Political Islam Research Articles

Sheik Muhammad Abdul kharim Al-Maghili and His Role in Strengthening Islamic Political Thought in Northern Nigeria

The political thought and judicial system before the advent of Islam in Northern Nigeria was based on its traditions and inherited customs. After the emergence of Islam in the land, Kings adopted the system of Islamic Sharia’. Nevertheless, research in Islamic political thought was not as developed as it was in the jurisprudence of worship and marriage. Perhaps, there are terrible things happening in the Islamic Emirates in this period. Based on this, the aim of this research is to explain the role of Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Karim al-Maghili in reforming the situation that the nation was in, and in promoting Islamic Political Thought in northern Nigeria. Finally, the researchers concluded that Islamic Political Thought in northern Nigeria was invigorated by the vision of Imam al-Maghili, and his participation in activating political affairs, as they also proved that this thought was mature enough to solve all the problems of the nation, because it is founded on a divine approach and divine laws that covered the interests of people in matters of religion and everyday life.

Malaysia in 2022

Malaysia held a general election in 2022 that was expected to resolve ongoing political instability. Instead, it produced a hung parliament, reflecting a deeply divided electorate and growing support for Islamist politics. Following a royal intervention, Anwar Ibrahim’s progressive coalition formed a unity government with the long-dominant UMNO and East Malaysian parties; this unprecedented arrangement faces evolving social, political, and economic challenges that will test its stability and the very nature of Malaysian politics.

Evolution and deinstitutionalization of political Islam in Tajikistan

Evolution and deinstitutionalization of political Islam in Tajikistan

Islam and the Foundation of the State in Indonesia: The Role of the Masyumi Party in the Constituent Assembly the Perspective of Fiqh al-Siyāsah

At the commencement of Indonesian independence, the Masyumi Party was the sole prominent Islamic party. It attempted to include Islam as the foundation of the Indonesian state into its constitution. This study aims to investigate the effort of the Masyumi during their active participation and administration of the government throughout the Old Order period in the context of fiqh al-siyāsah. This research is a qualitative legal study employing the approach of fiqh al-siyāsah or Islamic politics. Meanwhile, data collection techniques were carried out through literature studies and in-depth interviews. The results of this study indicate that Masyumi's efforts in the Constituent Assembly, whose task is to draft the Indonesian State Constitution, were carried out very seriously and earnestly, causing the work of the Constituent Assembly members to drag on because there was no point of convergence between the Masyumi Islamic Party and the national parties. As a result of the absence of a meeting point, President Soekarno, with the support of the Indonesian Army, issued a decree on July 5, 1959, dissolving the Constituent Assembly and reverting to the 1945 Constitution. It turned out that the failure of Masyumi's hard work to make Islam the basis of the state was due to internal factors: communist, nationalist, and secularist ideology. In addition, it was also influenced by several external factors: the infiltration of the global superpowers and Islamophobia. Despite the fact that Masyumi was deemed a failure, various contributions in the context of fiqh al-siysah in Indonesia, particularly resistance to communism, contributed color to an Islamic state administration system as well as adherence to the constitution and theistic democracy.

IMAGES OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN THE DUNE NOVELS: IMAGINATION AND INVENTION OF JIHAD AS A POLITICAL PROTEST

Background. The author analyzes the texts of the Dune cycle in contexts of contemporary historiography, which proposed universal methods that allow analyzing “oriental” images in literature through the prism of constructing and deconstructing the narratives that form the image of Islam.
 Purpose. The purpose of the article is an “orientalist” reinterpretation of Islamic images in the novels belonging to the Dune cycle, including the texts of the original cycle and prequels presented by Dune, Dune Messiah, Dune. Butlerian Jihad and Dune. Paul.
 Materials and methods. The author uses the methodological tools offered in intellectual history and studies of nationalism, including the concept of the invention of traditions, which allows us to analyze the images of Islam in science fiction as one of the invented traditions of American mass literature using the texts of the Dune cycle as sources corpus. Orientalism as a method is used to analyze Muslim motifs in the prose of F. Herbert, B. Herbert and K. Anderson, which, as the author believes, were inspired by political, ideological and religious stimuli. The author believes that the orientalist approach is an effective interpretative model for an interdisciplinary analysis of American science fiction as a space for the development of Islamic images.
 Results. It is shown that the novels through the prism of images of Islam actualize and promote a unique ideological discourse and political message. The features and forms of political protest under religious Muslim slogans are analyzed. It is studied how the mobilization potential of political Islam is perceived as a form of legitimization of social and economic protest. An expanded understanding of jihad as both a religious war and a social class conflict is analyzed. It is shown that 1) the actualization of Muslim images in American science fiction was the result of the political activation of the East, 2) the authors of the texts actualized the anti-authoritarian and emancipatory potential of Islam.

