Iran executes 'heretic': innovative thinking about religion still a capital offense

Mohsen Amir-Aslani

In some Muslim countries, entertaining your own ideas or engaging in re-interpretations of religious texts and tenets is still a liability. Unfortunately, quite recently other countries than the 'usual suspects' such as - in this case -- Iran or Saudi Arabia, are also tightening the screws on religious freedom. Not only Egypt, but also supposedly more tolerant majority Muslim states such as Turkey and even Indonesia have made a turn for the worse (click here for an article on that subject).

In the present instance, after a tortuous nine-year ordeal, Iranian Mohsen Amir Aslani was sentenced to death and executed on account of insulting the Prophet Jonah and engaging in unlawful interpretations of the Qur'an.

Amir-Aslani was hanged last week for making “innovations in the religion” and “spreading corruption on earth”, but human rights activists said he was a prisoner of conscience who was put to death because of his religious beliefs. He had interpreted Jonah’s story in the Qur’an as a symbolic tale.

“Mohsen held sessions in his own house dedicated to reciting the Qur’an and interpreting it. He had his own understandings [of the religion] and had published his views in the form of a booklet and made it available to his fans,” an unnamed source told the New York-based group, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI).

Possibly because of the weakness of their case, authorities also added 'illicit' sexual activities to the list of charges -- notwithstanding the equally flimsy evidence for those accusations. While this shows the shaky legal foundations for heresy or apostasy cases even in countries such as Iran,  'deviant beliefs' and 'unlawful innovations' (the technical terms are takhayyul, bid'a, khurafat) remain capital offenses, and are used to prevent people from exercising universal human rights such as the freedom of belief, turning the concomitant freedom of expression into real liabilities in some Muslim countries.

To read the full article on Mohsen Amir-Aslani click here

French-Tunisian intellectual Abdelwahab Meddeb: Islamists are not ready for Democracy

In an interview with the Qantara website, the Paris-based Tunisian writer and commentator Abdelwahab Meddeb expresses his doubts regarding the future trajectories of his home country and Egypt under the governance of Islamic parties. Ever the critical observer he minces no words

The Islamists who are now in power did not take part in the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Indeed the very fact that no religious slogans whatsoever were chanted during the revolution is in itself interesting. For this reason, it is safe to say that the election of the Islamists to government and their appearance on the political stage constitutes a kind of hijacking of the revolution.

For me, the Islamists have nothing to do with the Islamic tradition of the Middle Ages. After all, the text-based tradition of the Islamic Middle Ages was complex and ambiguous. It was based on controversy and the plurality of thought. Above all, however, it was part of a universal, historical theocentric age. In this age, God was at the centre of all societies.

Abdelwahab Meddeb

To his mind their reactionary attitude is out of sync with the present-day situation in the Muslim world:

 When attempts are made today to put God back at the centre of society instead of humankind, then for me, that is an enormous step backwards. Islamism has changed from being a religious tradition into an ideology. As a religion, Islam has – just like all religions – a global vision. In other words, they want to assert their influence in all areas.

Referring to Turkey, he still harbours reservations whether the Muslim world is really entering a post-Islamist era: 

Whether Erdogan's Islamism has really developed into an Islamic democracy will only become clear on the day that change occurs. So far, Erdogan has not been voted out of office. I am waiting for the day when he loses an election and I will watch with interest to see how he leaves office and returns to his own home. I don't think that the Islamists are ready for a democratic culture. I will believe in an Islamic democracy when I see this change actually taking place in the form of a democratic handover of power. In other words, change will be the ultimate proof.

 However, he is also cautiously optimistic about the chances of a change of course into an alternative direction:

At present, there is an open debate between secularists and Islamists in Tunisia. This is the first time that this has ever happened. Indeed, I think that people have long since forgotten the culture of listening to each other. We are currently in a period of transition. The period that follows will be critical.

Read the full interview by clicking here

Erdoğan after Gezi Park: From Role Model to Bogeyman

What began as a small-scale protest against a contentious inner-city development plan in Istanbul, proposed by a government that seemed to be comfortably riding to its next election victory, within two weeks developed into a nationwide mass movement against Turkey's Prime Minister Erdoğan. Confronted with an arrogant and defiant government leader, who dismissed the protesters as good-for-nothing riffraff, a broad-spectrum alliance of middle-class urbanites, students, environmentalists, anti-globalization activists, Kemalists and leftists banded together to demand the AKP leader's resignation.

Not even in the surrounding Arab countries has the reputation of a leader unraveled so quickly. Erdoğan's political fortune collapsed as he sent in the full force of the police, now assisted by the goons of the gendarmerie, usually patrolling Turkey's unruly East, and perhaps soon -- if threats of the deputy prime minister may be believed -- the army too.

 It is ironic, to say the least, that the man who was held up as the model to follow for new leaders emerging in the Middle East and North Africa after the revolts of 2011 and 2012, has turned into a bogeyman himself, accused of authoritarianism and Sultan-like ambitions.

Never too good in absorbing criticism, Erdoğan now shows himself aggrieved and out-of-touch, incapable of understanding the significance of the fact that close to fifty percent of the electorate had never been on his side anyway. The only response he seems to know is confrontation. Small wonder that parallels are drawn between recent events in Turkey and what transpired in the Arab Spring.

'Padishah' Tayyip

It is evidently not so easy to plot a political course that can be regarded as a true 'third way' between 'hard' Kemalist secularism and an Islamic state. The Turkish government, like its counterparts in the surrounding countries, is struggling to understand and appreciate an increasingly well-educated and better informed population of 'critical Muslims'.

Nilüfer Göle

One commentator whose analyses of the current developments are receiving considerable attention in  publications outside Turkey, is the Paris-based sociologist Nilüfer Göle and author of The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling.

