the Catholic president Julius Nyerere several Western researchers have underestimated the importance of the Moslems in shaping the Tanzanian socialism in the 1960's. Because of the Christians having better access to higher education they became overrepresented in the administration. But Moslems constituted a majority in TANU, called CCM (Chama cha Mapinduzi = The Revolutionary Party) after the 1977 merger with its sister party ASP (Afro-Shirazi Party) on Zanzibar. After the introduction of the one-party system, CCM was the major political factor in societal change. The socialism of Tanzania has many similarities with Islamic Socialism, and especially Nasserism influenced many Moslems in Tanzania.

The few Moslems who turned against the socialist politics were mostly of Asian origin. Some of the Moslem resistance was in the beginning channeled through the East African Muslim Welfare Society (EAMWS). It was founded in Mombasa in 1945 by the then Aga Khan with the aim of promoting Islam and raising the standard of living for the East African Moslems. Asian Shiites, especially Ismaili, dominated and financed the organisation, but Aga Khan recommended that all Moslems regard EAMWS as an organization with pan-Islamic ambitions. When its headquarters were moved from Mombasa to Daressalaam in 1961, the Nyamwezi chief and TANU opponent Abdallah Fundikira, regarded as Nyerere's principal political rival in the 60's, became the president of the organization. EAMWS concentrated on building schools and mosques, providing scholarships and spreading literature. There were also plans for founding an Islamic university in Zanzibar or Mombasa, but they were never realized. However, the Muslim Academy founded in Zanzibar in early 50s continued to exist as a training college for teachers of Arabic and Islamic education until it was closed down by the autonomous Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar in 1966. In regard to this it is interesting to note that Zanzibar has several times since January 1993 announced plans for a separate Islamic university and high schools connected to the University of Daressalaam; and since the middle of the 70s the Muslim Academy has been reopened, a new Muslim Secondary School has been built and Arabic has been adopted as the third official language of Zanzibar.

Because of the pan-Islamic tendencies and the capitalist oriented leadership of EAMWS, pro-TANU Moslems opposed it. The organization, it was claimed, constituted a threat to the ruling party. The antagonism culminated in 1968, when the organization was declared illegal in Tanzania. Other Moslem organizations were dissolved as well. Instead the pro-TANU Moslems, with several leading Qadiriyya sheikhs playing important roles, formed with the support of TANU the new national organization Baraza Kuu la Waislam wa Tanzania (Tanzania Muslim Council), BAKWATA, whose constitution was in large parts a copy of the TANU constitution. Because of the close connection to the ruling party and many leading Moslem politicians' interference in BAKWATA's activities, the role of the organization has been controversial. Its achievements have been limited due to poor finances. Criticism against BAKWATA increased during the 1980's, when the opposition to the socialist politics of Tanzania grew and liberalization started.

Under internal Moslem pressure and international Islamic tendencies BAKWATA has lately become somewhat more profiled. The organization has arranged lectures on Islam in different parts of the country and in 1987 it called on the government to reinstall the system of Moslem courts that existed in colonial and post-colonial times. With the increased profile international Islamic contacts are on the rise. Some Arab countries have financed new mosques, schools, scholarships, dispensaries and provided teachers to the newly established schools.

The question of schools and Islamic education has for a long time been Tanzanian Moslems' main issue. They had few equivalents to the mission schools whose activities not only spread Christianity but also led to a higher educational level among Christians. The decision by the TANU government to nationalize the schools in 1969 was therefore warmly welcomed by the Moslems. The Islamic schools which have been founded lately in a political climate more favorable to private initiatives, for example Kunduchi Islamic High School, seem to have an uneven standard but constitute an interesting development for the Moslems of Tanzania.

The proposal to reinstate separate Moslem courts is very controversial. Under the slogan "Don't mix religion with politics!" the governments of Tanzania have endeavored to "privatize" Islam or marginalize the effects of Islamic law. An example of religious conflicts involving legal matters is the discussions about a government proposal to a new marriage law which was presented in 1967. The implementation of the law in 1971 was preceded by two years of intense discussions particularly regarding the position of sharia in the judicial system of the country were debated.

Before 1971 Moslems, as well as Christians and Hindus, followed their own marriage and divorce laws. Traditional judiciary systems of the different ethnic groups practising customary law were also in force. In addition, one could marry monogamously in a civil marriage. To counteract religious and ethnic exclusivism in favour of increased national consciousness, the government presented its aim in its 1969 White Book to create more uniformity in the sphere of family laws. The other important aim was to improve the position of the woman. One of the tangible proposals was that the minimum marital age for boys was to be eighteen and for girls fifteen. The fifteen-year limit for girls was presented with reference to UN recommendations. According to sharia puberty decides when a girl is marriageable.

