Abstract
Islam is a world religion, and it also forms the basis of a world civilisation which was once very powerful. Due to its spread across the world Islamic civilisation is composed of a great variety of diverse local cultures. The combination of civilisational unity and cultural diversity is thus a hallmark of Islam. It is unfortunate that in our age Islam is mostly addressed in political terms. The risk involved is to confuse Islam with political Islam. In the name of religious tolerance some scholars, like Voll and Esposito, justify Islamism, while others perceive Islam as a ‘threat’. In this book, I argue that Islam is a cultural system, however it is prone to politicisation. This is happening at the present time and the result of this process is the ideology of Islamism. In my view the politicisation of Islam takes place to the detriment of this religion and of its people. It is not Islam, but its politicisation that results in creating ‘faultlines’ between the people of Islam and those of other civilisations.
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Notes
These are the terms used by Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols, Chicago, 1974.
Sir Thomas Arnold, The Caliphate, 2nd edition, London, 1965 (originally published in 1924); the Muslim reformer
M.S. al-Ashmawi, al-Khilafa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Caliphate), Cairo, 1990, argues that ‘the caliphate’ does not belong to the tenets of Islam.
This is the argument presented by Ali Abdelraziq, al-Islam wa usul al-hukm (Islam and Patterns of Government), new printing, Beirut, 1966 (first published in Cairo, 1925). This position has been revived at the present time by al-Ashmawi (see note 3).
On political Islam, see Gilles Kepel, La revanche de Dieu: Chrétiens, Juifs et Musulmans à la reconquête du monde, Paris, 1991;
Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam, London, 1991; and
B. Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Berkeley, 1998, updated edition 2002. See also al-Ashmawi, referenced in note 1 above.
B. Tibi, The Crisis of Modern Islam: a Preindustrial Culture in the Scientific-Technological Age, trans. Judith von Sivers, with a foreword by Peter von Sivers, Salt Lake City, 1988. Reviewed by
Fred Halliday in The Times Literary Supplement, no. 489, 14–20 April 1989, pp. 387–8. The original German publication of The Crisis of Modern Islam was reviewed by
Barbara Stowasser in The Middle East Journal, vol. 37, 2 (1983), pp. 284–5. A substantially revised and much enhanced new German edition was published subsequently twice during the Gulf War in 1991.
B. Tibi, ‘The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East’, in Philip Khoury/Joseph Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley, 1990, pp. 127–52; partly reprinted in Anthony D. Smith (ed.), Ethnicity, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 174–9.
Hedley Bull, ‘The Revolt against the West’, in Hedley Bull/Adam Watson (eds), The Expansion of International Society, Oxford, 1984, pp. 217–28.
Muhammed Imara, al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya wa al-tahaddi al-hadari (The Islamic Awakening and the Civilisational Challenge), Cairo, 1991.
Hassan al-Banna’s ‘Risalat al-jihad’ is included in his Majmu’at rasa’il al-imam al-shahid Hassan al-Banna (Collected Essays of the Martyr Imam Hassan al-Banna), Cairo, 1990, pp. 271–91. On this movement see also Richard Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers, London, 1969.
Muhammed Abduh, al-Islam wa al-nasraniyya bain al-ilm wa al-madaniyya (Islam and Christianity between Science and Civilisation), new printing, Beirut, 1983.
More on this in B. Tibi, Der wahre Imam. Der Islam von Mohammed bis zur Gegenwart, Munich, 1996, 2nd edition, Munich, 1997, Part 2. On science and Islamic rationalism, see
Franz Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam, London, 1975 (reprinted 1994).
B. Tibi, Arab Nationalism: between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd enlarged edition, London and New York, 1997.
B. Tibi, ‘Culture and Knowledge: the Islamisation of Knowledge as a Postmodern Project?’, in Theory, Culture & Society vol. 12, 1 (1995), pp. 1–24. On this debate, see also
Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Rationalism, Princeton, NJ, 1999, pp. 163–7.
See The International Institute of Islamic Thought (ed.), Toward Islamization of Disciplines, Herndon, VA, 1989. In fact this is an expression of anti-science. See
Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science, Cambridge, MA, 1993. I view de-secularisation of knowledge as an ‘anti-science!’ See
B. Tibi, ’Secularization and De-Secularization in Modern Islam’, in Religion, Staat, Gesellschaft, vol. 1, 1 (Spring 2000), pp. 95–117.
Erasmus Foundation (ed.), The Limits of Pluralism: Neo-Absolutisms and Relativism, Amsterdam, 1994 (with contributions by E. Gellner, C. Geertz and B. Tibi).
Herbert Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroës on Intellect, New York, 1992 (see also note 14 above).
More references in B. Tibi, ‘The Worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists: Attitudes toward Modern Science and Technology’, in Martin Marty/Scott Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms and Society, Chicago, 1993, pp. 73–102.
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modennity, Stanford, CA, 1990.
See with great caution John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, New York, 1992; more insightful
Fred Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, London, 1996.
Martin Albrow, The Global Age, Stanford, CA, 1997; also
Barrie Axford, The Global System: Economics, Politics and Culture, New York, 1995.
Anwar al-Jundi, Ahdaf al-taghrib fi al-alam al-Islami (The Targets of Westernisation of the Islamic World), Cairo, 1987.
See the contributions in Martin Marty and Scott Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Politics, Economy and Militance, Chicago, 1993.
William M. Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Edinburgh, 1962.
Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics, New Haven, 1985.
