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Last year, I contributed to a report published by Hizb ut Tahrir Britain entitled ‘Radicalisation, extremism and “Islamism”: realities and myths in the war on terror’. In it, I argued, amongst other things, that attempts to excise politics from Islam were not only being conducted in vain, but that they were up against a mountain of historical, textual and scholarly evidence that prove otherwise. More precisely, the notion that Islamic politics ( which some choose to brand ‘Islamism’ ) is a recent phenomena born out of a reaction to colonialism, stands at total odds with Islamic orthodoxy and collective Muslim history.
In the period running-up to the publication of the report, but also long before, there have been concerted attempts to re-forge this distinction, to create a palatable Islam and an unwelcome political Islam. Never has such attempts been more intense than now, as Muslims organisations, books and personalities are mobilised to further this cause. The British government’s ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ campaign is a case in point, allocating considerable resources and funds in the hope that it may at last sway Muslims to re-read Islam in the light of contemporary western values.
These attempts are not new, but importantly aim to achieve something that over a century and a half’s worth of attempts have failed to do - attempts to re-engineer Islam were first conducted as early as the early 19th century. The pioneers of ‘liberal’ Islam, amongst them Jamal ud Deen Afghani, Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, Mohammed Abduh, Rashid Ridda and others, are virtually unknown outside of academic circles.
Western inspired attempts to date have all confronted a similar dichotomy. How should rising support for Islam in the Muslim world, historically challenging western economic and political interests and with the potential to do so again, be addressed at an intellectual level? Should it be through an overt challenge that declares the superiority of the west or one that seeks to demonstrate there is a broad agreement between the west and Islam, provided appropriate reforms are made?
Both options are premised however on the same assumption, that the west has progressed further than Islam and that its beliefs are the standard through which others are judged; and specifically that linking Islam with politics is pre-modern and problematic.
It is worth reviewing the thinking that governs each option. If the west were to choose the first, it would be an honest and clear statement of where the west stands, but also polarising and likely to mobilise Muslims of all persuasions under a single banner against a ‘threatening’ west. It is not difficult therefore to understand why most policymakers and governments, even the most tyrannical, have erred away from this option and shunned any talk of a ‘clash of civilisations’, although frustrated voices are consistently heard amongst liberal ideologues who argue other approaches have either appeased or not brought results.
The second option therefore appears superficially preferable and the one behind which the greatest resource has been allocated by threatened governments. It suffers from a fundamental problem however - it ultimately requires some reference to Islam and specifically its texts, in order to re-read, reform or reinterpret them.
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