WORKS OF AMALUDDIN DARUS: AN ANNOTATION OF SELECTEDPRIMARY SOURCES 1970-1979

Basically, this article focuses its attention on the subject of the written works of Amaluddin Darus. His produced works are intellectual literatures produced by a Malay-Muslim scholar figure on a variety of topics and discussions on Islamic rulings on politics, economy, social affairs, science and End-Times events. Works of Amaluddin Darus have been playing an important role in the Malay society in the early development of critical Islamic politics and leadership literatures in Malaysia which are used as a tool of communication and learning and a medium of knowledge development. However, this article analyzed literary writings which were composed circa 1970 to 1979 only to evaluate their characteristics against those produced in 1980 to 1989. Its discussion shall include a brief deliberation on selected primary sources of the written works. The analytical method used in this study is qualitative through textual reference and primary sources as well a method of historical analysis on the progression of an idea. Obtained facts were filtered briefly by using an approach of induction of the Malay World history. Studies showed that the works of Amaluddin Darus have a distinctive identity and superiority and are regarded among intellectual works of Malay figures.

Military might: a domestic economy explanation of Turkish foreign policy

ABSTRACT Turkish foreign policy has taken a military turn in recent years. Turkey is now a major arms exporter, it hosts military bases in its neighborhood and beyond, and has engaged in conflicts in Syria and Libya. Scholars have highlighted identity and international system theories to explain the military assertiveness in Turkish foreign policy. This study proposes a domestic economy explanation. It argues that national wealth, a take-off in defence industry, and an alliance of conservative bourgeoisie and political Islamists are the primary drivers of the military turn in foreign policy. Analysis of Turkish economic development and historical trajectories of economic and bureaucratic wings of the defence industry shows that complex business-politics interactions and commercial interests of defence companies propel military assertiveness. This domestic economy framework supplements insights from the identity and international system theories to significantly add to our understanding of the military turn in Turkish foreign policy.

A Study into the Discourse of American Print Media about Representation of Islam and Muslims

Print media discourses mirror social reality related to a particular context and time. Most often, they serve as a distorting prism to construct and represent a desired version of reality. The data for the present study comes from the articles of ‘The Washington Post’ about the representation of Islam and Muslims. The time span for data collection ranges from august 2019 to October 2019. Van Dijk’s (2006) research model for critical Discourse Analysis has been employed to analyse the data. The analytical categories of the model include representation, actor description, metaphor, polarization, number game, authority, lexicalization, topos, comparison, distancing and consensus. The data has been analysed at the level of word, sentence and discourse. The findings of the study highlight that the adjectives of negative social connotations such as militants, hard liners, belligerent, extremists, suicide bombers, jihadists, heaven seekers, the squad, terrorists, etc. have used to represent Islam and Muslims negatively. Highly politicised terms such as Islamic racism and islamophobia are alluded to islam and Muslims. The frequency of occurrence of the article related to Islam and Muslims during the selected time span is significantly higher. The themes associated with Islam, Muslims through the articles include ISIS, Islamic state, and jihad, Talibanised Ideology, Islamic Militants, fight against terrorism, Political Islam etc. It contends that 100% negative representation of Islam and Muslims has been observed. Besides, it concludes that print media discourses are one of the best sites for ideological investment and to shape mindset of target readership accordingly.