Her article about the nature of the Gezi Park movement and the Taksim Square demonstrations  in the 6 June issue of Le Monde is now widely circulated in English translation. Göle describes the opposition to Erdoğan as an 'urban movement --started by young people supported by the middle classes and featuring a strong female presence' -- which has lost none of their resolve in the face of police brutality to challenge the erosion of the right to the freedom of expression and the government's 'moralising intrusions into citizens' ways of life'.

Here are some excerpts which have appeared on the Germany-based Qantara website under the title A Libertarian and Unifying Movement, and was subsequently circulated by Open Democracy as The Gezi Occupation: for a democracy of public spaces.

His contemptuous vocabulary is no longer a simple source of mockery in conversations, but has incited collective indignation.

 He also provoked a scandal by naming a new bridge over the Bosporus "Yavuz Sultan Selim", a name that evokes the massacres of the Alevis. "Respect" has become a new slogan tagged on walls all over the cities and expressing the need for a return to civility in Turkish public life.

For the past few years, the mode of governance has seen the personalisation of power, not unlike that of the sultanate. Enjoying majority rule with no real political opposition, Erdogan has not hesitated to make major decisions himself, without deigning to consult either those primarily concerned, the citizens, or his own political entourage.

By monopolising discourse, he has undermined the power of others, such as the Mayor of Istanbul, who sought to ease tensions during the demonstrations in Gezi Park. This personalisation of power is felt in his omnipresence in the public sphere and is now turning against him and crystallising in anger directed specifically at his person.

  Drawing parallels with the Arab Spring and the European anti-globalization movement, Göle notes:

  [..] if the Arab Spring demanded the majority's voice in democracy, the Turkish movement is rising up against democratic majoritarianism. While European activists have been weakened by the economic crisis, Turkish residents have been filled to overflowing with a certain form of capitalism.

 At the heart of this movement is the restoration of public space in democracies. These spaces are public in that they are open to all, and bring together men and women, Muslims and the non-religious, Alevis and Kurds, young and old, middle and lower classes. This has allowed a new critical imaginary to circulate, one which focuses on protecting public space in its physical sense, with its capacity for bringing people together in a convivial way. In the face of state oppression through commerce and morality, citizens have put culture before consumption and respect for diversity before contempt for others.

 While the soul of this predominantly secular movement is libertarian, it does not embrace old State laicism and animosity against Islam. For now, unifying different classes of Turkish society  it defends 'the autonomy of the public space against the homogenizing forces of ideologies, religions, markets and the State power'.

From Russia with Love? Welcome to salamworld

Qantara, the Germany-based news website covering the Muslim world reports on a new social networking initiative based in Turkey, but financed by Russian Muslim activists.

Social networking is big business. Facebook, with its user base of over 800 million users, is expected to raise billions of dollars when it becomes a publicly-traded company later this spring. [...]  Enter a new Istanbul-based startup, salamworld, which hopes to establish itself as the social networking giant of the Islamic world. The company says it will offer a halal-friendly space for Muslims to gather online.

 

Even though the site won't be open to the public until the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, set for late July in the Western calendar, that hasn't stopped buzz in the Turkish tech world from bringing Salamworld to the fore.

Zuhair Al Mazeedi, of the Arab Institution for Social Values, in Kuwait, added that Salamworld can fix more than just the ignorance of non-Muslims about Islam. "There are many Muslims who misunderstand Islam – Islam has been hijacked by terrorists," he said. "We need to bring our youth back to the moderate and effective Islam. Many of our youth have no goals in life, and using such platforms can direct them into goals of life." 

Arab Spring
There is also widespread hope that the momentum of the Arab Spring can be built upon to facilitate political change in the heart of the Muslim world.  

Abdul Wahed Niyazov with OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu

Turanian Connections
The startup capital has largely come from private investors in Kazakhstan and Russia. Chairman of Salamworld is the not uncontroversial Abdul Wahed Niyazov Validovich, President of the Islamic Cultural Center of Russia and a founding member of the Russian Muftis Council.  So is Salamworld designed to help the ummah – the global community of Muslims – or to cash in an empty market niche? 


Click here to read the whole article:

The Circulation of Ideas in the Muslim World: Systematic Thought or Organizational Skills?

In my research on contemporary Islamic intellectual history, I focus on the more innovative and progressive, and therefore often controversial, currents of thought, which I have coined in provocative terms such as ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘heretical’. In discussing the trans-regional aspects of these alternative Islamic discourses, I am increasingly drawn to the notion of the ‘circulation of ideas’. This in itself somewhat amorphous expression strikes me as suitable for capturing the complex, multi-layered – even messy – nature of these contemporary trends of Muslim intellectualism. Already fruitfully employed in, for example, Indian Ocean Studies, I have become more convinced that it can also be aptly applied in research on contemporary Islamic intellectual history when I had a chance to listen to the anthropologist Martin van Bruinessen, emeritus professor and former holder of the ISIM Chair at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands.

This week Aga Khan University in London hosted this specialist in the history of Islam in Turkey and Indonesia, as well as their present-day societies, for a talk entitled ‘Indonesian Muslims and their Place in the Larger World of Islam’. In his presentation, van Bruinessen concentrated on finding an explanation for the fact that Indonesian Islam still remains little known to Muslims from outside Southeast Asia. It certainly is not that the way Islam is interpreted, experienced and practiced in this largest Muslim nation-state is not interesting or has nothing to offer to the rest of the Muslim world, almost the contrary.

