Simon Wolfgang Fuchs - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Books by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs

Edinburgh University Press, 2025

This is the first systematic exploration of the diversity of utopian thought and practice in the ... more This is the first systematic exploration of the diversity of utopian thought and practice in the modern Middle East and North Africa. Beyond intellectual debates, utopianism has infused the many ideologies that have shaped contentious politics and governance in the region, from state formation to revolutionary transformations, conflicts, and the recent authoritarian resurgence. Drawing on case studies from Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, contributors address a broad array of utopian visions pertaining to political ideologies such as liberalism, secularism, Islamic revivalism, and socialism, but also to fields of expertise and technologies such as urbanism, the atom, and artificial intelligence. Likewise, they acknowledge the diversity of players that partake in the production of utopias, including writers, ideologues, activists, statesmen, experts, artists, and social media users. Moreover, authors consider both imaginaries promoted by challengers to the incumbents, and visions that serve the consolidation of authoritarianism.

This book is an attempt to explore how jihadi authors make use of the Sunni tradition in order to... more This book is an attempt to explore how jihadi authors make use of the Sunni tradition in order to bolster their case. Such a discussion is a desideratum even in Islamic studies since oftentimes radical authors are chastised a priori for their untenable misrepresentation of religion. Similarly, their arguments are tossed aside as a simple recycling of an irrelevant stream of thought that stretches directly from Ibn Taymīya over Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb to Sayyid Quṭb. In revisiting this claim, "Proper Signposts for the Camp" employs a close reading of a crucial jihadi text: al-ʿUmda fī Iʿdād al-ʿUdda was written in the context of Afghanistan in 1988 by an influential Egyptian ideologue who is widely known as Dr. Faḍl. The book maps and evaluates all religious sources and authorities the author puts to use with a particular focus on questions of political authority. I argue that Dr. Faḍl makes a convincing case for a political project in the camps that is deeply embedded in the Sunni tradition while reading Ibn Taymīya faithfully: Dr. Faḍl does not turn him into a proponent of violence but rather sticks to the profound quietism the Damascene scholar is known for.

Religion in Diktatur und Demokratie: Zur Bedeutung religiöser Werte, Praktiken und Institutionen in politischen Transformationsprozessen (Lit Verlag: Berlin, 2011)

"Politik und Religion ist wieder Thema wissenschaftlicher Agenda. Mit dem Zuwachs an Diskursen ge... more "Politik und Religion ist wieder Thema wissenschaftlicher Agenda. Mit dem Zuwachs an Diskursen geht auch deren Ausdifferenzierung einher. Ein Teilbereich dieser Auseinandersetzungen beinhaltet die Analyse des Verhältnisses von Demokratie und Religion. Dieser Sammelband untersucht diesbezüglich drei Loslösungsprozesse und verfolgt zum einen die Loslösung von einem minimalistischen Demokratieverständnis, zum zweiten von der Vorstellung der ausschließlichen Demokratieverträglichkeit christlicher Traditionen und drittens von der normativen Dimension geltender Säkularisierungsvorstellungen"

Reviews of In a Pure Muslim Land by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs

Asiatische Studien - Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2022

The attacks of September 11, 2001 spurred an intense interest in "moderate Islam" in U.S. governm... more The attacks of September 11, 2001 spurred an intense interest in "moderate Islam" in U.S. government circles. Some high-ranking officials, for example, saw "moderate Muslims" as necessary allies in the "War on Terror." In this article, we examine how the United States went about making allies in the Muslim world after the attacks. The goal was supposedly straightforward: "moderate" Muslims were to be strengthened and empowered to act as an antidote to radical groups. Yet such plans ran into numerous problems. First was the notoriously difficult definition of "moderate Islam," which ranged from a simple rejection of the primacy of jihad to the acceptance of basic democratic values. Second, in reaching out to the Muslim world, the United States could not solve its own dilemma of being torn between a preference for stability provided by autocrats and the commitment to promote "Islamic" forms of democracy. These tensions resurfaced in the deepened partnership with two countries that were touted as manifestations of moderate Islam's new promise: Turkey and Pakistan. Given their past efforts in fighting communism, both countries were seen to be potentially equally reliable partners in fighting the new "radical Islamic menace." As we show, however, these visions did not materialize as hoped. The U.S. government overestimated the room local actors had to maneuver while underestimating the political costs that came with being tied too closely to American interests.