Political drivers of Muslim youth radicalisation in France: religious radicalism as a response to nativism

ABSTRACT A substantial literature has developed around the individual determinants of radical political preferences. Widely used to study electoral support for far-right parties, this perspective has rarely been mobilised to understand the dynamics of radicalisation, or the process of going back to the ‘roots’, among fractions of Western Muslim youth involved in political Islam. To address this, 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2020 and 2021 as part of ongoing ERC Advanced Grant research with young (aged 18–30) self-identifying Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan descent based in the Paris or Lyon areas. Also drawing on the social movements literature, we uncovered two sets of factors influencing radicalisation, each based on two distinct oppositional sets of attitudes: (1) a feeling of estrangement from mainstream societal values, such as morality, secularism, and a perceived assimilationist trend emanating from the French national frame, and (2) a sense of dissatisfaction towards the political-institutional system, which appeared as latent criticisms of the current state of representative democracy, distrust of political and media actors, and discontent towards the current French party system.

Narasi Alternatif dalam Pembelajaran Sejarah untuk Pendidikan Multikultural di Indonesia

Indonesia is currently experiencing symptoms of strengthening identity politics. As a pluralistic nation, this phenomenon is certainly dangerous because it can lead to social conflict and national disintegration. This research was conducted with the aim that educational institutions can play a role and minimize this potential. What he can do is to instill the values of multiculturalism in learning practices, especially in history learning. For this reason, the problems that are tried to be put forward in this research are: 1) what is meant of multiculturalism education? 2) what is the conception of multiculturalism education in history learning? 3) how to develop multiculturalism narrative in history learning materials?. This research uses literature study method. In the literature study, data were obtained from several library sources such as journal articles, books, internet, newspapers and magazines. From the results of the study, it was revealed that multiculturalism education is a concept that was created to help someone understand and appreciate regardless of the high or low culture, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, language, economic ability to disability inherent in a person. Learning history with a multiculturalism approach is ideological. In history learning, multiculturalism education can be carried out by accommodating students' cultural differences, utilizing culture as a source of content, and using history as a tool to understand other people's cultures in order to grow mutual respect, tolerance, a sense of unity and the spirit of nationalism. A historical event that can be used as an alternative narrative in the development of multiculturalism education is when Suharto at the beginning of his reign tried to re-establish Pancasila and the 45’ constitution as the ideology and basis of the state amid the threat of ideological conflicts between political parties and the emergence of an inclusive Islamic movement led by Nurcholish Madjid as a response to the death of the movement Islamic politics during the New Order era.

Negotiating gender-equal inheritance rights: the rise of Islamic politics and the global feminist landscape in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Inheritance rights in Bangladesh are a highly contested issue. These are interpreted differently in the two major religions in Bangladesh, Islam and Hinduism. Using the concepts of ‘legal pluralism’ and ‘feminist institutionalism’, we aim to understand different contestations and debates and the multiplicity of practices in these religions on this issue. Such contestation challenges the formulation of gender-equal inheritance policies in Bangladesh. In this article, we identify the major actors involved in policy formulation and investigate the key factors and events that led the state to formulate such policy and, later, to withdraw it. Based on a qualitative case-study method, we observe that gender-equal inheritance rights provision depends on multiple political factors and events. On the one hand, the international mandate of ensuring gender equality coupled with local and international donors’ support influenced the formulation of equal inheritance rights provision in the National Women’s Development Policy (NWDP). On the other hand, opposition from Islamic fundamentalist parties created tension in formulating such policy and, in the face of violent opposition, the government feared being framed as ‘anti-Islamic’ and withdrew the equal inheritance rights policy in Bangladesh in the policy formulation stage.