Van Bruinessen recalls an observation made in 1986 by the famous Pakistani scholar of Islam and modernist Islamic intellectual Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988). At the time, the latter was of the opinion that the two Muslim countries to watch for the emergence of innovative ideas and alternative trajectories in the Muslim world were Turkey and Indonesia. It was probably no coincidence that Fazlur Rahman, who was then Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago, was supervising numerous postgraduate students from these two countries, many of whom would rise to becoming prominent religious and political leaders in their respective home lands.

One of the possible reasons why the often interesting ideas developed by Indonesian Muslims did not catch on elsewhere is a matter of form. Generally, Indonesian intellectuals present their ideas in speeches, seminars, talks, newspaper columns, magazine articles and other forums. These are later published in often voluminous collections, but rarely – if at all – do they find their way into any systematic presentation of their thoughts. An explanation for this seemingly unstructured style is that many Indonesian Muslim intellectuals are also activists, who tend to live out their ideas rather than theorize about them. On the other hand, to have an impact new interpretations not only need ideational coherence but require also efficient dissemination. Here, as shall be seen below, the Indonesian Muslim knack for organization comes into play.

Also historically, Indonesia or, for that matter,  its predecessor -- the Dutch East Indies – never produced the equivalent of single, towering intellectual figures such as Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, or Abu Alaa Maududi. Yet, in the past, ulama from Southeast Asia, including regions which now form part of the Indonesian republic,  were present in the Haramayn for centuries, teaching and instructing visiting pilgrims and students in things Islamic. However, although they formed by far the largest contingent of non-Arab Muslims in the holy places, they did not profile themselves explicitly as ‘Indonesians’.

Also today, Indonesian Muslims continue to display a voracious appetite for learning about Islam. There is a vibrant ‘translation industry’ of books on Islam and the Muslim world written by Muslim scholars and other intellectuals from across the Muslim world, as well as Western scholars of Islam. According to van Bruinessen, knowledge from abroad has always been highly valued in Indonesia. One explanation for this eagerness for ideas from the outside – aside from centuries of participation in the Islamic scholarly networks connecting the region to centres of Islamic learning on the other side of the Indian Ocean, in India, Yemen, the Hijaz, and Cairo – is Indonesia’s colonial experience, when Western knowledge percolated into the Dutch East Indies, opening up yet another epistemological realm.

Martin van Bruinessen

Consequently, the traffic of ideas has remained one-directional -- from other parts of the Muslim world and the West to Indonesia, whereas the ideas of Indonesian Muslim intellectuals have had very little exposure abroad. The only exceptions cited by van Bruinessen are former President Ahmad Sukarno and the one-time leader of the now defunct Islamist Masyumi Party, Muhammad Natsir. These were Indonesian Muslims who -- at one tim --  had an international profile with a global reach: Sukarno as a founding member of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries in the 1950s, and Natsir as a key figure in the Muslim World League and most prominent Southeast  Asian representative of Islamic reformism of the Salafi schnitt. In Natsir’s view, the benchmark for what constitutes ‘real Islam’, is provided by medieval Middle Eastern Islam. In the lively debates in Indonesia between ‘Westernizers’ -- who saw no contradiction between Islam and modernity, nor any fundamental incompatibilities with the other Abrahamic religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity -- and the ‘nativists’ who took issue with both Islamic and European influences, Natsir actually disagreed with both, neither did he approve of the advocates of a culturally specific traditional Indonesian Islam.

This lack of interest in or attention for the development of Indonesian Islam, does not mean that the country has nothing to offer to the rest of the Muslim world.  To return again to Fazlur Rahman’s view of the potential of both Turkish and Indonesian Islam, van Bruinessen also notes that, when comparing the two countries, another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is the matter of temperament. As another prominent non-Arab segment of the Muslim ummah, Turks have been more assertive in establishing themselves as significant and distinct from the Arabs than the evidently more modest and subdued Indonesians. At the same time, as I have discussed elsewhere, there are remarkable parallels between the Turkish and Indonesian experiences with Muslim intellectualism and the place of religion in public life in these two countries during the last twenty five years or so. These developments contain important lessons for alternative trajectories in the post-Arab Spring Middle Eastern parts of the Muslim world (see my posts of 5 February 2011 and  30 July 2011)

Among the aspects identified by van Bruinessen as having something to offer to the wider world of Islam is first of all the high level of organization among Indonesian Muslims. The country is home to what are not only the oldest and largest Islamic mass movements, they also manifest a longstanding and rich democratic tradition reaching from the local all the way to the national level. The political and legal framework of the Dutch East Indies, enabled Islamic modernists and traditionalist Muslims to establish organizations which focussed on  emancipation through educational and charitable initiatives and steered well clear of explicit political activities.

On all levels, both the modernist Muhammadiyah, founded as early as 1912, and its rivalling traditionalist counterpart Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) established in 1926, are run by elected governing bodies. Thus they have gained lengthy experience with selecting and electing leaders at national congresses which are held every five years, and the chance to develop a tradition of grassroots level democracy stretching back decades. This makes the Muhammadiyah and NU much more transparent than, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In regards to the organizational and institutional dimensions of Indonesian Islam, another interesting example is provided by Hizbut Tahrir. In Indonesia, this movement can command a disproportionately large following among the country's vast Muslim student population. On the other side of the Islamic political and intellectual spectrum, van Bruinessen also observed a very widespread and solid presence of contemporary Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi-Haqqani, whose leadership is currently based in the United States. He even ventured a speculation that, given the pressures on Muslims in America, it would not be inconceivable if the current leader, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, would decide to select Indonesia as the most suitable location for the organization’s future headquarters.

