Muslim Opposition Research Articles

Pertarungan Narasi Islam dalam Pemilihan Presiden Tahun 2019

<p><em>The 2019 general election is one of the most intense elections in Indonesia's history, especially after reformasi (political reform) in the 1998. This election did not only involve political parties in the fight for the presidency but also involves opposition movements, especially the Islamic movement. After the phenomenon of 212 in 2016, Islamic movements became very active in influencing political activities in Indonesia, including the elections held in 2019. The efforts of this Islamic opposition movement were to delegitimize the regime (Joko Widodo) who tried to participate in the 2019 re-election through various narratives including religious narratives in it. Meanwhile, on the other hand, there are also other Islamic groups that carry out counter-narratives and support Jokowi to be re-elected in the 2019 election. This study focuses on discussing the narratives and counter-narratives carried out by Muslim opposition and pro-regime Islamic groups in the 2019 elections through narrative analysis in qualitative research. Data is collected through online sources, both from those with affiliation with related movements and other media. This research found that there were two sides of the Islamic narrative in the 2019 presidential election, namely the Islamist side who criticized the incumbent presidential candidate and the Islamic group side who supported the presidential candidate as well as the president who was in power.</em></p>

Print Culture, Islam and the Politics of Caution in Late Colonial Dar es Salaam: A History of Ramadhan Machado Plantan’s Zuhra, 1947–1960

Abstract This article examines the history of Ramadhan Machado Plantan’s newspaper Zuhra, an independent African weekly newspaper that served as both an advocate for Dar es Salaam’s Muslim African community, as well as a kind of spiritual advisor and diviner. The content of Zuhra engages with a host of issues that were germane to its reading public, some of which were conventionally nationalist (segregation, land rights) and others which seem particularly religion (cemeteries, dream interpretations, religious counsel). Plantan’s Zuhra was often out of step with the rising nationalist movement embodied in the Tanganyika African Nationalist Union (tanu), which ultimately led to its estrangement and opposition to the country’s victorious nationalist party. Finally, this article explores how these disjunctions between Zuhra and tanu played out, first as a matter of a changing newspaper political economy, and second as a mouthpiece for a new Muslim opposition party.

United Indian Patriotic Association versus Indian National Congress (1888–1893)

The article examines the emergence of Anglo-Indian and Muslim opposition to the Indian National Congress (INC) in the second half of the 1880s – early 1890s. By 1887, Congress had lost the support of the Viceroy of India Dufferin, and it greatly influenced the formation of the anti-Congress movement. The social base of opposition to the Congress was formed by the most conservative parts of society – the Anglo-Indians (the British who permanently lived in India) and Indian Muslims. The center of the anti-Congress movement was the Aligarh College, and the leader was the Muslim educator and founder of the college, Syed Ahmad Khan. The movement received support from the Anglo-Indian press and colonial officials. In 1888, United Indian Patriotic Association was founded with the Muslim organizations of Upper India and the conservative Hindu aristocracy in its ranks. The Association believed that the Congress did not represent the interests of the entire Indian people, but only a narrow stratum of European educated Indians. The INC's proposals for the introduction of an elective element in legislative councils and simultaneous examinations for civil service in India and Great Britain were regarded as premature, threatening interests of Muslims and British rule in India. The main goal of the United Indian Patriotic Association was to counter the agitation of the INC in Great Britain, where the British Committee of the INC operated, by holding anti-Congress meetings and pamphleting. After the adoption of the Indian Councils Act of 1892, the leaders of the Association focused on protecting the interests of Indian Muslims, and this solution led to the dissolution of the United Indian Patriotic Association in 1893. The Association became one of the first organizations opposed to the INC and had a significant impact on strengthening the political activity of Indian Muslims. The emergence of Muslim opposition to INC in the second half of the 1880s. became an important factor in the political development of India and the national liberation movement in the first half of the XX century.