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2022

This article explores the engagement of the Pakistani Jamaʿat-i Islami (JI) with the Iranian Revo... more This article explores the engagement of the Pakistani Jamaʿat-i Islami (JI) with the Iranian Revolution. I argue that the Islamist JI was drawn to the events because it reflected a core concern and signature idea of Abu 'l-Aʿla Maududi, namely to establish the sovereignty of God (hakimiyya) on earth. My analysis of various travelogues and JI publications from the 1980s demonstrates that JI observers were deeply familiar with internal revolutionary dynamics and Iran's Shiʿi identity. The prospect of seeing a proper Islamic system in action, with potentially global consequences for their cause, initially crowded out any sectarian concerns for the JI. At the same time, certain JI leaders began to voice criticism of what they perceived as rash revolutionary policies that differed from Maududi's careful, irenic understanding of a proper Islamic revolution. They also took note of sectarian messages that damaged Iran's ecumenical outreach. It was, however, the more general geopolitical climate in the Middle East and South Asia which forced the JI to publicly downplay its ties with Iran. By the late 1980ss, being accused of harbouring affinities for the 'deviant Islam' of Shiʿism was a charge that had to be avoided at all costs in Pakistan and beyond.

Islamic Law and Society, 2020

Why did the famous North Indian modernist and founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in... more Why did the famous North Indian modernist and founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1315/1898), lash out against emulation (taqlīd) in Islamic law (fiqh)? The usual explanation is that he wanted to shift religious authority away from the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) toward ordinary Muslims. Countering this claim, I argue that his goal and that of his followers and associates at Aligarh was not primarily to 'democratize' Islamic knowledge by doing away with the traditional edifice of Islamic law in general and the four established Sunni legal schools in particular. Rather, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and his associates attacked taqlīd because, in their view, it failed to yield reliable, certain knowledge (yaqīn). Drawing on Urdu writings , I demonstrate that these modernist thinkers did not engage with the inner logic of Islamic law but rather measured it according to higher, theological, and philosophical standards. In their quest for certainty, they were inspired both by a scientific worldview as well as colonial conceptions of law.

Get the full paper here: https://brill.com/view/journals/ils/aop/article-10.1163-15685195-00260A15/article-10.1163-15685195-00260A15.xml

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020

This article draws on a wide range of Shiʽi periodicals and monographs from the 1950s until the p... more This article draws on a wide range of Shiʽi periodicals and monographs from the 1950s until the present day to investigate debates on the status of Sayyids in Pakistan. I argue that the discussion by reformist and traditionalist Shiʽi scholars (ʽulama) and popular preachers has remained remarkably stable over this time period. Both ‘camps’ have avoided talking about any theological or miracle-working role of the Prophet's kin. This phenomenon is remarkable, given the fact that Sayyids share their pedigree with the Shiʽi Imams, who are credited with superhuman qualities. Instead, Shiʽi reformists and traditionalists have discussed Sayyids predominantly as a specific legal category. They are merely entitled to a distinct treatment as far as their claims to charity, patterns of marriage, and deference in daily life is concerned. I hold that this reductionist and largely legalising reading of Sayyids has to do with the intense competition over religious authority in post-Partition Pakistan. For both traditionalist and reformist Shiʽi authors, ʽulama, and preachers, there was no room to acknowledge Sayyids as potential further competitors in their efforts to convince the Shiʽi public about the proper ‘orthodoxy’ of their specific views.

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2020

At first glance, Christians and Shi‘is occupy starkly differing socio-economic and religious posi... more At first glance, Christians and Shi‘is occupy starkly differing socio-economic and religious positions in Pakistani society. Yet, this article argues that both communities share some remarkable similarities in their engagement with the seemingly hostile Pakistani state. Both Christians and Shi‘is have not given up on claiming their stakes as full citizens of the nation despite repeated attempts by parts of the majority population to ostracise and exclude them. I show how they continue to re-read the early history of Pakistan, attempt to prove their unwavering loyalty to the state, try to build bridges with the majority community and, finally, portray themselves as being a spiritual elite that still guarantees the initial promise of Pakistan.

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2020

This introduction to the special section of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, titled ‘R... more This introduction to the special section of South Asia: Journal of
South Asian Studies, titled ‘Religious Minorities in Pakistan’, reviews
the existing scholarship on this topic, points out gaps in the
research, and discusses problematic notions and assumptions in
both popular and academic discourses on minorities.
Furthermore, it attempts a definition of the term ‘religious minority’,
demonstrates its extensive entanglement with the question
of caste—a characteristic specific to the South Asian case—and
situates this discourse within broader debates about post-colonial
state-building, the history of sectarianism in the region, contestations
over religious authority, and the striving for a coherent political
and cultural identity in Pakistan, the second-largest Muslim
nation in the world.

Global Discourse, 2019

This article questions the often-assumed centrality of Saudi Arabia for the development of anti-S... more This article questions the often-assumed centrality of Saudi Arabia for the development of anti-Shi‘i sectarianism in Pakistan. I argue that those groups and individuals who have been most vocal about the Shi‘i ‘threat’ since the 1980s lacked (and continue to lack) any strong lineages with the Kingdom. Instead, their local polemics in Urdu foregrounded Pakistan as a political idea and global promise for Islam. This status of Pakistan’s self-view was acutely threatened by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent establishment of a religious state under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. Consequently, Pakistani sectarian scholars transcended earlier Salafi-inspired arguments and tried to render Sunni Islam ‘fit’ to compete with powerful Shi‘i symbols. In doing so, they displayed a remarkable willingness to appropriate and rework Shi‘i concepts, something that is far from the mind of Saudi clerics.

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd/2019/00000009/00000004/art00009#

Behemoth, 2019

In this article, I argue that a prevalent focus on sectarianism in conceptualizing contemporary S... more In this article, I argue that a prevalent focus on sectarianism in conceptualizing contemporary Sunni-Shi‘i relations has blinded us to important processes of intellectual appropriation and mimicry between the two communities. In the context of Pakistan and Afghanistan, I focus on the anti-Shi‘i group of the Sipah-i Sahabah-i Pakistan (Army of the Companions of the Prophet, SSP) as well as Islamist Sunni groups active in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets during the 1980s in order to make the case that Shi‘ism in general and Iran in particular remain important fixtures for the Sunni imagination. This rings especially true as far as the issue of martyrdom is concerned. In Pakistan, the SSP tried to actively counter the symbolic power of Shi‘i symbols and concepts, styling itself as producing superior Sunni martyrs. In Afghanistan, Sunni groups made sense of the jihad by applying Iranian lenses of martyrdom to their battlefield experiences.

This paper seeks to illuminate the intellectual impact of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 among Pa... more This paper seeks to illuminate the intellectual impact of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 among Pakistani Shiʻas by focusing on Sayyid ʻArif Husain al-Husaini, the dominating Shiʻi leader of the 1980s. In particular, I am interested in exploring how al-Husaini adapted hallmark themes of the Iranian revolutionary message, such as Muslim unity or political leadership of the religious scholars (ʻulama), to the specific circumstances of Pakistan. Crucial for such processes of translation was not only pressure from the Pakistani state but rather internal challenges and divisions among the Shiʻi community. While al-Husaini could draw on a strong, indigenous tradition of political mobilisation, his revolutionary ʻthird waveʼ of Shiʻi thought sat uncomfortably between Lucknow-educated traditionalists and Najaf-trained reformers who shied away from getting entangled in these novel forms of politics. By drawing on biographical accounts and al-Husaini's speeches in Urdu, I trace how his revolutionary rhetoric had to accommodate thorny local issues such as sectarianism, South Asian mourning traditions or the lack of an established Shiʻi clerical hierarchy in Pakistan.

This article adds to the growing literature on transnational Shiʿism which has so far mostly focu... more This article adds to the growing literature on transnational Shiʿism which has so far mostly focused on social history and political contestations. By tracing the thought and transnational legacy of the reformist Shiʿi scholar Muhammad al-Khalisi (d. 1963), I argue for the crucial importance of local ideas for evolving modernist projects. In his native Iraq, al-Khalisi not only distinguished himself as a guerrilla fighter and political activist but also was shaped by prevailing notions about the compatibility of Islam and science. During his exile in Iran from 1922 to 1949, he encountered specific medicalizing discourses on modernity. This exposure and his experience as a practitioner of medicine in the Iranian countryside led al-Khalisi to identify medicine as the master key to unlock the secrets of the divine law, the shariʿa: his major work on Islamic law singles out human health as God's supreme concern in revelation. Back in Iraq in the 1950s, al-Khalisi's medical-scientific vision of modernity was finally complemented with an uncompromising call for intra-Muslim. This stance led to furious attack against al-Khalisi which continue unabated in contemporary Pakistan where his name has become a term of abuse.