Then there is the flourishing of progressive and liberal interpretations of Islam. While it is true that, as explained earlier, the inspiration often comes from abroad, at the same time and in contrast to many parts of the Muslim world, Indonesian engagement with innovative and often controversial ideas is not only more intense, but also receiving  support from wider segments of society.  From the 1970s until the late 1990s, this was manifested through what Indonesians refer to as ‘cultural Islam’. During this period the ideas of thinkers such as Hasan Hanafi, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri, and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, as well as Shi’ite intellectuals like Shariati and Mutahhari were translated into Indonesian and integrated into the Muslim discourses circulating in that country..

Martin van Bruinessen in discussion with Kathryn Spellman of Aga Khan University

If there is one area where it could be argued that Indonesia has actually managed to influence developments elsewhere, it would be Islamic feminism. Here again, the origins came from the outside, in this case from the American-Pakistani women rights activist Riffat Hassan. But Indonesia was the only Muslim country where she was permitted to give an address at an Islamic university. Aside from Riffat Hassan, also the ideas of the Sudanese jurist and theoretician of human rights Abdullahi an-Na'im, and the latter's mentor Muhammad Mahmoud Taha, are an important ingredient for Islamic feminist activism in Indonesia.

There is no Muslim country where Islamic feminism is so deeply rooted and supported on grassroots level than Indonesia. Its success does not depend on any prominent figures, but rather on the broad support and widespread activism by scores of Muslimas working in the women’s branches of mass organizations such as the NU and Muhammadiyah. The international dimension of Indonesian Muslim feminism is evidently visible in the Musawah network. Although a Malaysian and Iranian initiative, the Indonesian experiment with Islamic feminism soon caught the attention of the initiators and has left its mark on this international body for coordinating Islamic women’s rights activism worldwide.


What became manifestly clear from van Bruinessen's discussion of indonesia's Islamic scene is that, aside from a store of interesting, progressive ideas presented in a coherent and systematic fashion, the successful dissemination of such ideas also depends on effective organization, and here Indonesian organizations such as the NU and the Muhammadiyah have a track record that has -- so far -- remained unmatched in the Muslim world.


Hereunder are some of van Bruinessen's writings, for more materials also check his personal website.

After Mubarak: Assessing the 'Islam Factor' in Egypt

In times of uncertainty 'imagination is more important than knowledge', Albert Einstein once said. Imagination is exactly what both political policy makers and pundits appear to lack when asked about their projections for Egypt's future. Pragmatists and advocates of maintaining some sort of a status quo, which will not shake the current power configurations within Egypt and in the Middle East too much,  can only see another military strong man taking over. The other -- and, to their taste, unpalatable -- alternative is an Islamist take-over by the Muslim Brotherhood, the subsequent foundation of an Islamic state, and the introduction of Sharia law....

This view seems particularly prevalent in American political circles, where, in a recent interview, former presidential candidate Senator John McCain demonstrated how entrenched the opinions and positions of the policy-making elite are. When asked if he could envisage the Muslim Brotherhood becoming a partner in negotiating a new political order for Egypt, McCain  categorically rejected that possibility, stating that the Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism (questionable), has connections with Hamas (not untrue), and will introduce Sharia Law (not at all clear what that means), which is, according to McCain, per definition undemocratic. Confronted with the question that area specialists regard the Muslim Brotherhood as representing a broad spectrum of political views and not a monolithic bloc, and that politicians associated with organization can command the support of about one fifth of the electorate, he said that he still refuses to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and that he does not give a hoot about expert opinions or votes cast for an organization he does not like. Such lack of appreciation of the  complexities of the political playing fields in non-Western cultures is only too often encountered in political power circles in Washington, London, and elsewhere. Now, given its high degree of organization and after decades of patiently infiltrating professional organizations and other parts of civil society, the Muslim Brotherhood simple cannot be ignored or sidelined.

As for the pro-democracy protesters currently holed up on Tahrir Square: In spite of the posturing of its spokespersons (more likely self-appointed than able to demonstrate a sizeable constituency) as unadulterated secularists, it is difficult to gauge what exactly is their common ground -- apart from ousting Mubarak. The big unknown is how much critical mass the alternative political ambitions harboured by the urban middle classes who are now in Tahrir Square will be able to muster and bring together.

So what are the alternatives to unabashed Islamist and secular agendas? For an indication of where to look, it is interesting to note that Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan was included in the list of four world leaders President Obama consulted by telephone before making his statement on 1 February. Taking Turkey into consideration makes not only sense because it is the most populous Muslim country in the Mediterranean and Middle East region, there are other reasons too.

Like Egypt, Turkey has a military with a high political profile. Since the 1920s it has presented itself as the defender of the constitution and frequently intervened in the political process when developments took a direction its leadership did not like. Unlike Egypt, Turkey has allowed experiments with Islamist politics and reconnoitered the boundaries of the tolerable and acceptable. That is why, in 1997, the army decided to oust the coalition government led by the Islamist Welfare Party in a 'velvet coup'. Subsequently part of its constituency reinvented itself as the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won the 2002 elections and has managed to stay in power through a policy focusing on economic development, democratic reforms, and religiously-inspired social conservatism rather than an active agenda of implementing what are regarded as the conventional elements of Islamism

AKP policy is reminiscent of Turkey’s Motherland Party, led by Turgut Özal in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the wake of the 1980 coup, this technocrat formulated what came to be known as the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis (TIS), tacitly condoned and at times more explicitly acknowledged by the military strong man at the time, General Kenan Evran (see also the post of 8 May 2010). Its combination of a liberal economic course combined with social conservatism -- expanded by the AKP with bolder democratic reforms -- has shown itself to be remarkably resilient. It is a delicate balance to strike, but, by all appearances, it seems to go down well with large segments of Turkish society. While the core of AKP support lies with an enterpreneurial class mainly based in the towns of Anatolia, its majority betrays a broader constituency of urban middle classes of whom it is by no means certain they would remain loyal if more religiously-coloured policies are introduced, such as curtailing the consumption of alcohol (cf also post of 31 July 2010). 

