Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020. 258 pp. US$29.95, paper, ebook. ISBN 978-0-472-12640-8.
The Many Faces of Political Islam explodes three popular myths: one, that the terrorist face of international Islam that threatens international order is the most dominant narrative of Muslim politics; two, that politics in Muslim-majority states is subservient to Islam—meaning that religion dictates politics rather than the other way round; and three, that among multiple individual identities, a Muslim’s identity is predominantly Islamic, and thus reflected in unequivocal faith in the Quran, hadith (sayings of the Prophet), and sunna (practices followed by the Prophet). However, in actuality, as the book shows, each of these assumptions is so nuanced that if we ground our investigation into Muslim politics relying solely on such grand narratives, we are bound to reach the wrong conclusions. Immediately after the death of the Prophet in 632 CE, Muslim politics, like politics anywhere else, witnessed internecine power struggles for dominance among contending forces. In those pursuits, if non-Muslim support became necessary, so be it. The almost total dependence of the self-styled Islamic state of Saudi Arabia on the world’s most vocal anti-jihadist nation, the United States, provides the best example in contemporary times.
Spread through a logically organized eight-chapter scheme, the book divides the world’s Muslim politics into four typologies: frontline Islamism, nonviolent Islamism, extraterritorial Islamism (operationalized through national resistance groups), and violent international Islamism (the mainstay of which is terrorism mainly targeting non-Muslims, especially whites). Barring the last of these, all the remaining categories have displayed a blend of political strategies ranging from electoral participation, to coalition formation with secular parties, to functioning as pressure groups, to engineering stray acts of violence as a means of making a political point. In short, it is politics, not religion, that is in the driver’s seat. The earliest evidence of this reality was noticed in the reign of the fourth caliph, Ali (r. 656–661 CE). It was the battle of succession at Karbala that led to the division of the Muslim community into Sunnis and Shias. That break continues to influence Muslim politics, with each group vying for dominance, globally and within several Muslim countries.
At the conceptual level, three thinkers who have contributed the most to underline the role of Islam in politics are Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb from Egypt, who created the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abul A’la Mawdudi of India/Pakistan, who created the Jamaat-e-Islami. Interestingly, each had scant regard for the ulama (theologians and scholars of Islam) and concentrated instead upon handling any immediate threats locally. For the Muslim Brotherhood, the threat was first the British and then, after 1948, Israel and its ally in shining armour, the US. For the Jamaat, it was the dual challenge of the progressive Indian Muslim leadership, which was seen as pro-British, and the Hindu community of the Indian subcontinent at large.
Notwithstanding the pluralities evident in Muslim societies everywhere, which the book duly underscores, one thread that runs through the entire discourse is that secularism as an idea has little prospects of success in the Muslim world. Indonesia, Tunisia, and Turkey are three important exceptions, but their experiences merely reinforce the notion of secularism’s fragile status within Islam. Although Muslims, like other communities, adopt multiple identities, for an average non-Muslim observer, his Islamic identity is seemingly most identifiable. He fails to fathom as to why a 1,400-year-old testament alone ought to be the source of all wisdom in a fast changing world full of new challenges. The book indeed has discussed the different schools of jurisprudence in Islam and the phenomenon of constant questioning of Koranic interpretations that must remain within the rubric of the Quran, hadith, and sunna, but it has not addressed this non-Muslim suspicion about a Muslim’s religion-centricity.
While the book addresses almost all the possible categories of Muslim politics—starting from eastern Africa (Nigeria) and spanning across northern Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia), the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Jordon, Palestine, and Syria), South Asia (Pakistan), and South East Asia (Indonesia)—one is left intrigued by one conspicuous omission. The politics of Bangladesh, which has a population of about 200 million, 90 percent of whom are Sunni Muslims, and who play a significant role in the nation’s hide and seek with secularism, does not figure at all. To my reckoning, Bangladesh should form its own category. While it is true, as the book shows, that in Muslim countries the politics of opposition must operate within the framework of Islam, Bangladesh is a distinct exception in that its secular and Islamist forces are equally powerful. In the context of identity formation, in Bengali-speaking Bangladesh, it is language that is arguably the most dominant ethno-nationalistic marker, not Islam. The celebration of Ekushe, Martyr’s Day (February 21, commemorating the anti-Urdu [Pakistan’s national language] revolt of 1952 in which many lost their lives) is a national festival which outshines every other national festival, religious or secular, in terms of popular enthusiasm and participation.
There are two other minor omissions: one, Islam-centric politics in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (now bifurcated into two Union Territories); and two, Chechnya in Russia. Any reviewer would probably have overlooked these omissions had the authors themselves not mentioned them at the outset of chapter 6, “Islamist National Resistance.” Readers have reasons to be tempted to see these case studies discussed as well.
On the whole, the book is a useful single-volume read, which meticulously avoids jargon and hairsplitting theorization while also not being theory-neutral. It does an excellent job of taking us beyond the superficial lenses of newspaper columns, social media debates, and TV commentaries. Anyone interested in the texture of Muslim politics in the contemporary world will find much of value here.
Partha S. Ghosh
Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi