From Cultural Religion to Political Islam and the Revival of Sufi Traditions

Abstract

In the previous chapter I suggested that some young Pakistanis interested in politics, but who were deterred from mainstream politics by biraderi-politicking, turned to community activism as a way of channelling their ambitions for political and civic engagement. In this chapter I look at a small minority of Pakistanis who shun both mainstream electoral and new community organisations and become involved in political Islam. The working definition of ‘political Islam’ in this chapter refers not to a set of values and beliefs, but to a political ideology through which to change society. Olivier Roy defines political Islam as ‘contemporary Islamist movements — the activist groups who see in Islam as much a political ideology as a religion’ (1994: ix) and Islamism as ‘the contemporary movement that conceives of Islam as a political ideology’ (1994: ix). Political Islam is rooted in two movements: the call to fundamentalism, centred on the sha’ria (going back to scriptures of Islam), and anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, which have simply become anti-Westernism (Roy, 1994: 4). If Muslims are viewed as the new threat to British security (Kundnani, 2002; Fekete, 2004), then it is a particular group of Muslims — Salafis — that have been identified as the most dangerous (Lambert, 2008; Pantazis and Pemberton, 2009). Amongst my respondents, the terms Salafis and Wahabis were used interchangeably across generations to refer to ‘extremists’.KeywordsYoung PeopleSaudi ArabiaReligious LeaderPolitical IdeologyReligious IdentityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.