Outside of the immediate political realm, the AKP's success also relies on the influence of the Gülen Movement. This amorphous phenomenon with no apparent hierarchical structure has managed to penetrate Turkish society with an aggregate of media conglomerates, think tanks, and -- most importantly – a network of schools and universities. Also beyond its cohort of mostly volunteer activists, it is appreciated for the excellent education it provides, its charity efforts and initiatives in the domain of community cohesion, both inside Turkey and abroad.

Some, and they include prominent political scientists, would argue that Turkey is an  exceptional case. I beg to differ. Because very similar developments have taken place in Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation-state in the world and a country that is culturally very different from Turkey and which has its own political history. Yet, there are some striking parallels. Although Indonesia’s constitution is not as staunchly secular as Turkey’s, political Islam has been kept at arm’s length by avoiding any explicit reference to Islam in the constitution, while its military apparatus too has always assumed an active political role. Since independence in 1945, successive regimes have frustrated the attempts of Islamist parties to make Islamic law applicable to its Muslim citizens. At the same time, the military regime led by General Soeharto, which ruled the country with iron fist for thirty years, was accommodative to the development of what has alternately been called civil, cultural or cosmopolitan Islam.

This was largely developed through two of the world’s largest Muslim mass organizations,  one representing Islamic modernists (the Muhammadiyah), the other the more traditionalist Muslims (Nahdlatul Ulama or NU, for short). Both were founded during colonial times and each claims to have more than 30 million followers (thereby dwarving the Muslim Brotherhood in numerical terms). After the fall of Soeharto in 1998, both the NU and Muhammadiyah rallied behind political parties supportive of the country's democratization process, while more radical Islamist parties only gained a small percentage of the votes, or did not make the electoral threshold at all. Although some concessions were made through the devolution of power to provincial authorities, which were then used locally to introduce elements of Islamic law in Islamist strongholds, the central government remains committed to internal democratization and economic development. On the international stage, the incumbent president, retired general Susono Bambang Yudhoyono, has positioned Indonesia as a bridge country connecting the Muslim world to rest of Asia and the world at large.

If this is possible in two sizeable and culturally such diverse Muslim countries as Turkey and Indonesia, it becomes more difficult to maintain that these are merely coincidental exceptions. Of course, Egypt’s history is different; Muslim organizations have not had the maneuvering space they were given in Turkey or Indonesia. Therefore, the big question to be answered is: has or can the Muslim Brotherhood transform itself into a civil society force instead of positioning itself as political party with an overt Islamist agenda? The outcome of the present political crisis in Egypt has not just massive impact on power configurations in the Middle East but also for the tectonic shifts which will take place in the world order in the coming decade. Jakarta and Ankara are already jockying for position, what will Cairo do?

SECOND THOUGHTS? AN ASSESSMENT OF ISLAM AND STATE IN INDONESIA

LSE IDEAS, the centre for the study of diplomacy, international affairs and strategy at the London School of Economics, hosted a seminar on Islam and the State: A Southeast Asian Perspective, featuring Dr. Bahtiar Effendy, a lecturer at State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, with Prof. Gilles Kepel, Director of the Moyen/Orient/Méditerranée Programme at Sciences Po in Paris and holder of the Phillipe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, acting as discussant, and Tan Sri Dr Munir Majid, head of the Southeast Asia International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, in the chair.

Dr Effendy's talk was largely based on his book Islam and the State in Indonesia (2003), a published verion of his PhD thesis at Ohio State University, defended in 1994. Notwithstanding the fact that Indonesia's political landscape has changed unrecognizably since the fall of Soeharto's New Order Regime, Effendy's study has only been updated with a relatively brief  'post-script' containing just a summary discussion of developments from 1999 to 2000. While earlier parts of the book contain valuable discussions of the role of a new Muslim intelligentsia in creating the 'New Islamic Intellectualism' of the 1970s and 1980s, which transformed the debate on religion and politics from a legal-formalist and exclusivist into a substantialist and inclusivist discourse, there is no mention of the rise of two ensuing generations of Muslim intellectuals, consisting of scholars from the State Islamic Universities in Jakarta and Yogyakarta (including Effendy himself) and younger intellectual-activists connected through networks such as the Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL, Liberal Islam Network) or associated with the young cadres of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), referred to as NU Muda. Part heirs, part critics of the pioneers of this substantialist Islamic discourse they have been instrumental in the further shaping of an Indonesian variant of Islamic civil society.

Dr Bahtiar Effendy

Also from Effendy's presentation it was difficult to get a clear sense of where he sees Indonesia going. Having identified the early twentieth-century, the end of the Cold War, and post-9/11 as three key moments when the discussion of the relation between Islam and modernity and between religion and politics became particularly acute, he then restricted his discussion primarily to the domestic Indonesian context. 

Throughout the Soekarno and Soeharto years, Islamic political parties were considered as potential contenders for political power and were therefore clamped down on. Only in the 1950s, when a system that can be described as liberal and democratic was allowed to briefly flourish, were Islamic parties able to profile themselves uninhibitedly. This was reflected by their unsurpassed success in the 1955 elections, when the four Islamic parties together received 43% of the vote --- still, not a majority in a country that is 85-90% Muslim. Evidently, even then, large segments of Indonesia's Muslim intelligentsia did not want Islam as the basis for statehood.