Die Welt des Islams, 2013

This article is an attempt to explore how ǧihādī authors make use of the Sunni tradition to bolst... more This article is an attempt to explore how ǧihādī authors make use of the Sunni tradition to bolster their case. Islamicists have rarely embarked on such a discussion, given the tendency to a priori chastise extremist authors for their untenable misrepresentation of Islam. Similarly, ǧihādī arguments are frequently tossed aside as an already familiar rehashing of an insignificant, isolated stream of thought that stretches directly from Ibn Taimīya via Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb to Sayyid Quṭb. In revisiting this claim, I employ a close reading of the crucial ǧihādī manual al-ʿUmda fī iʿdād al-ʿudda li-l-ǧihād fī sabīl Allāh (The Essential Guide of Preparation for ǧihād on the Path of God), written in the mid 1980ies in the context of the Afghan ǧihād by an influential ideologue who is widely known as Dr. Faḍl. After presenting and evaluating a selection of the religious sources and authorities on which the author draws, the article enters into a discussion of his political thought. I argue that Dr. Faḍl makes a convincing case for a political project in the camps that is deeply embedded within the Sunni tradition while reading Ibn Taimīya faithfully. Dr. Faḍl does not turn him into a proponent of violence but rather sticks to the profound quietism the Damascene scholar is known for, thereby questioning supposedly established, clear-cut paths of reception.

Die Welt des Islams, 2012

This translation of Ḥoseyn ʿAlī Montaẓarī’s discussion of the equality of all human beings within... more This translation of Ḥoseyn ʿAlī Montaẓarī’s discussion of the equality of all human beings within the boundaries of the shārīʿa. was published in Die Welt des Islams, Volume 52, Number 1, 2012 , pp. 69-102(34). Montaẓarī extensively deals with questions relating to gender, apostasy, and transgressions of the divine law, advocating a rather restricted role of the religious government in commanding right and forbidding wrong. It covers pages 114–55 of the 1386 (2007/08) edition published by Sarāʾī in Tehran.

Der Beitrag widmet sich dem umstrittenen irakischen schiitischen Geistlichen Muhammad AL-CHALISI ... more Der Beitrag widmet sich dem umstrittenen irakischen schiitischen Geistlichen Muhammad AL-CHALISI (1890-1963) und insbesondere seinen intensiven Bemühungen, die Moderne und die islamische Religion in Einklang zu bringen. In einzigartiger und anderweitig so nicht dokumentierter Bedingungslosigkeit schrieb AL-CHALISI wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen und speziell dem medizinischen Fortschritt die Rolle eines „intellektuellen Generalschlüssels“ zu. Dieser war nach seiner Überzeugung in der Lage, die seit der Frühzeit des Islams verborgenen Geheimnisse des göttlichen Gesetzes ein für alle Mal offenzulegen. Wie das Kapitel aufzeigt war AL-CHALISIs Sicht stark von der iranischen Diskussion in Bezug auf Technik und Wissenschaft geprägt, mit welcher er durch langjährige Exilerfahrung intensiv vertraut war. Der irakische Religionsgelehrte übernahm die in seinem Nachbarland vorherrschende medizinische Verengung auf Modernität und identifizierte menschliche Gesundheit als Gottes vordringlichste Sorge in seinem Weltenplan und als Ziel des von ihm gestifteten Gesetzes. AL-CHALISI geht damit weit über eine generelle Wissenschaftsaffinität modernistischer islamischer Werke der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts hinaus. Selbst den Zweck solcher göttlicher Gebote nämlich, die auf den ersten Blick in keiner direkten Beziehung zu Fragen der Gesundheit stehen, nimmt AL-CHALISI aus seiner allumfassend sozialhygienischen Warte in den Blick.

Book Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Edited Volumes by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs

Utopianism in the Middle East and North Africa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 2025

After defining utopianism and the scope of the volume, this introduction to Utopianism in the Mid... more After defining utopianism and the scope of the volume, this introduction to Utopianism in the Middle East and North Africa provides a comprehensive review of the relevant secondary literature as well as a synoptic survey of the history of utopianism in the modern Middle Eastern and North Africa. We argue that the role of utopias in the region varied widely throughout three main phases: from the 19th century until the interwar period, utopias reflected the elite-centered, anti-despotic, and reform-oriented character of the liberal age’s politics. During the subsequent radical age, utopias were a key driver of contentious mobilization, as well as a major component of state policies wherever revolutionary forces took over, from Mustafa Kemal’s Turkish Republic to Khomeini’s Iran. Since the end of the Cold War, Middle Eastern politics has been permeated by utopian visions that were either characterized by limited transformative ambitions (neoliberalism, electoral Islamism) or put into practice rather than theorised ex ante, such as the attempts at self-organisation that ensued from the 2011 and 2019 revolts. Radical utopias were confined to peripheral conflict zones (e.g., Islamic State, Rojava), while techno-utopianism underwent a revival as part of the post-2013 authoritarian restoration.