Nationalist Muslim Opposition to the Partition of India: Madani, Azad, and Khan

Nationalist Muslim Opposition to the Partition of India: Madani, Azad, and Khan

Islam as a Challenge to The Ideology of Religious Studies

Why has Religious Studies failed to gain ground in Middle Eastern universities? This article aims to move beyond a lens of underdevelopment to think about the significance of Muslim opposition to the discipline. When we suppose that studying religion and religions is an obvious thing to do, we risk casting those who deliberately avoid it as somehow irrationally refusing to see what is in front of them. But what if their objections reveal something troubling about the received terms through which we talk about cultures around the world? By taking seriously a certain Islamic perspective on the terms of Western scholarship, this article highlights ways in which it supports Timothy Fitzgerald’s critique in The Ideology of Religious Studies (2000). It poses a challenge to the idea of value-free study of religion, religions and the religious as conducted through any discipline. This author’s hope is that a focus on Muslim voices may bring these concerns home in particular to the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, where the terms of comparative Religious Studies have been embraced as an escape from Orientalism.

Islamic Identity and Foreign Policy Discourse: Indonesia’s Responses to the US War in Afghanistan (2001-2002)

Observers of Indonesia’s foreign policy commonly argue that while the state needs to include domestic Muslim interests in its foreign policy formulation, foreign policy officials have rarely considered Islam in their policy choices, with a dual-identity predicament constraining such a move. This article challenges this argument by demonstrating that foreign policy leaders have begun referring to Islamic identity and norms when justifying Indonesia’s foreign policy choices. By discussing Indonesia’s foreign policy responses to the United States’ war in Afghanistan in 2001, this paper elucidates the way in which Indonesia’s foreign policy leaders have constructed Islam as an “inclusive civilizational” identity in their foreign policy discourse, legitimizing their alliance with the global war on terrorism amid staunch domestic Muslim opposition to the war. They managed to turn identity constraint into opportunity by framing their policies within the context of “inclusive” and “integrative” Islamic values and norms.

Российская мусульманская община в мировой умме

The article explores the current place and role of the Russian Muslim community in the global Islamic Ummah. The evolution of the community’s relations with Islamic countries in the post-Soviet era, along with the growing interest shown to it by Muslims worldwide, is studied. Perception of current events in the Middle East by Muslims in Russia, as well as their participation in these events, is analyzed. Here it is important to mention their presence and activity in the ranks of the Islamic State. According to some information, the number of mudjahids from Russia reached four thousand. Even after the defeat of the IS, some Russian Muslims stayed in the Middle East. Moscow declares that the existence of Muslim minorities contributes to the country’s good relations with the Islamic World. Russian Muslims support the official course in the foreign policy. However, the article also refers to the attempts of some Muslim politicians and representatives of the clergy, despite their loyalty to the authorities, to speak out in some cases and take an independent position that may differ from the official foreign policy course. Firstly, it concerns Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, who makes attempts to establish direct ties with some Muslim countries, first of all, in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, Kadyrov expressed his disagreement with official position during the crisis in Myanmar, when Russia supported the fight of the country’s government against the Muslim opposition. Also there was a disappointment in the Republic of Tatarstan regarding Russian-Turkish conflict in 2015.

A Muslim Azef, or One More Orientalist: Playing the Other in Imperio-Orientalist Mirrors

The paper discusses constructing various versions of Muslim identity by politically opposite actors, the government and Muslim activists, involved in ‘placing’ Muslims in modernizing late-imperial Russia. The problem is approached through the extreme case of M.B. Hadjetlache (ca. 1870-1929), a baptized Jew reinventing himself as Circassian and Muslim and as such working as a State agent against Muslim opposition and vice versa. His strategies of deceit and reasons to trust him in different cultural and political milieus reveal reciprocal and often shared Orientalisms of the ‘regimes of truth’ defining the processes under study.

