19. Through the Looking Glass

8/12/2019 19. Through the Looking Glass

1/19

Jihad in a postmodern eraInventing a traditional way to get back to the real Islam


2/19

Main Points Rereading Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) on the

current state of Islam

looking at Abd al-Salam Faraj (d. 1982)

and Bin Ladens rationales for jihad

an original Islam: considering Waldmansargument for tradition being a modality of

change


3/19

Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966)


4/19

The historical context Hasan al-Banna founded the brotherhood in 1928,

assassinated in 1949; Qutb joins the Brotherhood in 1951,

same year that Hasan al-Hudaybi is appointed to head the

Brotherhood

Free officers revolt in 1952, Nasser becomes president in

1956 and rules until 1970

1954, attempted assassination of Nasser; Brotherhood

outlawed, Qutb jailed

1965, Qutb released, publishes Milestones; 2nd crackdown on

Brotherhood after alleged plot of government, Qutb

imprisoned and then hanged in 1966; 1969 Hudaybi publishes

refutation of Qutbs ideas


5/19

Qutb on the absence of

true Islam:That Islamic society today is not Islamic in any

sense of the word. We have already quoted a

verse from the Quran that cannot in any way behonestly applied today: Whoever does not judge

by what Allah has revealed is an unbeliever.

(5:48) . . . So long as Muslim society adhered to

Islam it manifested no weakness and notendency to abdicate its control of life. It was

when it fell away from Islam that these things

took place. (262)


6/19

Reasons for the decline:

isolating real Islam those tribal Umayyads (except for

Umar II)

the Abbasids and those foreign

converts

the awful Mongols; the disasters of theCrusades and the end of al-Andalus

Worst of all: European colonialism;

international Zionism


7/19

The future solution: Islam both European materialism/capitalism and

communism destined to fail

Christianity a wholly ascetic inward-lookingreligion

Islam the only holistic way of life that is

rooted in spirituality, not materialism

True Islam must be put into practice in the

Muslim world first, as an example for the rest

of the world


8/19

Jihad in the 20th and 21st

centuryThe Quran definesjihadas exerting oneself inthe path of God (jihd f sabl Allh) . . . The lasttwo decades of the twentieth century saw anincrease in radical Muslim responses tooppression and aggression by Muslim and non-Muslim forces . . .these . . . have providedoccasions when radical Muslim (or Islamist)

groups have formed and called for jihad in tones,and often in terms, that have articulated rationalesfor greater violence against enemies than thelanguage of the classical sources and modern

juristic definitions would seem to sanction.

(Martin, Discourses, 156)


9/19

The Absent Duty: jihad against

internal enemies Abd al-Salam Faraj (d. 1982), one-time

member of the Muslim Brotherhood argues for

the central importance ofjihadto Muslimidentity: fard ayn, not fard kifaya

current leaders of the Muslim world apostates,

similar to the Mongols of the 13th century:

outwardly believers, inwardly not

the necessary jihad is the one which involves

fighting, not just calling to God


10/19

Reacting to Desert Storm and

Bosnia

Battle of fatwas on whether attacking Muslims with

non-Muslim support is licit; Tantawi vs Bin Laden

Bin Laden: jihad an individual duty, all tactics

permissible as long as the aggression of the non-

Muslims continues

Not just Palestine, but also Bosnia (think ofSrebrenica) and Chechnya examples of the ethical

failure of Western modernity


11/19

Situating the post-modern Jihad

Nonetheless, there is an aspect to the writings of Abdal-Salam Faraj, Osama bin Laden, and other moreradical theorists of jihad that must not be lost sight of.

The deeply classical manner of these fatwas andwritings, despite their radical tone and departure fromthe quietism of traditional Sunni theories of jihad,reminds us that scholars must read and interpret thesetexts as part of a very traditional theological genre . . .

What seems to be relentlessly modern or postmodernabout this literature is that is has become globalized inprint and on the internet, attracting attention andcommentary by non-jurist Muslims and non-Muslimsacross the world. (Martin, Discourses, 168)


12/19

So what happened to traditional

Islam? questioning the tradition of tradition: if youre

traditional would you know it?

Although the tradition of talking about traditionhas grown, it has not yet adequatelyappreciated a dimension of tradition that it hasimplicitly recognized: tradition as processas a

modality of change, as a way, but not the way,in which any society can cope with universalproblems of human existence, such aslegitimacy, authority, and change itself.

(Waldman, Tradition, 326)


13/19

Tradition as a Modality of Change

Marilyn R. Waldman, 1986

Shariadress (Egypt)


14/19



Balto (Sanaa, Yemen)


15/19



Abayya (Saudi Arabia)


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Burqa (Sohar, Oman)


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Chador (Iran)


18/19

Thinking about Shari dress, balto,

abaa, burqa and chador . . .Although it would be easy for an outsider to lump allof these phenomena together as examples ofreversion or fundamentalism, none is truly

fundamental and each differs in important ways fromthe others. The appearance of a new form of properIslamic dress for women in Egypt, Shari dress, isimplicitly a rejection of the traditional clothingEgyptian women used to wear earlier in this century

(as well as before) to symbolize their piety andmodesty. Its nontraditional and non-Western formexpresses the Egyptian womans ability to be true toan important inherited religious value and also to thedemands and opportunities of modernity. (Waldman,

Tradition, 335).


19/19

Coming back to Jihad through Waldman, we can see the Salafi(ancestral)

movement as utterly modern

again, a religious tradition cannot be reified, falls

apart into a succession of practices which demand

contextualization, which are contingent upon social

and political events

what then are the relevant contexts with regard to

Bin Laden, Abd al-Salam Faraj and other activist

Muslims who stress the individual duty of jihad?

19. Through the Looking Glass

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