The Fate of Third Worldism in the Middle East. Palestine, Iran and Beyond," edited by Rasmus Elling and Sune Haugbolle, 2024

In this chapter, I make use of a batch of classified Iranian documents to revisit the question of... more In this chapter, I make use of a batch of classified Iranian documents to
revisit the question of how the Islamic Republic reached out to the Global
South in the early 1980s. I argue that Iran’s export of the revolution in the
form of several delegations traversing countries from Gabon to Malaysia was
not only ad-hoc and improvised but also affected by the serious tension of
navigating pan-Islamic solidarity and Third Worldism. At a time when leftist
Iranian groups involved with the revolution of 1978–1979 had become
marginalised and eliminated, the ‘travelling revolutionaries’ in Iran’s delegations still tried to play the card of international anti-imperialist solidarity. In 1983, however, they had come to feel much more at home in a specific Islamic idiom.

South Asia Unbound. New International Histories of the Subcontinent, 2023

This chapter recentres South Asian actors and ideas at the heart of Islamist debates in the twent... more This chapter recentres South Asian actors and ideas at the heart of Islamist debates in the twentieth century. It shows how Pakistan's Jamaat-i Islami (JI), well-connected to the Middle East, claimed a leadership role for the idea of a global Islamic revolution. The fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979 constituted a source of pride for the party. At the same time, the JI was careful to highlight the Shi'i clerics' comprehensive ideological indebtedness. When Iran became increasingly less ecumenical in outlook throughout the 1980s, the JI moved away from the country and grasped the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as another opportunity to position itself a leading international Islamist actor and keeper of the true revolutionary flame.

Edinburgh University Press, 2025

Religion in Diktatur und Demokratie: Zur Bedeutung religiöser Werte, Praktiken und Institutionen in politischen Transformationsprozessen (Lit Verlag: Berlin, 2011)

Asiatische Studien - Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2022

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2022

Islamic Law and Society, 2020

Get the full paper here: https://brill.com/view/journals/ils/aop/article-10.1163-15685195-00260A15/article-10.1163-15685195-00260A15.xml

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2020

Global Discourse, 2019

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd/2019/00000009/00000004/art00009#

Behemoth, 2019

Die Welt des Islams, 2013

Die Welt des Islams, 2012

Utopianism in the Middle East and North Africa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 2025

The Fate of Third Worldism in the Middle East. Palestine, Iran and Beyond," edited by Rasmus Elling and Sune Haugbolle, 2024

South Asia Unbound. New International Histories of the Subcontinent, 2023

This chapter draws on periodicals in Dari, Urdu, Arabic, and English published by various Afghan ... more This chapter draws on periodicals in Dari, Urdu, Arabic, and English published by various Afghan parties involved in the Jihad period of the 1980s. I challenge prevailing views that dismiss Afghan Islamic debates in response to the Soviet invasion as lacking in seriousness, intellectual vitality, originality, or even any engagement with the local context. Instead, I suggest that Afghans actors emphasized the international calling and the global significance of their military and political efforts. These were steeped much more in Shi'i imaginary and profoundly influenced by the Iranian Revolution than has been acknowledged so far. I also show how the experience of the Jihad gave rise to new conceptions of the individual, the family, and finally the nation. The time of struggle sharpened discussions about both the structure of the current, camp-based polities and the future political setup of a liberated Afghanistan.

Oxford Bibliographies, 2022

Shiʿis are not a marginal group in Pakistan. They comprise about 15–20 percent of a population of... more Shiʿis are not a marginal group in Pakistan. They comprise about 15–20 percent of a population of more than 210 million people, which means that they form the second-largest Shiʿi community in the world after Iran. Shiʿi objects of devotion in the form of banners, images, and flags dot urban residential quarters as well as the countryside. Their processions are highly visible in major cities such as Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad. Shiʿis are also well represented in the political elite and the business community, thus continuing a legacy of Shiʿi princely states, Sufi leaders, and large landowners in the region. At the same time, however, Shiʿi activists complain bitterly about their marginal status in Pakistan, a state they helped create and that was supposed to embody an ecumenical Islamic spirit as a homeland for all Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. According to this narrative, Shiʿis have been targeted since the early decades of the state’s inception and have even been subjected to a deliberate and outright Shiʿi “genocide” since the 1980s, when sectarian tensions rose sharply in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. As a reaction, Shiʿis have mobilized politically and have also tried to present themselves as “pure” and acceptable orthodox Muslims. Yet this focus on sectarian violence glosses over the equally important internal tensions among Pakistan’s Shiʿis. Unlike in other countries with a sizable Shiʿi population, such as Iraq, Lebanon, or Iran, the religious scholars (ulama) cannot claim to be exclusively in charge of Shiʿi forms of piety in Pakistan. Instead, they compete for leadership with popular and often esoteric preachers as well as with (heterodox) Sufis who display certain Shiʿi leanings. This also means that Shiʿi interpretations that embrace the Iranian model of governance, known as “guardianship of the jurisprudent” (vilayat-i faqih), are fiercely contested by many Shiʿis who are skeptical of the clerics’ claims to represent the Hidden Imam during the time of his Occultation (ghayba).