The proposal that caused the most serious debate was the idea that a man who wanted to marry a second wife had to get permission from his first wife. The proposal that would forbid men to punish their wives corporally was also met with some resistance as well as the installation of an obligatory reconciliation agency for couples on the verge of divorce. If the agency failed to reconcile the parties concerned the husband in a Moslem marriage would legally be able to pronounce the divorce formula talaka (Ar. talaq).

Many Moslems who were taking part in the discussions opposed the idea of creating a more unified marriage law, especially where the proposed marriage law was in conflict with sharia. Since family laws are a central part of the Islamic law, any change which does not conform to them is particularly sensitive and controversial. Despite the criticism from the Moslems the government's proposed law was passed in 1971 with only minor changes.

The proposals of BAKWATA in 1987 to reinstate separate Islamic courts is only one example which demonstrates that the question of the position of sharia in Tanzania is still a burning issue. In 1988 Sofia Kawawa, leader of the Tanzania Women's Union, UWT, (Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania, closely affiliated to CCM), came under fire after having publicly criticized Islamic rules that she felt were oppressive to women. According to Sofia Kawawa polygyny should be forbidden and women should have the same right of inheritance as men. Her statements caused protest and some riots. A group of young Moslems wrote an open letter which demanded that the secular regime refrain from interfering with religious matters. In Zanzibar two men died in the riots against the leader of the UWT. The Moslem president Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who a few years earlier had succeeded the Catholic Nyerere, hurried to explain that Kawawa had expressed her personal views and not the views of CCM or the government. Mwinyi saw no need to change the law, while Kawawa and other Moslem women continued to argue against certain Islamic laws. In some of her statements in 1990 Kawawa provocatively claimed that polygyny helped to spread AIDS.

In questions concerning for example polygyny, Moslem critics like Kawawa have gained some support from the Christian quarter. Christian criticism is, to some degree however, part of a wider propaganda campaign against Islam. It may be noted that many Christian men, especially outside the circles of leadership, actually have defended polygyny, albeit with reference to traditional African culture rather than to Christian belief. This was especially obvious during the parliamentary debates preceding the law changes in 1971. Many Christian men and women also support female circumcision which is practised rather widely, even by fourth or fifth generation Christians, and which is forbidden in law; but nobody talks about it. Female circumcision does not exist among Tanzanian Moslems other than those of Somali origin, and a mild form of it is secretly practised among the few Asian Shia Bohra.

The relationship between Moslems and Christians has by and large been harmonious in Tanzania. A certain tension has certainly existed under the surface, but it has seldom led to open conflict. In his valedictory address in 1985, Nyerere stressed the fact that the risk of religious conflict in Tanzania has been greater than ethnic strife. According to him large religious conflicts have been avoided not least because most Moslems have set national interests ahead of religious concerns. Lately however a tendency toward increasing conflict between Moslems and Christians has been discerned in Tanzania. One of the reasons for this is growing Christian fundamentalism. To many fundamentalist Christians Islam is considered the archenemy, particularly since Communism is no longer perceived as a threat.

New organizations and tendencies
New Islamic organizations have also added to the increased polarization between Christians and Moslems. Few of these organizations are officially registered. More rigid Islamic groups spreading propaganda for the surrection of an Islamic government in Tanzania are few and small, but less far-reaching signs of revitalization of Islam are evident. Zanzibar constitutes a special problem with its deeply rooted Islam and some Moslems who emphasize the importance of Islam want to see the Union dissolved. This is also desired by the Christian fundamentalists, particularly the unregistered Democratic Party led by the Rev. Mtikila.

One of the Islamic congregations which more or less openly has criticized the "official" BAKWATA is Warsha ya Waandishi wa Kiislam (Islamic Writers' Workshop). Warsha was founded in 1975 as a unit within BAKWATA, its main concern being educational issues. The unit had many young and well-educated members, some of whom were Shiites. This radical group was supported by the BAKWATA secreterary general sheikh Muhammed Ali and demanded Islamic education alongside secular subjects in the Islamic secondary schools run by the organization. Moslems faithful to the regime argued that this went against the secular foundation of the state and after some conflict the Warsha group was excluded from BAKWATA in 1982 and its members were forbidden to work at BAKWATA institutions.

The young Warsha members have however continued striving for their goal. In their simple headquarters at Daressalaam's Quba mosque, courses are arranged and literature is published. One of the Swahili publications, Uchumi Katika Uislamu (Economy In Islam), which deals with Islamic economy, has drawn attention due to its severe criticism of the Tanzanian socialist system Ujamaa, which they consider Communist. Most of the publications however deal with the so called Pillars of Islam, for example Sala with the horary prayer and Falsafa ya Funga ya Ramdhani with fasting during Ramadan. Warsha also tries to reform the old and mosque based Quranic schools where education is still largely based on memorizing parts of the Quran.

Another organization is Baraza la Uendelazaji Koran Tanzania (Tanzania Quranic Council), BALUKTA, whose 1987 constitution states that its main aim is promoting the reading of the Quran and spreading of Islam through financial and material support to Moslem schools. The organization is also making an effort to establish and run Islamic centers and institutes for Islamic higher education. Other constitutional aims within the educational field are among others publishing and conferences. Business projects like hotels and restaurants have also been announced. Holders of positions of trust are expected to have a sound knowledge of Islam. Compared to Warsha, characterized by its young members, BALUKTA seems somewhat old-fashioned. In April 1993 some BALUKTA members under the leadership of its president, sheikh Yahya Hussein, were involved in attacks against butcheries selling pork in Daressalaam. Three slaughterhouses were destroyed and some thirty people, including sheikh Hussein, were arrested. The background to this is that rearing and slaughtering of pigs have become common in religiously mixed areas and some Moslems have reacted vehemently.

The Daressalaam University Muslim Trusteeship is another organization striving to protect Moslem interests in higher education; it has produced statistics which point to the much publicised under-representation of Moslems at the universities and in the administration. (A parliamentary commission of inquiery has also come to a similar conclusion, followed by a report of the Roman Catholic Church of Tanzania in 1992 which confirms the political and educational imbalance between Christians and Moslems. A book in 1994 by Aboud Jumbe, a former president of Zanzibar, further describes the dominance of the Christians and the underprivileged position of the Moslems in the country.) The members of the Trusteeship try to promote a better understanding of Islam as a way of life. Another organization, Baraza Kuu la Jumuia na Taasisi za Kiislam (The Supreme Council of Islamic Organizations), founded in 1992, has a strikingly large number of university employees among its membership. This new council tries to take over the leading role of BAKWATA as a unified organization for all the Moslems of the country, and its activities are closely monitored by the government.

Islamic renewal in Tanzania has been supported by organizations abroad. The World Council of Mosques, with its headquarters in Jeddah, has opened an office in Daressalaam to facilitate its work in Tanzania. Some foreign organizations have supported minor domestic Islamic movements which aim to change the country into an Islamic state. The Iranian Revolution has inspired some Tanzanian Moslems, among others Khamis Muhammed, who is the editor of the new Islamic magazine Mizani. In a 1990 interview he said that the Islamic Revolution should be followed by all Moslems in the world. Khamis Muhammed has also been influenced by, and has written about, Wahhabism.

Embassies of some Islamic countries have in different ways tried to support the radicalization of the Moslem forces in Tanzania. Some Moslem heads of state have also supported the Moslem aspirations. Through the embassies, means have been provided for the building or renovation of several mosques, Moslem secondary schools, hospitals and clinics. Favorable loans have been given through these channels to Moslems engaged in commercial activities. But the activities of the embassies has caused divisions among Moslem groupings in the country.

In connection with a visit by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury in 1993, president Mwinyi, adhering to the secular stance towards religious issues of his predecessor Nyerere, complained about some extremely religious individuals abusing freedom of speech to create chaos in the country. Archbishop Carey talked about the fundamentalist threat. Zanzibar's becoming a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was heavily criticized by Christian leaders, who argued that this contravened the secular constitution of Tanzania. The sharp criticism and the risk of a dissolution of the Union resulted in the Zanzibari government decision to leave OIC.

On some occasions, as in connection with the government crisis in Zanzibar in 1988 ( the year when the demonstrations against Sofia Kawawa took place ( Mwinyi and other representatives of the regime have pointed to Moslem groups in Zanzibar and in exile who, despite the great autonomy of the island state, are disputing the Union. One of the controversial groups is the Pemba based Bismillahi who want a referendum on the Union between Zanzibar and Mainland Tanzania. A visitor to Zanzibar soon realizes that Islam is not only a private matter, although the authorities nowadays are less concerned with for example public eating and drinking during Ramadan, which have become more common because of the influx of tourists and Westerners.