See chapter 5 on the Renaissance in B. Tibi, Kreuzzug und Djihad. Der Islam und die christliche Welt, Munich, 1999; see also notes 14, 19 and 28 above; and
Toby Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science — Islam, China and the West, Cambridge, 1995.
Jemaladdin Afghani, al-A’mal al-kamila (Collected Writings), Muhammed Imara (ed.), Cairo, 1968.
See also George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh, 1981.
I believe that Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs McWorld, New York, 1996, is utterly wrong. See my views on globalisation expressed in my book on fundamentalism (referenced in note 5 above).
Shakib Arslan, Limadha ta’akhara al-Muslimun wa taqaddama ghairuhum (Why Are Muslims Backward While Others Have Developed?), new printing, Beirut, 1965.
B. Tibi, ‘Islam and Secularization’, in Mourad Wahba (ed.), Islam and Civilization Proceedings of the First International Islamic Philosophy Conference (November 19–22, 1979), Cairo, 1982, pp. 65–79. See also note 17 above.
Ellen K. Trimberger, Revolution from Above in Japan, Turkey, Egypt and Peru, New Brunswick, NJ, 1978; see also
Andrew Davidson, Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey, New Haven, 1998.
B. Tibi, ‘The Attitudes of Middle Eastern Elites and Counter-Elites towards Political Order: the Islamic-Fundamentalist Challenge to the Secular Domestic and International Order’, in Samuel Huntington (ed.), Conflict or Convergence: Global Perspectives on War, Peace and International Order, mimeographed (research project of the Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies), Cambridge, MA, 1997. Published version:
B. Tibi, ‘The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Secular Order in the Middle East’, in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, vol. 23, 1 (Winter/Spring 1999), pp. 191–210.
B. Tibi, ‘The Failed Export of the “Islamic Revolution” into the Arab World’, in Frédéric Grare (ed.), Islamism and Security: Political Islam and the Western World, published by Programme for Strategic and International Security Studies of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1999, pp. 63–102.
See Mehrzad Baroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West, Syracuse, 1996.
Yahya H.H. Farghal, Haqiqat al-ilmaniyya (The Truth about Secularism), Cairo, 1989.
W.M. Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, London, 1988; see also
Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity, Chicago, 1982, chapter 4; and my book referenced in note 5.
See the major books by Muhammed Salim al-Awwa, Fi al-nizam al-siyasi li al-dawla al-Islamiyya (On the Political System of the Islamic State), 6th edition, Cairo, 1983;
Mustafa Abu-Zaid-Fahmi, Fan al-hukm fi al-Islam (The Art of Governing in Islam), Cairo, 1981.
See note 51 below and B. Tibi, Die arabische Linke, Frankfurt/M., 1969. Favourably reviewed by
Hisham Sharabi in the Middle East Journal, vol. 24, 3 (1970), pp. 391–2.
B. Tibi, Nationalismus in der Dritten Welt am arabischen Beispiel, Frankfurt/M., 1971.
B. Tibi, Arab Nationalism: a Critical Enquiry, trans. Marion and Peter Sluglett, New York, 1981. Reviewed by
Michael Hudson in International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 17, 3 (1985), pp. 292–4; and by
George Atiyeh in American Political Science Review, vol. 76 (1982), pp. 183–4. A 2nd edition followed in 1990. The 3rd substantially enlarged and revised edition with the new subtitle Between Islam and the Nation-State was published in 1997 (referenced in note 15).
Najib Armanazi, al-Schar’ al-duwali fi al-Islam (International Law in Islam), new printing, London, 1990 (first published in Damascus, 1930).
See the more elaborated outline in B. Tibi, ‘Islam and Modern European Ideologies’, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 18, 1 (1986), pp. 15–29.
B. Tibi, Militär und Sozialismus in der Dritten Welt, Frankfurt/M., 1973. Reviewed by
Peter von Sivers in Muslim World, vol. 67, 3 (1977), pp. 236–7.
For more details, see Morroe Berger, Islam in Egypt Today, Cambridge, 1970.
B. Tibi, Die Krise des modernen Islams, Munich, 1981 (new enlarged German edition 1991). US edition The Crisis of Modern Islam (referenced in note 6).
J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, New York, 1993.
Hedley Bull draws a clear distinction between the international system of states (structure) and international society (a normative consensus about rules). See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: a Study of Order in World Politics, New York, 1977, chapter 1.
See Theodore von Laue, The World Revolution of Westernization, New York, 1987.
Sherry B. Ortner (ed.), The Fate of Culture: Geertz and Beyond, Berkeley, 1999.
See the extensive chapter on German Orientalism in B. Tibi, Einladung in die islamische Geschichte, Darmstadt, 2001.
For a further discussion of this thesis see B. Tibi, ‘The Interplay between Social and Cultural Change: the Case of Germany and the Middle East’, in G. Atiyeh and I. Oweiss (eds), Arab Civilization: Challenge and Responses, Albany, 1988, pp. 166–82.
Former President Roman Herzog wanted to avert the clash of civilisations and to choose a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim commentator of his views. See B. Tibi, ‘International Morality and Cross-Cultural Bridging’, in Roman Herzog, Preventing the Clash of Civlizations: a Peace Strategy for the Twenty-First Century, New York, 1999, pp. 107–26.
See the review of my book on fundamentalism (reference 5 above) by the Muslim Cambridge scholar Akbar S. Ahmed, in International Affairs, vol. 75, 3 (1999), p. 694. In 1995 Ahmed became Pakistan Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
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Tibi, B. (2005). Introduction: Islam between Culture and Politics — the Scope and Implications. In: Islam between Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157_1
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