Occidentalism, Terrorism, and the Shariia State: New Multivariate Perspectives on Islamism Based on International Survey Data

Our article attempts to be yet another empirical contribution to the evolving international debate about global Islamist terrorism. We rely on the analysis of PEW and World Values Survey data from Muslim publics in different countries around the globe to analyze by multivariate promax factor analysis and standard OLS multiple regression which factors contributed to the approval or the rejection of terrorist acts, measured by such variables as the opinion on suicide bombing, Shari’a law and the favorability of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. We also analyze the drivers of general opinions on Islamic extremist groups and reactions to the ambitions of Iran and its nuclear program. We arrive at the conclusion that it would be wrong to define radical Islamism only in terms of the identification with outright support for the immediate “bomb-throwing terror”, while neglecting the underlying ideological and dangerous radicalism and also ongoing radicalization of such organizations as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Turkish Milli Gorus, which both start, like the most radicalized factions of Islamist terrorism, from the intense hatred of “Jews and Free Masons” and Western civilization as such, and which for many on both sides of the Atlantic appear as “moderate Islamists” and worthy partners of dialogue, while in reality they provide the fertile ground from which the armed terrorist groups only can develop. We highlight the role of the omnipresent hatred of America and the West which we term “Occidentalism”, but also the intense competition between Islamist and secular, Marxist terror groups which still exist in the Middle East and the entire Muslim world, and the Sunni/Shia competition as well as regional quests for hegemony. With Bassam Tibi we also analyze the close connection between the Islamist sharia ideology and the overall aspects of Islamism. Based on PEW data, we show that the two main drivers of Muslim opposition against suicide bombing are the rejection of honor killing and the death penalty against Muslims who chose to leave the Muslim community altogether. Our promax factor analyses confirm the relevance of this approach.

A word of justice: Islam and state repression in the North-West Caucasus

How does state repression of non-militant Muslims contribute to violent Islamism in the North Caucasus? This article considers the case of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, where young residents' embrace of normative Islam post-perestroika roiled the Sovietized Muslim and secular establishments. Greatly aggravated by the brutal and indiscriminate response from law enforcement agencies, this confrontation culminated in the 2005 Nalchik uprising, the North Caucasus' largest insurgent offensive of the past decade. In the culturally comparable nearby republic of Adygeya, by contrast, analogous state repression in the wake of the uprising did not produce a violent outcome. Salient features of the mosque–state relationship in both republics are examined here, particularly the rationale of Kabardino-Balkaria's Muslim opposition leaders before and after their public endorsement of militant jihadism. The author then posits ways of marginalizing such leaders and thereby limiting the scope for conflict.

Speaking Sharia to the State : Muslim Protesters, Tsarist Officials, and the Islamic Discourses of Late Imperial Russia

In the final decades of the 19th century, a crisis broke out in the relations between government officials and Muslim communities in the province of Kazan. A cultural borderland located a centralizing imperial heartland, Kazan represented one of the oldest and most important sites of Muslim--state interaction in the Empire. (1) From the late 1870s onward, however, Muslim--state relations in the region deteriorated sharply in the face of efforts to assert more direct control over the administration of the region's Muslim populations. Muslim opposition to these initiatives, taking the form of demonstrations and mass petition campaigns, would occur on an almost yearly basis throughout the final three decades of the century. How did Muslims in late imperial Russia view the tsarist and its institutions? For decades during the Cold War, scholars discussing the relations between the tsarist and non-Russian communities in the empire emphasized the theme of conflict, stressing the importance of identity and national resilience in the face of Russian rule. (2) More recently, however, this conflict-oriented view of Muslim--state relations in the empire has come under increasing pressure from scholars, mainly working with tsarist archival sources, who instead have stressed the importance of institutions (3) and their engagement by Muslims in the empire. (4) Perhaps the most forceful critique of older conflict-oriented scholarly narratives has come from Robert D. Crews. (5) Crews argues that Muslims looked to the state to protect their interests, particularly with respect to matters pertaining to faith. (6) Instead of viewing tsarist officials as enemies, writes Crews, Muslims saw them as agents of a shari'a to be realized in its entirety, and as allies of Muslims seeking to protect the cause of true religion. (7) Muslims meanwhile viewed threats to Islam as emanating less from authorities than from within the community in the form of neighbors who did not attend communal prayers alongside other villagers or townspeople. In the view of Muslims, Crews writes, religion not only found accommodation among tsarist officials but in fact came to depend upon the institutions of state. (8) This article looks beyond these narratives of rejection and embrace in an investigation of a series of protests taking place Muslim communities in the Volga region in the late 19th century. (9) I argue that, while Muslims did not reject tsarist institutions to the degree outlined in many older studies, (10) neither did Muslim subjects of Russia commonly view tsarist officials as defenders of the faith. (11) Indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, Muslim--state relations in the region were becoming increasingly complex, with Muslims looking to strengthen the role of some institutions of authority while resisting others. Even in Kazan, one of the most administratively integrated regions of the empire, Muslims were becoming increasingly alienated from tsarist authorities in the region, including both civil and spiritual officials. (12) Beginning with a discussion of spiritual (dukhovnoe) administration in Russia, this article examines a series of protests, petition campaigns, and mass rumors circulating in and around the province of Kazan in the final decades of the 19th century, as well as the response of local officials to these events. I pay special attention to the language of Muslim--state communications, especially with regard to what I describe as the use of Islamic discourses--that is, the invocation of terminology drawn from civilization. (13) How, I ask, did a series of conflicts pertaining mainly to administration come to be articulated--by tsarist officials and Muslim protesters alike---in terms of faith? (14) Administration in Late Imperial Russia Kazan Muslims, like other non-Russian populations of the empire, were governed through a system of spiritual administration that was religious in form but largely administrative in content. …