Routledge Handbook of Islam in Asia (ed. by Chiara Formichi), 2021

This chapter considers three turning points of Shi'i Islam in South Asia in order to provide a (l... more This chapter considers three turning points of Shi'i Islam in South Asia in order to provide a (limited) sense of the state of the field. My point of departure shall be the deposition of Wajid ʿAli Shah (r. 1847– 1856), the final King of Awadh, in 1856. This political act was not only one of the sparks leading to the uprising against British rule in the subcontinent revolt of 1857 (also known as the “Mutiny”), but also brought an end to the Shiʿi state of Awadh, a wealthy and powerful patron of Shiʿi institutions, scholarship, and art. As a consequence, Shiʿi communal life began to coalesce around voluntary associations and other models of leadership throughout Northern India. The next major turning point to be considered here is the Partition of the Subcontinent in 1947. While leading scholars stayed behind in what became India, many popular (and often “esoterically- minded”) preachers migrated to Pakistan, trying to carve out new Shiʿi spaces in the state that was envisioned as a homeland for India’s Muslims. These voices were eventually challenged after a new generation of reformist- minded religious scholars (ʿulama) returned from their studies in Najaf, Iraq to Pakistan. A final turning point is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which caused significant internal cleavages in both India and Pakistan. Politicized scholars who embraced Iran’s revolutionary ideology became pitted against those who rejected such readings of the faith. More importantly, however, the rise to power by the Shiʿi clergy in Iran opened a new and painful chapter of Shiʿi– Sunni sectarianism in South Asia.

A/Symmetrie — Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, 2023

Woher kommt die vorherrschende Idee, die ‚muslimische Welt‘ nach ihrer Symmetrie zum ‚Westen‘ zu ... more Woher kommt die vorherrschende Idee, die ‚muslimische Welt‘ nach ihrer Symmetrie zum ‚Westen‘ zu beurteilen? Der Beitrag zeigt auf, welche wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten für diesen Ansatz die Grundlage gelegt und so seine Popularisierung bis in die höchsten Höhen deutscher Bestsellerlisten ermöglicht haben. Zudem regt der Essay an, diese problematische und lediglich wenig belastbare Asymmetrien erzeugende Vergleichsfalle durch neue Ansätze zu überwinden.

Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Islamisch-Theologische Studien, 2023

Wohl wenige Neologismen haben islamisches Denken im 20. Jahrhundert so entscheidend geprägt wie ḥ... more Wohl wenige Neologismen haben islamisches Denken im 20. Jahrhundert so entscheidend geprägt wie ḥākimiyya. Unter diesem Begriff (gerade in der Verbindung ḥākimiyyat Allāh) ist Gottes absolute Souveränität und Regentschaft zu verstehen. Bestechend ist die scheinbar simple Logik des Konzepts, die wohl maßgeblich dazu beigetragen hat, dass es auf solch eine Erfolgsgeschichte zurückblicken kann. Ḥākimiyya führt uns direkt zum Kern allen islamistischen Nachdenkens über das Verhältnis von Staat und Religion in der Gegenwart. Wo Gottes absolute Souveränität sich manifestiert, ist scheinbar kein Raum für alternative Herrschaftskonstrukte. Das bedeutet insbesondere, dass keine anderen Gesetze als Gottes Vorgaben die Oberhand behalten dürfen. Wer etwas anderes behauptet, so die Fortführung dieser Denkweise, macht sich des Unglaubens schuldig. In diesem Beitrag möchte ich die Genese von ḥākimiyya nachzeichnen und ihr frühmoderne muslimische Konzeptionen von Souveränität gegenüberstellen. Auf diese Weise soll deutlich werden, welchen radikalen Bruch mit der islamischen Tradition dieses Konzept darstellt und wie schnell seine inhärenten Probleme auch für islamistische Denker sichtbar wurden.