Beyond Fixed Political Models of Religion–State Relations

Some of the dominant academic approaches to Muslim politics continue to assume the centrality of Islam on the question religion’s relationship to the state and the possibility of successful democracy in Muslim-majority states. On the one hand, based on findings from large N-surveys, some scholars have argued that most Muslims in many Muslim-majority states desire a political ‘third model’ that is neither secular nor theocratic. Instead, they want democracy and a public role for shari’a and Islam. However, this literature does not fully explain what such a third model would mean for certain individual rights in practice. It also assumes a normative position that tends to favour one or another version of ‘Islamic’ democracy. On the other hand, some other scholars have argued that one or another form of a secular Muslim democracy is possible. Both views assume that the reinterpretation of religious resources is crucial to achieve the desired ends. This ‘reformist Islam approach’ to Muslim politics does not seriously consider the implications of servicing Islam, even in its more reformist forms, for political ends. Through a combination of theoretical and normative arguments and in-depth interviews conducted in the Maldives, this article argues that the plurality of viewpoints and underlying reasonings for those viewpoints among ordinary people suggest the necessity to move ‘beyond Islam’. As such, an alternative discursive democratisation approach that considers this plurality and takes discourses more neutrally without privileging religious discourses can be more capacious. Instead of fixating on a particular model of the religion–state relationship and a particular type of discourse (e.g., reformist Islamic), a discursive democratisation approach points to democratic possibilities and how the religion–politics and religion–state nexuses may be shaped and reshaped through discourse contestations within public spheres in Muslim-majority states such as the Maldives.

Islamic Political Communication System Mapping Millennial Muslim Geopolitics on Social Media in Facing the 2024 Presidential Election

In political preferences, religion plays a vital role as a consideration for the millennial generation. This is because Indonesia still considers religion in setting policies as it does in political parties and general elections. This study analyzes the political communication system of millennial Muslim Islam on social media in the face of the 2024 presidential election (netnographic analysis). This study applies the netnographic research method through a qualitative approach to understand how the Islamic political communication system works in millennial Muslim society on social media and the geopolitics of millennial Muslims in Indonesia in the face of the 2024 presidential election. Data collection uses analytics related to election data—President in 2024. The study results show that the application of political communication among millennial Muslims on social media is in the form of support and criticism on the hashtag #pemilu2024. Social media proves that distance and time limits are not obstacles to voicing opinions, criticizing and supporting each other. Several things that can be done to map Islamic political communication systems and millennial Muslim geopolitics on social media include: (1) Analyze Islamic political trends that occur on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, by searching for keywords related to Islamic politics and monitor how communication patterns are between Muslim millennials; (2) Understanding millennial Muslim sentiments on social media by reading and monitoring conversations on social media; and (3) understand the patterns used in communicating, taking into account the type of content they share, the frequency of social media use, as well as the most used platforms. Too much social media reach without knowing boundaries makes social media challenging to control. The strength of political competition becoming increasingly evident must be accompanied by carefulness in filtering information not to complicate the situation. As millennials amid vulnerable hostilities, they should be able to become pioneers or fortresses in avoiding the opposing currents of the impact of social media in political times.Keywords: Political Communication, Millennial Muslims, Geopolitical Mapping, Social Media, Presidential Election

Islamisasi Konsep Etika Politik Niccolo Machiavelli

Politics is known as an activity that is synonymous with negative and 'evil' things, as well as in The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes politics with the impression of putting aside morals, even to conquer a territory or advance to become a leader, it can be through cunning ways, vile, and evil. This paper will discuss the Islamization of Niccolo Machiavelli's political ethics by using the concept of Islamization promoted by Syed Naquib al-Attas, and the concept of political in Islam. It is carried out by library research which in collecting data relies on data from the literature. As for the result, in Islamic political ethics, religious values must color the behavior of power holders. Al-Qur'an as a source of ethical values, if applied in power will produce a government with high moral values, so as to be able to realize happiness and justice equally for the community.

The approach to understanding security based on the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence and the prominent schools of thought in security studies.

The central question addressed in this paper revolves around how the process of achieving security aligns with the teachings of Islamic jurisprudence. It also explores the comparative prominence of different approaches to security across various schools of thought. In the process of seeking security, different schools employ their unique approaches, ranging from "force" and "authority" to "persuasion." Within democratic frameworks, the term "persuasion" is often used. However, within liberal schools of thought, a dual policy is observed, where they leverage the element of "persuasion" against liberals and the element of "force" against non-liberal countries. Additionally, in power-centric approaches, the primary objective is the acquisition of power, thus advocating for a "forceful" approach in this discourse. Finally, in the Sharia-based approach, which heavily revolves around the dimension of authority, achieving security in Islam encompasses various aspects, including political, military, cultural, economic, and environmental security.
 In political security, ensuring justice and fairness, consultation, and providing necessary freedoms in relevant areas make security possible. In social security, practicing good deeds, forbidding wrongdoing, advising, reminding, and respecting people's privacy facilitate security. Cultural security, in Islamic political jurisprudence, is achieved through migration, invitation, enjoining good, forbidding evil, and adherence to religious teachings. Economic security, through establishing social justice, fair wealth distribution, and combating factors endangering economic security, becomes attainable. Environmental security, by adhering to the jurisprudential rules in this field, is also feasible.