Prudential Concealment in Shi`ite Islam

The paper undertakes to investigate the Shī`ī practice of prudential concealment (taqīya) as a source of both quietism and political activism. The practice functioned as a strategy of survival for the Shī `ī minority living under hostile Sunni regimes. Although Sunni ulema criticized the practice as dissimulation and, hence, morally wrong, ironically they too adopted the strategy when encountering autocratic and oppressive Sunni regimes that suffocated the right of the people to voice their demand for just treatment. The article demonstrates that the strategy created a specific sphere of existence for the Shī `ites, known as the “abode of prudential concealment,” which incrementally allowed Muslim opposition to engage in underground activity for regime change and for a political transformation of the public order that accorded with Islamic ideals. In light of Muslim political theology providing doctrinal resources for Muslim societies to work toward the common good in the public sphere, this latter space functions as a means of critical evaluation of the existing autocratic governments in the Muslim world, prompting political action, however underground. The major conclusion of the paper is that although the practice was developed by the Shī `ī minority living under intolerable political conditions, at different times under unbearable political conditions and the absence of democratic processes, it has provided Muslims a strategy to regroup and engage in political transformation.

The Qur’anists

AbstractStories relating the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, known as Hadith in Arabic, have long been esteemed by the vast majority of Muslims as a source of law and guidance second only to the Qur'an in authority. In recent years, an increasingly vocal Muslim opposition to Hadith insists that the Qur'an alone should be the sole source of religious law and guidance in Islam. Rashad Khalifa, Kassim Ahmad, Edip Yuksel, and Ahmad Subhy Mansour are among the most important rejecters of the Hadith, whose arguments influence a wide variety of groups popularly labeled Ahl al‐Qur'an, Qur'niyyun or Qur'anists.

Why There Was No Cartoon Controversy in the United States

The publication of cartoons insulting the prophet Mohammed created a far greater controversy in Europe than it did in the United States. In the paper, I attempt to trace this difference to broader differences in the way Americans and Europeans think about offensive speech. While Americans have developed a language of libertarian regret, which allows them to criticize speech that they nevertheless concede the legal system must protect, Europeans are much more concerned about the threat posed by acts of intolerance. As a result, Europeans tended to view Muslim protests against the cartoons as a potential harbinger of totalitarianism. By contrast, most American commentators - while defending the right of the Danish paper to run the cartoons - were more likely to trace the Muslim opposition to the cartoons to religious sensitivities. In a concluding section of the paper, I link this to the European fears that Muslims will undermine secular norms.

The Long Trail of Islamic Anti-Semitism

The belief that Muslim opposition to Israel is motivated by anti-Zionism, rather than anti-Semitism, has been a staple of anti-Israel propaganda. This claim is buttressed by the argument that the Muslim treatment of their Jewish minorities in the centuries prior to the establishment of Israel was superior to that of Christian Europe. While this is true to a certain extent, it is also true that Jews under Muslim rule faced systematic discrimination, persecution and at times, violence. Moreover, as this article shows, much of the Muslim and Arab anti-Zionist argument and the widespread Arab hostility to the State of Israel is the result of a deep, and profound, antagonism towards Jews and Judaism.