Aufbau, 2021

Iran betrachtet sich selbst als wichtige Regionalmacht am Persischen Golf. Um seinen Einfluss aus... more Iran betrachtet sich selbst als wichtige Regionalmacht am Persischen Golf. Um seinen Einfluss auszubauen, vollzieht das Land widersprüchliche Manöver. Eine aktuelle Einordnung.
Erschienen in Aufbau Nr. 3, Juni/Juli 2021, 87. Jahrgang, S. 16-18
https://www.aufbau.eu/artikel/fokus/im-bann-der-korridore

Junge Akademie Magazin, 2019

http://magazin.diejungeakademie.de/?page\_id=131

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Beirut Office, 2019

This article highlights two unexpected Lebanese reactions to the Iranian events of 1978-79, unfol... more This article highlights two unexpected Lebanese reactions to the Iranian events of 1978-79, unfolding on a world stage brimming with expectation. I pay particular attention to Lebanese Sunni Islamist and leftist thinkers. Taken together, their writings demonstrate that the revolutionary period, and the early 1980s in general, were a laboratory of both ecumenical Islam and serious attempts at forging a leftist-Islamist alliance. Islamist actors perceived Khomeini’s rise not only as an opportunity to finally do away with internal dissensions in Islam. It also brought home to them the urgency of reaching out to workers and the urban poor instead of only debating within their own echo chambers. On the left, too, excitement prevailed for much longer than we commonly assume. Leftist intellectuals in Lebanon, many of whom were born into Shi‘i families themselves, were full of admiration for Iran’s transformation after the Revolution as well as the country’s newly gained “antiimperialist” credentials.

This talk, held at UC Berkeley's Institute for South Asia Studies on 9 April 2016, explores the c... more This talk, held at UC Berkeley's Institute for South Asia Studies on 9 April 2016, explores the complex dynamics of closeness and distance that characterize the relationship of Pakistan's Shi'i scholars with the Middle Eastern “heartlands.” Notions of center and periphery are seemingly clear-cut in this context. The leading Grand Ayatollahs reside in Najaf and Qum. The major religious seminaries are located in West Asia. After 1979 Iran took on the role of a global Shi'i power. Yet, I intend to show the creative ways of how South Asian Shi'i thinkers, who are intimately connected to the Middle East, carve out spaces of authority for themselves. I focus on how they reinterpret the Islamic scholarly tradition while acting as brokers between texts written in Arabic/Persian and Urdu. The talk also emphasizes the unique role which Pakistani Shi'is attribute to their country in shaping the global future of Islam.

The video recording of the event can be accessed here: http://southasia.berkeley.edu/simon-fuchs

Political Science Quarterly, 2025

H/Soz/Kult, 2025

https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-139513

Die Welt des Islams, 2025

As we discuss whether and "How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom", a war has been rag... more As we discuss whether and "How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom", a war has been raging in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack and massacre of October 7, 2023. More than 1,700 Israelis and nearly 45,000 Palestinians have been killed (as of December 2024), and Israel is being accused of both committing a "scholasticide" and turning increasingly to aspects of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.1 The state of Israel finds itself under (threat of) attack from various regional enemies and is engaging in a ground offensive in Southern Lebanon and air strikes in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. Israel's military engagements have fueled the bds movement. Calls to boycott, divest and sanction Israel increasingly target Israeli scholars as individuals considered to represent the Israeli regime. These realities add urgency to the question to what extent we, as scholars in the humanities, live and work, read and write in an ivory tower or, as Maya Wind's book claims, in Towers of Ivory and Steel. This passionately written monograph can be understood as an invitation to Israeli scholars to engage in a critical introspection. For a number of reasons, however, it is unlikely to attract a wider readership in Israeli academia.2 We, the reviewers, read Maya Wind's book together at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where one of us is associate professor in Islamic/Middle Eastern and Asian Studies and the other has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2023