For many years organs critical of the regime, among others Warsha and the magazine Mizani, issued propaganda for a multi-party system. When Tanzania in 1992 introduced multi-partyism it was understood that all parties should have a national profile and that religion and ethnicity must not constitute the base for new parties. Especially Moslems were warned not to use the multi-party system for religious purposes. Besides the usually limited political demands, Moslem revival in Tanzania, as in other parts of Africa, has been noticeable in the growing number of mosque goers and that Islamic style clothing has become more popular. In the propaganda activities some Christian influences are descernible. Public Moslem sermons are being held in streets and squares. The practice of inviting foreign "revivalists", spreading tracts and pamphlets, as well as putting stickers on vehicles and distributing cassettes and videos has become more common among Moslems.

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Saba Mahmood interviews Talal Asad (excerpts)

full interview here.
Asad discusses modernity, religion, what agency is, Islamic reform, the difference between dependency theory and postcolonialism, and much much more. This is one of the best 'summations' of the various nature of Asad's intellectual pursuits and it maps out a great 'space' for scholars to follow up on his work in local contexts. Although its from 1996, over ten years ago, it is still a great read.

Talal Asad
modern power and the reconfiguration of religious traditions
Saba Mahmood

Contemporary politico-religious movements, such as Islamism, are often understood by social scientists as expressions of tradition hampering the progress of modernity. But given the recent intellectual challenges posed against dualistic and static conceptions of modernity/tradition, and calls for parochializing Western European experiences of modernity, do you think the religio-political movements (such as Islamism) force us to rethink our conceptions of modernity? If so, how?

Well, I think they should force us to rethink many things. There has been a certain amount of response from people in Western universities who are interested in analyzing these movements. But many of them still make assumptions that prevent them from questioning aspects of Western modernity. For example, they call these movements "reactionary" or "invented," making the assumption that Western modernity is not only the standard by which all contemporary developments must be judged, but also the only authentic trajectory for every tradition. One of the things the existence of such movements ought to bring into question is the old opposition between modernity and tradition, which is still fashionable. For example, many writers describe the movements in Iran and Egypt as only partly modern and suggest that its their mixing of tradition and modernity that accounts for their "pathological" character. This kind of description paints Islamic movements as being somehow inauthentically traditional on the assumption that "real tradition" is unchanging, repetitive, and non-rational. In this way, these movements cannot be understood on their own terms as being at once modern and traditional, both authentic and creative at the same time. The development of politico-religious movements ought to force people to rethink the uniquely Western model of secular modernity. One may want to challenge aspects of these movements, but this ought to be done on specific grounds. It won't do to measure everything by grand conceptions of authentic modernity. But that's precisely the kind of a priori thinking that many people indulge in when analyzing contemporary religious movements.

It has often been argued that the tradition of liberalism is based upon principles of pluralism and tolerance in ways that Islamic tradition is not, and that the concept of plurality remains foreign to Islam. How would you respond to that?

Well, I would say that it is certainly not a modern, liberal invention. The plurality of individual interests is what the liberal tradition has theorized best of all. On the other hand, the attempt to get some kind of representation for ethnic groups and minorities in Western countries has been difficult for liberalism to theorize. Liberalism has theories of tolerance by which spaces can be created for individuals to do what they wish, so long as they don't obstruct the ability of others to do likewise. But these aren't theories of pluralism in the sense we are beginning to understand the term today. Liberalism has theories of multiple "interests," interests which can be equalized, aggregated, and calculated through the electoral process and then negotiated in the process of formulating and applying governmental policies. But that is a very different kind of pluralism from the different ways of life which are (a) the preconditions and not the objects of individual interests, and which are, (b) in the final analysis, incommensurable.

Now the Islamic tradition, like many other non-liberal traditions, is based on the notion of plural social groupings and plural religious traditions--especially (but not only) of the Abrahamic traditions [ahl al-kitab]. And, of course, it has always accommodated a plurality of scriptural interpretations. There is a well- known dictum in the shari`a: ikhtilaf al-umma rahma [difference within the Islamic tradition is a blessing]. This is where the notions of ijtihad and ijm`a come in. As modes of developing and sustaining the Islamic tradition, they authorize the construction of coherent differences, not the imposition of homogeneity.