From Islamism to Democracy: The Case of Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda of Tunisia

This article examines the shift of Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda party from Islamism to democracy. This article analyzes Ghannouchi’s early Islamist ideology and confrontational approach to politics, as well as his exposure to democratic systems, which led to a reevaluation of his views on democracy, following the failure of Ennahda’s early attempts at revolutionary Islamism in the 1980s and 1990s, which prompted Ghannouchi to reconsider his approach to politics and Islamism. This led to a shift towards a more moderate and inclusive approach to politics, culminating in Ennahda’s participation in Tunisia’s democratic transition after the 2011 revolution. This article highlights the theoretical implications of his shift from Islamism to democracy for the study of political Islam and democratization. This article argues that Islamist actors and movements can evolve and adapt to changing political circumstances, as well as undergo gradual moderation in promoting democratic reform.

Den Kisot (Don Quixote) by Goenawan Mohamad

Reviewed by: Den Kisot (Don Quixote) by Goenawan Mohamad Arthur S. Nalan, Irwan Jamaludin, and Kathy Foley DEN KISOT (DON QUIXOTE). By Goenawan Mohamad, directed by Endo Suanda. Indonesian Cultural Arts Insitut Seni Budaya-Bandung Theatre, Bandung, Indonesia, 15 July 2022. Goenawan Mohamad, author and co-founder of Utan Kayu artists’ community and Salihara Theatre in Jakarta, has long been tilting at windmills. In this performance, a 2019 production based on Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote narrative was reprised and reworked in 2022 showings. Combining the traditional art of West Java’s wayang golek rod puppetry and the narrative of Don Quixote, this work, directed by ethnomusicologist and cultural entrepreneur Endo Suanda, was a testament to the power of stories to free minds that prelates and politicos confine to strict limits. The Cervantes (hereafter spelled Servantes as in Indonesian) story was new to most Indonesian viewers. But the message of freeing the artist’s voice was not. Mohamed has repeated this theme in his life and scripts. His call for works of the imagination and free speech resonates with current Indonesian needs. As editor of Tempo (Time), the most important news magazine in Indonesia, Goenawan Mohamad has been longtime supporter of modern theatre as a conduit of open public discourse. His reviews of drama in Tempo have responded to and guided the development of modern theatre as a space of free speech in Jakarta since the 1970s. At Tempo, he employed the playwrights (for example Putu Wijaya), ensuring authors’ livelihoods as journal writers, which allowed them to stage their works. In the 1970s and 1980s, most important modern theatre performances played at Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) in Jakarta—a performance complex which was established under the political protection of the then Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin. [End Page 192] TIM served an island of free speech during the dictatorial government of President Suharto until the 1980s. With Sadikin’s removal from governance, Taman Ismail Marzuki faded and censorship accelerated. With Suharto’s closing of Tempo, in 1994, Goenawan founded Teater Utan Kayu (Forest Theatre), an exhibition, meeting, and performance space where the intelligentsia continued the conversation, freely critiquing Indonesian politics and society. Since the fall of Suharto (1998) which allowed the reinstatement of Tempo, Goenawan’s performances have come out of the community of Utan Kayu’s writer-thinkers and, since 2008, been located at Salihara, the art center he created in south Jakarta. Works have often explored the rise of political Islam. He writes on how religious intolerance in Indonesia’s multicultural and diverse society joins force with political power to limit expression. Den Kisot is only Goenawan’s latest foray into the performing arts as a sociopolitical critique and follows the pattern of some of his recent opera/musical librettos such as his version of Calonarang, The King’s Witch,1 or his production of Suluk Malang Sumirang (The Song of the Crazy Saint),2 the story of an antinomian Sufisaint of Java who flouted sharia conventions. The former played in New York and Seattle as well as in Indonesia. The Song of the Crazy Saint he used to open the Frankfurt Book Fair where his efforts for Free Speech were being honored in 2015. In Frankfurt, Goenawan’s speech made his intent clear: Malang Sumirang can be seen as a tale of the cruelty of those in power—both politically and religiously. But. . . power ceases when faced with ambition and energy that gives birth to writing. Thus, writing makes the condemned one into his/her opposite, from the accursed, he/she becomes exalted. Malang Sumirang writes—and so turns the powerful into the helpless. . . . I hope that all here will remember what Malang Sumirang achieved: we write to affirm human equality; we write to enliven the discourse; we write to cultivate freedom. (Mohamad 2015) This production under review here continued the theme of the artist’s need to speak freely. However, it was different from some of his earlier work in that instead of following a fully modernist vein of elite Jakartans (whose work may remind more of Phillip Glass operas as in The King’s Witch), this production used wayang style traditional theatre. The genre chosen...

