Editorial

Abstract

As this issue goes to press, the Muslim world is reeling from a number ofevents: President Bush has reversed decades of American foreign policy tocome out in favor of Israel’s annexation of huge swaths of the West Bank;Israel continues to murder top Hamas leaders in Palestine; in Afghanistan,Karzai is having trouble administering a country that is slipping back to thepre-Taliban war-lord era, and violence continues to escalate in an increasinglydestabilized Iraq. Bush’s insistence that the so-called “war on terror”is for the sake of freedom rings increasingly hollow, and the United States,under his administration, appears to be a major catalyst for instability ratherthan stability in the world. When I think of Bush and his team, I cannot helpbut recall the Qur’anic verse that says: “When it is said to them: ‘Make notmischief on the earth,’ they say: ‘We are only ones that put things right.’ Ofa surety, they are the ones who make mischief, but they realize (it) not”(2:11-12).The Bush administration’s responses to the tragic carnage of 9/11 hasunleashed mayhem in the Muslim world that is reminiscent not of thetwentieth century, but of the nineteenth, in which the European powersattempted to colonize the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Thus, Salem’sarticle, in a finely nuanced analysis of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s andRashid Rida’s responses to European colonialism, has reverberations intoday’s climate. Salem’s main argument is that al-Afghani and Ridaadvanced similar political programs on three different levels: fightingcolonialism, establishing modern Islamic states, and calling for itjihad inthe interpretation and implementation of Islamic law. It is hard not to seethe Muslim world’s present condition reflected in their struggles nearly acentury ago, and thus to feel a special relevance in studying the lives andworks of these two influential nineteenth-century figures. What were theissues they reflected upon? What were their conclusions, observations, andsuggestions? What worked and did not work for them? Salem’s article isvery instructive in this regard.One of the thorniest issues alal-Afghani and Rida attempted to addresswas the relationship and compatibility between a modern nation-state andan Islamic state. To what extent were these complementary or ...