The New Order Regime approached the Islam with the same suspicion as Soekarno had in the 1940s and during the 'Guided Democracy' of his later years. Islamic Parties were generally reduced to an outsider role in the political process  It was not until the 1970s, when this earlier mentioned new generation of intellectuals and technocrats formulated a non-formalist alternative Islamic discourse. Because it was no longer regarded as explicitly anti-state the state allowed more room for this kind of activism. In fact, the Muslim intelligentsia were not only co-opted in the government's development policies; eventually the state itself saw the usefulness of religion for driving its own objectives. and began boosting its own Islamic credentials. The power of Islamic courts was strenghtened in regards to personal and family law, the country began experimenting with Islamic banking, and the government established a kind of Islamic think tank, the 'Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals' (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim se-Indonesia, ICMI), led by Minister of Technology and later Vice-President and President B.J. Habibie.

In the democratic transformation that followed the fall of Soeharto in 1998, more than 181 new political parties emerged, of which 42 bore an Islamic or Islamist signature. It also spelled the return of the legal-formalist political and religious discourse. There was a sense of deja-vu, as it became clear that the Islamic parties still bore a historical stigma, according to Effendy. The majority of the Muslims preferred a substantialist understanding over the legalist interpretations associated with political Islam. As an explanation for this hesitation, Effendy suggests that three factors played a role: the fear it may thwart Muslim social mobility, the fragmentation of the community due to the competition between a plethora of Islamic parties, and the sense of alienation felt by younger generations of Muslims, who never experienced the struggles during the first fifty years of independence. Again, elections results reflected these sentiments. Between 1968 and 1998 support for Islamic parties oscillated between 15 and 30%. In the three free elections that have been held since then the Islamic parties received 37% (1999), 38% (2004) and 24% (2009) of the votes.

Effendy concludes that the intellectual transformation effectuated between 1970 and 1990 still dominates at the expense of the advocates of a legal-formalist Islamic model: The Jakarta Charter of 1945 (forcing Muslim citizens to abide by Islamic law) was never inserted into the constitution and only select elements of Islamic law have been implemented. As long as Muslim politicians do not disrupt the idea of a nation state they wuill be allowed some maneuvering space, but the exact place of Islamic principles in the political constellation is still not defined. Whereas Effendy expresses the hope that political and religious elites will reach an appropriate settlement, he gives no indication what such an agreement should encompass. Nor did he tell anything about the vibrant intellectual milieu in which younger scholars, intellectual-activists, and writers current discuss possible scenarios for a future civil Islam.

Prof Gilles Kepel

As the author of Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Gilles Kepel responded by providing a wider context by drawing on examples from other parts of the Muslim world. Comparing developments in Indonesia with those in Turkey and Algeria, he sees similarities in the implicit association of Islam by its detractors as threatening to the nation-state and a step backwards, or their use of political Islam as the scapegoat hampering state-building and development. However, when political opponents of authoritarian regimes want to challenge the incumbents they often opt for employing an 'Islamic vocabulary', although this must not be automatically equated with legal-formalist aspirations. 

In the same vein, Kepel further suggests that Turkish civil society-building has more of a 'Muslim' dimension than that it envisages an Islamic -- let alone Islamist -- agenda. It is important to acknowledge the sheer diversity of Islamic discourses, with civil society movements on one end and totalitarian Islamist ideologies on the other end of the spectrum. Given this multitude of voices, the questions to ponder are: Who controls Islamic discourse?; Why do so many different groups feel the need to take recourse to rhetoric coated in Islamic idiom and symbolism?; What are the reasons for the resurgence of cultural Islam? Returning to the Indonesian situation, Kepel ventured the speculation that, notwithstanding all the criticisms, whether there is not something to Clifford Geertz's  (in)famous taxonomy  distinguishing between between Santri (pious, practicing Muslims) and Abangan (syncretic Javanese belief and practices professing nominal allegiance to Islam).

In response to a query whether aside from the legal-formalist aspirations of Islamic parties and the substantialist view of the proponents of cultural or civil Islam, there are no initiatives on the part of Muslim activists to address other 'substantial' issues such as economic developments, generic human rights, justice etc., Effendy claimed that this was not the case. According to him, those driving the Islamic agendas continue to subscribe to legal-formalist interpretations focussing on ritual practice and symbolism. The Chair Dr. Munir Majid doubted whether this is so. Invoking the distinction between the Islamic notions of  fard ayn (individual obligations) and fard kifaya (collective obligations), he admitted the former tend to be overamplified, but the later offer a vehicle for social activism and civil society building.

Yours truly was also surprised that Effendy did not recognize the remarkable parallels, rightly noted by Kepel,  between the historical trajectories in Indonesia and Turkey (apart from an anecdotal reference to the personal friendship of ex-President Habibie with former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan --dating back to their student years in Germany). Perhaps it is a lack of familiarity with developments in the latter country, that prevented Effendy from detecting the undeniable commonalities in the Indonesian and Turkisch experiences with Islam in the public sphere and the accommodation of religion and politics. 

In spite of his discussion of  the intellectual trends circulating among Indonesian Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s, Effendy's presentation missed an updated account of developments during the past turbulent decade and failed to venture beyond a narrow focus on the issue of statehood and Islamic parties role in the formal political process, and unpack the development of substantialist Islamic discourse. For an intellectual from a generation who can be considered to have inherited the legacy of 1970s New Islamic Intellectualism he almost seemed disenchanted and having doubts whether it had all been worth the effort..

The Two Faces of Turkey's "Neo-Ottoman" Revival

In spite of its domestic and international political successes, the AKP-led government of Turkey still faces a fair degree of suspicion regarding its real objectives. Even though there are no concrete indications, let alone evidence, accusations of having a secret agenda for the Islamization of Turkey crop up regularly -- not least in other parts of the Muslim world, where the country's rising profile on the world scene appears to breed a degree of envy; its tangible achievements in democratizing the government system and economic development during the last decade stand in stark contrast with the track record of most of the rest of the Muslim world. In the international arena, Turkey has deployed diplomatic initiatives to improve its relations with its neighbours and mediated in conflicts such as Iran's nuclear question (see also my post of 12 June 2010 and 8 May 2010). But the political and economic drive of the AKP also has casualities.