Fatwā and War: On the Allegiance of the American Muslim Soldiers in the Aftermath of September 11

AbstractThe domination of the world system by the nation-state poses a formidable challenge to modern Islamic political and juristic discourse, especially when the state is secular and non-Islamic. In this article, I examine a collective fatwā, issued a few weeks after the September 11 attacks on Washington D. C. and New York City. The fatwā gave permission to American Muslim soldiers to participate in the American military efforts against the perpetrators of the attacks, even if that involved the declaration of war against a Muslim country. By giving such permission, the fatwā implies that the principle allegiance of the American Muslim soldier is to his own country, especially in a situation of war. Issued by a group of Muslim 'ulama' and intellectuals with a Salafī-reformist background, this fatwā represents an Islamic attempt by Muslims to address some of the major changes in the world system. I also examine Muslim opposition to the fatwā, mostly from other Islamic Salafī circles, which points to a profound division within Salafism.

Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (review)

Joseph O'Callaghan offers a survey of military activity in Spain from the later eleventh century through the mid-thirteenth century, following earlier narratives such as Derek Lomax's Reconquest of Spain (1978) and that undertaken in my Society Organized for War (1988). However, the author has a very particular focus in this work, namely kings' endeavors to connect their combat enterprises to the emergence of the papal crusading program in the same era. He scrutinizes the ecclesiastical sources of the period to establish the importance of papal support through crusading bulls for Iberian royal war plans against the Muslim opposition to the south. The first chapter lays out the argument and outlines the case. The next three chapters narrate the assorted royal campaigns in the various Christian kingdoms, from Barbastro in 1163 to the conquest of Seville in 1248. The last three chapters describe, in turn, the style of warfare, church assistance in campaign financing, and the liturgies connected to the reconquest and crusading. During the course of the book's development, O'Callaghan makes some comparisons to the Crusader Near East, and argues on behalf of an expanded concept of the Crusades that would include the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. The case has never been laid out before with such detail and skill, and includes detailed analysis of royal and papal documents as well as a considerable number of chronicle accounts testifying to the religious motivation involved in the peninsular conflict. Moreover, the first chapter offers an interesting survey of the emergence of a militant bellicosity within Christian Europe prior to the Crusades, and its later role in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Macedonian Reforms and Muslim Opposition during the Hamidian Era: 1878-1908

This article investigates Muslim opposition to European reforms within the framework of the Macedonian Question as it developed between 1878 and 1908. Reforms granted to the Christian communities in the Macedonian provinces after the Berlin Treaty (1878) did not bring tranquillity but rather contributed to the escalation of the existing turmoil. In addition, the worsening situation and the diminishing role of the Ottoman administration as a result of European interference created concern, but more importantly caused an intensification of religious sentiment among the Muslims. As a result, various classes of Macedonian Muslims, urban and rural, peasants and professionals, joined forces to prevent a further decline in their circumstances by demanding reform to the central administration.

Misunderstandings and hurt: how Canadians joined worldwide Muslim reactions to Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

This article examines reactions by Muslims across the world, but especially in Canada, to Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. Beginning with some background information about the novel, I discuss some of the Islamic themes and allusions in the novel, including the incident of the Satanic verses recounted in Muslim history. I then move to a discussion of Muslim opposition to the novel, including reactions in India, Pakistan, Britain, and Iran. The next section of the article examines the responses of Muslims in Canada, specifically those in Toronto, which is the city with the largest population of Canada's Muslims and the headquarters for a number of Canadian Muslim organizations. I conclude with an analysis of the reactions and delineate five implications of those reactions. On the whole, their reactions revealed the distinctly Canadian identity of these Muslims.

Muslim Opposition to Freemasonry

sonry continued sporadically throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not unexpectedly focusing on those regions where freemasonry seemed to make headway. This paper will attempt to describe some of the more salient features of opposition to freemasonry in the Muslim East and to analyze the main causes for these hostile attitudes. For better understanding, we shall start with an account of the background of freemasonry in the area discussed; this will be brief, due to limitations of space.