Of course there are always limits to difference if coherence is to be aimed at. If tolerance is not merely another name for indifference, there comes a point in every tradition beyond which difference cannot be tolerated. That simply means that there are differences which can't be accommodated within the tradition without threatening its very coherence. But there are, of course, many moments and conditions of such intolerance. One must not, therefore, equate intolerance with violence and cruelty.

On the whole, Muslim societies in the past have been much more accommodating of pluralism in the sense I have tried to outline than have European societies. It does not follow that they are therefore necessarily better. And I certainly don't wish to imply that Muslim rulers and populations were never prejudiced, that they never persecuted non-Muslims in their midst. My point is only that "the concept of plurality," as you put it, is not foreign to Islam.

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Somalia's President Calls for Ramadan Ceasefire

President calls for Ramadan ceasefire

Somalia's government has called on warring parties in the conflict-torn horn of Africa nation to stop fighting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a spokesman for the presidency said yesterday.

President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel, said the ceasefire call was motivated by the need for peace during the religiously significant month.

"The president made this call since it is necessary to not stop people going to Islamic centres, worship Allah any time without fear, and we hope the opposition will accept it without condition," Abdulkadir Osman told Reuters by telephone.

Opposition groups said they would discuss the ceasefire call.

The President's U.N. -backed government has been facing a stubborn insurgency from the al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam rebels, dashing hopes of an end to 18 years of instability.

Western intelligence says the fighting and chaos is exploited by al Qaeda linked groups, exposing the entire region.

On Saturday clashes continued, as insurgents attacked a government-controlled Mogadishu checkpoint in the early hours.

"Al Shabaab men have attacked our positions in Ex-Control Afgoye (checkpoint). We repulsed the attackers and killed more than 10 men," Abdifatah Shaweye, deputy mayor of Banadir, told Reuters by telephone

Al Shabaab's information office denied the claim and said they took control of the base and killed nearly 10 soldiers from the government side.

Al Shabaab also said they had agreed to work together with Hizbul Islam fighters in the South Western region of Gedo.

"We had agreed to join all our forces and take orders from one command. The number of Hizbul Islam fighters (who) joined us are in the hundreds," Commander Bare Adan Khooje told Reuters.

About 100 people died last week in different parts of the country as pro-government militias and insurgents engaged in various battles.

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Hizbu'llah and Terrorism: Dispelling the Misconceptions

Sura al-Qasas (28) :5 (English): And we wished to be gracious to those who were being oppressed in the land, to make them leaders and make them heirs.

The above verse constitutes one of the foundational beliefs on which the organization of Hizbu'llah draw. There is an all too common misconception, perpetrated by so-called journalists--who write copy using the worst sort of cliches to lock certain mental images into their readers' minds, that Hizbu'llah is a fundamentalist sectarian and terrorist organization. Two relatively recent books help to dispel this notion by placing Hizbu'llah's accomplishments within the framework of Shi'ite political mobilization, the political opportunities offered by the civil war, and the heteregenous nature of Lebanese society. Each book shows the development of Hizbu'llah from a guerilla movement who at times engaged in what the international community deemed as acts of 'terror' into a full-fledged political party with a stake in Lebanese politics.

The first book, by former U.N. observer Augustus Richard Norton, is a short but authoritative account of Hizbu'llah's development in the context of recent Lebanese history. It has the advantage of including some analysis of the 2006 war with Israel, in which Hizbu'llah emerged from a devastating bombardment organizationally intact.

The second book is an older account by a Lebanese insider, based on interviews, televised speeches, and an excellent review and critique of the secondary literature about the organization. Amal Saad Ghorayeb analyzes Hizbu'llah through the paradigm of 'oppression' and sees Hizbu'llah as a theologically flexible, guerilla movement which stands ideologically on the side of the oppressed. This is a helpful paradigm, because it sees Hizbu'llah as basically responding to opportunities to organize people against oppression, using Islam as an idiom, not as an Islamic movement to 'Islamisize' Lebanon and the world.

Hizbu'llah's mission (if not always its tactics) stand in the best traditions of Islamic liberation theology, and are fundamentally consistent with Biblical teaching about God's special concern for the poor (see Matthew 5:5 for the Biblical precursor to the Islamic idea).

One thing both authors stress is the evolution of the party, from a entity existing outside of the system, to a major player on the Lebanese political scene. Hizbu'llah's challenge will be to remain relevant to its mass base and yet manuever within the convulutions of Lebanese politics without being corrupted by the alliances it forges.

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