History of Islamism


Islamism a religio-political ideology that seeks to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory,
purify it of foreign elements, reassert its role into "social and political as well as personal life"
where "government and society are ordered in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam".
It is thought to have started to form towards the end of the 19th Century with Sayyid Rashid Rida, developed as an idea "more or less in 1940", under Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abul A'la Maududi, and Ruhollah Khomeini; surprising the world with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, and going on to "arguably" alter "the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders".
As of 2020, at least some observers have detected a decline in the vigor and popularity of the ideology, as well a backlash against Islamist rule in some countries.

Precursor events

Debate on revival of Caliphate

The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire, which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne, the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly exercised by the Government in Angora over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, Mehmed VI, departed the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. In March 1924, the Caliphate was abolished, marking the end of Ottoman influence. This shocked the Sunni clerical world, and some felt the need to present Islam not as a traditional religion but as an innovative socio-political ideology of a modern nation-state. The success of the October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin in 1917 was a source of inspiration. Though militantly atheist, Bolsheviks were the enemy of their enemy, branded themselves as the movement of the future that overturned the economic, political system of European colonialism. In British India, the Khilafat movement following World War I was led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abul Kalam Azad as an expression of this desperation. The reaction to new realities of the modern world gave birth to Islamist ideologues like Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi and organizations such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam in India. Rashid Rida was a prominent Salafi theologian of Egypt who called for the revival of Hadith studies in Sunni seminaries and a pioneering theoretician of Islamism in the modern age. During 1922–1923, Rida would publish a series of articles in Al-Manar titled “The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate”. In this highly influential treatise, Rida advocates for the restoration of Caliphate ruled by muslim jurists and proposes gradualist measures of education, reformation and purification through the efforts of Salafiyya reform movements across the globe. Ayatullah Khomeini's book government of the jurist is greatly influenced by this book, so is his call to the pure Islam and his analysis of the post-colonial Muslim world. Sayyid Rashid Rida, a student of Muhammad Abduh, had visited India in 1912 and was impressed by the Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama seminaries. These seminaries carried the legacy of Syed Ahmad Barelvi and his pre-modern Islamic emirate. Maududi was an Islamist ideologue and Hanafi Sunni scholar active in Hyderabad Deccan and later in Pakistan. Maududi was born to a clerical family and got his early education at home. At the age of eleven, he was admitted to a public school in Aurangabad. In 1919, he joined the Khilafat Movement and got closer to the scholars of Deoband. He commenced the dars-i nizami education under supervision of Deobandi seminary at the Fatihpuri mosque in Delhi. In 1925, he wrote a book on Jihad, al-Jihad fil-Islam, that can be regarded as his first contribution to islamism. He was a prolific writer and wrote many books. His writings had a profound impact on Sayyid Qutb.