Indicative are two articles appearing at the same time on the Qantara website, the Germany-based news service about the Muslim world.

In an interview cultural historian Gerhard Schweizer points out that:

Erdogan is trying – as no other Turkish Prime Minister before him – to make use of the strategic value of being the only Muslim country to maintain close relations with Western states and Israel on the one hand, and Arab states and Iran on the other. This gives Turkey the opportunity to act as a mediator, both between Syria and Israel and between Iran and the United States.

 In response to a question why Pesident Abdullah  Gül  prefers Turkey to be 'a leading nation in the Islamic world than bringing up the rear in the West', Schweizer observed that: 

[he] is seen as a staunch advocate of Turkish entry into the EU. He proved this convincingly during his time as Foreign Minister. His words indicate a certain disappointment that many European countries are delaying entry talks; some are even blocking it altogether. Germany under Angela Merkel and France under Nicolas Sarkozy play a more ambivalent role.

As for the reactions elsewhere in the Muslim world:

The Arab states and Iran are observing Turkey's growing involvement in the Islamic realm with mixed feelings. On the one hand they welcome the fact that Turkey, which until now has maintained ties strictly with the West, is now also seeking to establish contacts with its Eastern neighbours whom the West regards with mistrust, and in doing so it is raising their international standing. On the other hand, though, its relations with these countries are burdened by the weight of history.

Schweizer maintains that the AKP under Erdogan has consistently navigated a pragmatic course: 

It would be completely mistaken to believe that Turkey's greater political opening towards to its Muslim neighbours is motivated by religion. It is not their common religion that leads to rapprochement among the Muslim states but their common strategic interests. [...] However, in this instance it is not only Turkey that is being pragmatic, but also Iran. It would be impossible for Iran to form a close alliance with the Turks for purely religious reasons. In this context, may I remind you that Iran, a fundamentalist theocracy, did form a close alliance with secular Syria in the early 1980s, purely based on strategic considerations – an alliance that has lasted to this day.

He therefore adamantly rejects the suggestion that the AKP is motivated by an Islamist agenda:

The accusation that the AKP is trying to establish an Islamist state in Turkey is out of touch with reality. Erdogan does have Islamist roots; his political mentor Necmettin Erbakan was an Islamist. But Erdogan's great success in the polls and subsequent popularity were precisely because he came to power promising to reconcile Islam and the modern secular state, and to overcome intolerant nationalism through the systematic cultivation of democracy.

It is one of the paradoxes of Turkish politics that it is no longer the strictly secular parties, those who orientate themselves towards Atatürk, who are the most emphatic advocates of extending democratic rights. These days it is rather the "Islamic-secular" AKP that is the biggest champion of reforms aimed at paving Turkey's way into joining the EU.

 At the same time, Qantara also included a critical article on the shadow side of the entrepreneurial elan that is driving Turkey and which has the full support of the AKP Government: The risk that Istanbul's historical centre will lose its status as a UNESCO Heritage Site as a result of years of mismanagement and flagrant disregard of the pertaining guidelines. Ironically, this news broke while Istanbul is still Europe's Cultural Capital of 2010. As a result: 

Nervous tension lies like a pall over the city, disbelief: UNESCO wants to revoke Istanbul's World Heritage status. The Old Town is to be put on the red list of endangered cultural heritage sites. And more than a few people nod to themselves, thinking that's just where it belongs. But what a resounding slap in the face for the authorities, what a scandal if it really happens: now of all times, when the city fathers are still gloating over earning the title of European Capital of Culture 2010.

Apparently there are some sinister motives behind the lack of cooperation by the responsible government bodies in Istanbul:

The municipal administration in Fatih is in charge of this part of the city. When UNESCO arrived with money and know-how, the administration not only didn't lift a finger to support the project – it even did everything in its power to sabotage it. "They insinuated to the inhabitants that this was a clandestine project of the Greek patriarchate", says attorney Aysegül Kaya. "The patriarchate supposedly wanted to set up a second Vatican here with the help of the UN: an independent church state."

Crazy? This country has plenty of practice in fomenting paranoia amongst its citizens. When the UNESCO team fanned out to bestow money and restoration plans on the homeowners, many residents slammed the door in their faces.

However, aside from these less savoury aspects, it is also very much a matter of 'money talks':

The time was ripe for the AKP-led municipal administration to take action. Middlemen swooped down and persuaded owners to sell their houses below market price – threatening that they would otherwise be confiscated.

As one disenchanted architect and government adviser, Korhan Gümüs, said: 

"The State does without expert knowledge, without the intelligence available in the society. It acts technocratically. Instead of architects or historic preservationists, it hires construction companies. The results are corruption and injustice. The authorities represent the interests of the most powerful players: the entrepreneurs."

Reflective of these two sides of present-day Turkisch politics and policy making are the media reports on the reopening of an Istanbul landmark, the Pera Palace Hotel, after a four-year refurbishing. The former terminus of the Orient Express, the hotel was the scene of much political wrangling in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Restored it to its former glory but with a contemporary touch, it acts as a symbol for the ambitions of present-day Turkey. At the same time both Associated Press and Arab News also referred to the endangerment of Istanbul's status as a cultural hallmark of world significance. Is this the price to be paid for Turkey's new-found assertiveness and self-confidence through the Neo-Ottoman  -- pragmatic rather than religious -- designs of the AKP?