Islam and Prosper Indonesia: Contestation and Fragmentation of Contemporary Islamic Thought

The following article examines Islamic thought and changes in state structure in Indonesia since the reform era from 1998 to the present. The fundamental change of state order in Indonesia is marked by the amendment of the 1945 Constitution and the wide space open for the people to participate in the life of the country. In this situation, progressive Islam, mainstream Islam, and political Islamist thought emerged. The main problem in this article is how Islamic thought is transformed by three variants of Indonesian Muslims in changing state order in the reformation era of Indonesia. The basic theoretical framework that is used to explain Islamic thought and changes of state order above, in addition to using the people's approach as full citizens before the state, also uses a socio-historical approach, political economy. Then the analysis used in this article is political philosophy. The main sources used are the official publications and decisions of each figure and organization related to changes in state order during the reformation era in Indonesia from 1998 to the present. The results of the study can be concluded that three variants of Islamic thought in Indonesia that are very prominent in responding to and directing the changes in state order in Indonesia become a just and welfare state.

Politik Islam di Indonesia: Ideologi Partai Masyumi Masa Orde Lama dan Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB) Masa Reformasi

This article discusses Islamic politics in Indonesia through the Masyumi Party during the Old Order and the Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB) during the Reformation Era. Writing this article using descriptive analysis and historical research methods. The historical method is divided into four steps, namely: heuristics, criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results showed that Masyumi was an Islamic party which became a unifying pillar of the nation during the Old Order. Masyumi's struggle in upholding Islamic law as the state ideology did not run smoothly after the changes that occurred in the seven words and the Jakarta Charter. Unlike the case with the Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB), which was founded during the Reformation period by the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) mass organization. PKB aims to convey the aspirations of the people, especially NU members who want freedom in expressing opinions on issues in the government. PKB has a political basis based on Pancasila, not Islam. Despite carrying different goals, these two parties continue to run the parliamentary line because of the struggle for Islamic politics in Indonesia.

Ekspansi Islam dan Kebijakan Pemerintahan pada Masa Khalifah Umar bin Khattab

This article describes the time of the caliph Umar bin Khatab in the expansion and spread of Islam outside the Arabian peninsula, as well as the policies taken during his reign. Based on literature studies from various books on the history of Islamic civilization and the journal History of Islamic Civilization, especially those discussing the Caliph Umar bin Khattab, it was found that there was a very rapid expansion of Islam during the time Umar bin Khattab served as caliph. The results of this research first found that the Islamic expansion carried out by Umar expanded not only in the Arabian peninsula, but also extended to various regions such as Damascus, Ajnadain, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Persia, Syria, and Nahawand. This expansion is28 very beneficial for Muslims, namely for the development of Islam, as well as upholding Islamic politics and upholding Islamic law. Second, the policies carried out by Umar were ijtihad policies and political policies. Ijtihad policy by changing systems that do not yet exist in the Koran, as well as improving regulations that need to be revised or changed based on the needs and developments of the times. While the political policy is to renew the government structure and state administration structure.