Predecessor figures and movements

Some Islamic revivalist movements and leaders pre-dating Islamism include:
  • Ahmad Sirhindi was part of a reassertion of orthodoxy within Islamic Mysticism and was known to his followers as the ' Mujaddid of the second millennium'. It has been said of Sirhindi that he 'gave to Indian Islam the rigid and conservative stamp it bears today.'
  • Ibn Taymiyyah, a Syrian Islamic jurist during the 13th and 14th centuries who is often quoted by contemporary Islamists. Ibn Taymiyya argued against the shirking of Sharia law, was against practices such as the celebration of Muhammad's birthday, and "he believed that those who ask assistance from the grave of the Prophet or saints, are mushrikin, someone who is engaged in shirk."
  • Shah Waliullah of India and Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab of Arabia were contemporaries who met each other while studying in Mecca. Shah Waliullah was a forerunner of reformist Islamists like Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Asad in his belief that there was "a constant need for new ijtihad as the Muslim community progressed and expanded and new generations had to cope with new problems" and his interest in the social and economic problems of the poor.
  • Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab advocated doing away with the later accretions like grave worship and getting back to the letter and the spirit of Islam as preached and practiced by Muhammad. He went on to found Wahhabism.
Revivalists who fought early in the colonial era included
Though Islamists draw on work of early/medieval Islamic scholars, the roots of Islamist movements are found in the late 19th century when "the Islamic world grappled simultaneously with increased engagement with modernity and the ideas of Enlightenment, on the one hand, and with its own decline in the face of Western colonialism, on the other". Print technology and mass literacy expanded, facilitating the spread of new ideas as well as greater access to Islamic materials—particularly the Qurʾān. This "undermined the authority of trained religious scholars",, as interpretative gatekeepers, as lay believers used printed Quran's to engage "in their own individual interpretations of the scripture ", leading to "increased scriptural literalism".
At the same time "modernist thinkers attempted to reconcile decay in the Islamic world with the success of the West".
A particularly harsh demonstration of Islamic decline was the dismemberment of most of the Muslim Ottoman Empire by non-Muslim European colonial powers towards the end of the 19th century saw. The empire had spent massive sums on Western civilian and military technology to try to modernize and compete with the encroaching European powers, and in the process went deep into debt to these powers.
In this context, the publications of Jamal ad-din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida preached Islamic alternatives to the political, economic, and cultural decline of the empire. Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida formed the beginning of the Islamist movement, as well as the reformist Islamist movement.
Their ideas included the creation of a truly Islamic society under sharia law, and the rejection of taqlid, the blind imitation of earlier authorities, which they believed deviated from the true messages of Islam. Unlike some later Islamists, Early Salafiyya strongly emphasized the restoration of the Caliphate.

Sayyid Rashid Rida

Syrian-Egyptian Islamic scholar Muhammad Rashid Rida first articulated
the modern concept of an Islamic state that played a significant role in forming the revolutionary ideology of the early years of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as influencing other Sunni Islamist movements.
In his influential book al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-'Uzma ; Rida explained that societies that properly obeyed Sharia would be successful alternatives to the disorder and injustice of both capitalism and socialism.
In Rida's Caliphate, the Khalifa would be the supreme head who would supervise the application of Islamic laws in a partnership with the Mujtahid ulema. They would engage in Ijtihad by evaluating the Scriptures and govern through shura. With the Khilafa providing true Islamic governance, Islamic civilization would be revitalised, the political and legal independence of the Muslim umma would be restored, and the heretical influences of Sufism would be cleanse from Islam.
This doctrine would become the blueprint of future Islamist movements.

Muhammad Iqbal

was a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Islamic Nationalism and Pakistan Movement in British India. Iqbal is admired as a prominent classical poet by Pakistani, Iranian, Indian and other international scholars of literature. Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed "Islamic philosophical thinker of modern times".
While studying law and philosophy in England and Germany, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All India Muslim League. He came back to Lahore in 1908. While dividing his time between law practice and philosophical poetry, Iqbal had remained active in the Muslim League. He did not support Indian involvement in World War I and remained in close touch with Muslim political leaders such as Muhammad Ali Johar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a critic of the mainstream Indian nationalist and secularist Indian National Congress. Iqbal's seven English lectures were published by Oxford University Press in 1934 in a book titled The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. These lectures dwell on the role of Islam as a religion as well as a political and legal philosophy in the modern age.
Iqbal expressed fears that not only would secularism and secular nationalism weaken the spiritual foundations of Islam and Muslim society, but that India's Hindu-majority population would crowd out Muslim heritage, culture and political influence. In his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, Palestine and Syria, he promoted ideas of greater Islamic political co-operation and unity, calling for the shedding of nationalist differences. Sir Mummad Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in Allahabad as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932. In his Allahabad Address on 29 December 1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India. This address later inspired the Pakistan movement.
The thoughts and vision of Iqbal later influenced many reformist Islamists, e.g., Muhammad Asad, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and Ali Shariati.