'Zero Problems with the Neighbours': Davutoglu, Erdogan, Gulen and Turkish Foreign Policy

The recent incident with the Gaza-bounded Flotilla of aid ships involving the vessel Mavi Marmara (operated by the Turkish Islamic charity Isani Yardim Vakfi (IHH) but sailing under Comoros flag) seems to have thrown a stick in the wheels of the AKP government's foreign policy of 'Zero Problems with the Neighbours' as relations between Turkey and Israel have rapidly soured.

Turkey's profile on the world stage has been undeniably heightened through a flurry of activities in international diplomacy. Master-minded by foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, it is indicative of a more assertive Turkish foreign policy. An academic-turned diplomat, Prime Minister Erdoğan's chief international policy advisor carefully handles the Iraq dossier, engineered the rapprochement with Syria and Armenia, mediated in the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2008, and brokered, together with Brasil, a deal on Iran's Nuclear programme. Based on this track record he has already been dubbed 'Turkey's Henry Kissinger'. It has led to a growing attention in both Turkish and international media not only for the man (more here, here, and here), but also for the recalibration of Turkish foreign policy (see the recent coverage in The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Globalist,  Newsweek, and New York Times).

Although he rejects the designation 'neo-Ottomanist'* -- preferring to talk instead of 'Strategic Depth' (also the title of one of his books) -- Davutoğlu's activist regional policy reflects  the elan underlying the AKP's broader political ethic, which betrays an unmistakable re-appreciation for Turkey's Ottoman legacy.  This reorientation has actually been in the making since the early 1980s when the then Prime Minister Turgut Özal managed to coax the uncompromisingly secular military establishment towards the idea of a 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis' or TIS for short (see also my post of 8 May 2010). Since then, some analysists have ventured that the TIS is now even embraced by right-wing nationalist parties such as the MHP to wrest power away from the AKP.

Although there has never been any formal acknowledgment from both sides, the AKP's reorientation away from the explicit Islamist agendas of predecessors such as the Welfare, Virtue, and Felicity Parties is inspired by the ideas of the somewhat enigmatic Fethullah Gülen, whose spiritual guidance has significantly impacted not only on leading figures in the AKP, but also on the outlook of much wider segments of Turkish society. The organization that bears his name, but to which -- again -- the man himself claims to have no official affiliation, has been tremendously successful in building up what can, for the lack of a better word, be called a very wide civil society network both inside Turkey and abroad, encompassing educational institutions (from nurseries to universities), a media conglomerate, charities, and platforms connecting academics and other intellectuals, diplomats, interfaith activists, business people, etc. The extent of the movement's influence is difficult to gauge, but speculations are that its compounded resources are in the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. For this the Gülen Movement  can drawn  on a large pool of donors and other benefactors who made their fortunes in the economic boom that began in the 1980s and led to the rise of the 'Anatolian Tigers' -- the outcome of business initiatives deployed by urban and small-town entrepreneurs from Turkey's main cities and the rural interior.


Now there are appear to be signs of a rift as Gülen, in a very rare interview with the Wall Street Journal, criticizes the organizers of the flotilla, saying that their failure:

to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid "is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters."

Given the Turkish Prime Minister's very critical remarks in the direction of Jerusalem, reigniting the earlier tiff caused by his rebuff of Israeli President Shimon Peres and the Davos Economic Forum in 2009, Gülen's statements are interpreted as veiled criticism of the government's line towards Israel. Consequently:

Mr. Gülen's views and influence within Turkey are under growing scrutiny now, as factions within the country battle to remold a democracy that is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The struggle, as many observers characterize it, pits the country's old-guard secularist and military establishment against Islamist-leaning government workers and ruling politicians who say they seek a more democratic and religiously tolerant Turkey. Mr. Gülen inspires a swath of the latter camp, though the extent of his reach remains hotly disputed.

 His words of restraint come as many in Turkey gave flotilla members a hero's welcome after two days of detention in Israel. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the ruling Justice and Development Party condemned Israel's moves as "bullying" and a "historic mistake."

Mr. Gülen said he had only recently heard of IHH, the Istanbul-based Islamic charity active in more than 100 countries that was a lead flotilla organizer. "It is not easy to say if they are politicized or not," he said. He said that when a charity organization linked with his movement wanted to help Gazans, he insisted they get Israel's permission. He added that assigning blame in the matter is best left to the United Nations.

This intervention has led to renewed speculations over Gülen's influence and intentions, with the Wall Street Journal observing that 'Mr. Gülen has long cut a baffling figure, as critics and adherents have sparred over the nature of his influence in Turkey and the extent of his reach'. It notes that, on the one hand, he is recognized as a moderate figure propagating non-violence and advocating dialogue between the Muslim world and the West, while on the other hand his 'detractors see him as a cult-like leader whose empire aims to train an Islamic elite who will one day rebuild the Turkish state'. The New York Times followed suit with its own assessment of the movement's influence, citing studies by John Esposito and Hakan Yavuz.

Suspecting such sinister designs is an author writing under the pen name Spengler who, in a piece entitled Fethullah Gulen's cave of wonders', portrayed Gülen as 'a shaman, a relic of pre-history preserved in the cultural amber of eastern Anatolia'.

Such diverging opinions are indicative of the fascination commanded by figures like Fethullah Gülen. Articulating alternative Islamic discourses they differ from the exponents of existing traditionalist, reformist and modernist strands of Muslim thought, thus challenging the corresponding conventional and ingrained views of Islam held by outsiders, and -- perhaps most significantly -- undermining the stale authority structures prevailing in many parts of the Muslim world but called into question by increasingly assertive and sophisticated critical Muslims.

* For more on Neo-Ottomanism (pro & contra), click here, here, here, or here).

For a selection of books on Gülen and current Turkish foreign policy click on the images below.