Islamic Law and Society, 2022

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2021

Already in life, ʿAbdallah ʿAzzam was a legend: an ascetic "cleric with balls" (p. 500) whose wor... more Already in life, ʿAbdallah ʿAzzam was a legend: an ascetic "cleric with balls" (p. 500) whose words and actions aligned and who "spoke truth to power" (p. 480). No wonder that his untimely death in a bomb blast in Peshawar in 1989 (aka "the biggest murder mystery in the history of jihadism" [p. 436]) only added even more hagiographic layers. Since then, ʿAzzam has been turned into an icon of jihadi "pop culture" with a "brand value and level of recognizability comparable to that of Che Guevara on the political left" (p. 466). Thomas Hegghammer, however, is far from star-struck. The Caravan is a careful, impressive, and comprehensive work that drills deep into ʿAzzam's biography. This pioneering book delineates how he became the founder of the so-called Services Bureau (Maktab al-Khidamāt) who through this initiative greatly facilitated the travel of Arab foreign fighters to Pakistan and (sometimes) onward to join the jihad in Afghanistan. Six out of eighteen chapters deal with ʿAzzam's early life in the West Bank, his contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Fedayeen movement, and his intellectual formation in Damascus and at al-Azhar, where he completed a doctorate in Islamic legal theory (p. 76). By 1977, the refugee of the 1967 war seemed to have made it in Jordan: ʿAzzam had a large family and a house, was a charismatic and admired university teacher (pp. 80-87) and a senior figure in the Brotherhood who traveled internationally (p. 97). Yet, bitter internal disagreements put his career in disarray and led to his expulsion from Jordan. In the fall of 1980, ʿAzzam found himself in Saudi Arabia, broke and somewhat adrift. His life took a new direction when he was able to climb on the Saudi-sponsored "pan-Islamic" bandwagon, which according to Hegghammer had been accelerating from the 1960s due to "a cluster of religious institutions in Western Saudi Arabia," such as the Muslim World League. ʿAzzam benefitted from an exchange program between King ʿAbd al-ʿAziz University, the Saudi institution where he was teaching at the time, and the newly established Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan (pp. 106-8). His new home in Pakistan's capital brought ʿAzzam much closer to where the jihadi action was. From 1982, ʿAzzam's most productive period as writer, recruiter, and ideologue began, first as a part-time jihadi who only visited Peshawar on the weekends, then full-time starting in 1986. Until his death, he wrote several jihadi classics, such as Signs of the Merciful in the Afghan Jihad (1983) and Join the Caravan (1987). Palestine and the "liberation of Jerusalem" remained on ʿAzzam's mind throughout his life. With the battlefield against Israel inaccessible due to neighboring Arab states preventing fighters "from even getting within striking distance," Afghanistan had become the ultimate opportunity for boosting Muslim morale and establishing an exemplary Islamic state (p. 25-26). In narrating this fascinating and untold story, Hegghammer draws on a wide range of interviews and primary Arabic sources to dispel popular falsehoods, such as that the United States trained the Afghan Arabs (pp. 182-4), that the Saudi government helped to create al-Qaʿida (p. 416), and that the Arab foreign fighters made a significant military difference in Afghanistan (p. 365). He emphasizes that until 1984 no systematic recruitment scheme for foreign fighters was in place (p. 166). The Afghan Mujahidin made it clear that they needed money, not Arab volunteers. The Services Bureau was thus an organization with a broad portfolio which covered, for instance, schools, logistics into Afghanistan, and aid (pp. 217-238). When significantly more Arabs arrived later (up to 7,000 until 1989 in Hegghammer's estimate), the Bureau struggled to offer them actual weapons training. This was one of the primary reasons why Usama Bin Laden tried to build his own training facilities, which eventually led to the establishment of al-Qaʿida (pp. 331-38). What emerges from Hegghammer's meticulous

Die Welt des Islams, 2021

Published in Die Welt des Islams 61,1 (2021): 124-126

Die Welt des Islams, 2020

Published in Die Welt des Islams 60 (2020), pp. 103-105

Die Welt des Islams, 2019

Published in Die Welt des Islams 59 (2019), pp. 99-102

International Quarterly for Asian Studies, 2018

https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/CIS/article/view/36355/34985

Bulletin of SOAS, 2018

doi:10.1017/S0041977X18000617

Review of Middle East Studies, 2017

Fuchs, Simon Wolfgang (2016) ‘Raihan Ismail : Saudi Clerics and Shīʿa Islam. xvi, 309 pp. New Yor... more Fuchs, Simon Wolfgang (2016) ‘Raihan Ismail : Saudi Clerics and Shīʿa Islam. xvi, 309 pp. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. £47.99. ISBN 978 0 190 23331 0.’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 79(3), pp. 656–657. doi: 10.1017/S0041977X16000665.

Published in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 79, Issue 02, June 20... more Published in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 79, Issue 02, June 2016, pp. 423-424
Book under review: Denis Hermann : Kirmānī Shaykhism and the ijtihād: A Study of Abū al-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī' s Ijtihād wa taqlīd. (Bibliotheca Academica, Reihe Orientalistik, Band 24.) 50 pp. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2015. €12. ISBN 978 3 95650 097 8.

Op-Ed Piece published in the Feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on 21 July 20... more Op-Ed Piece published in the Feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on 21 July 2015 (in German).

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2022

Published in the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (WZfdKdM) 105 (2015).

Der „Leitfaden für Proseminar- und Hauptseminararbeiten“ des Orientalischen Seminars der Albert-L... more Der „Leitfaden für Proseminar- und Hauptseminararbeiten“ des Orientalischen Seminars der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Stand: Januar 2018) basiert auf seinem Basler Vorbild:
Alp Yenen und Olmo Gölz: „Leitfaden für Proseminar- und Seminararbeiten.” Universität Basel, Seminar für Nahoststudien. Stand: Oktober 2015; Unter redaktioneller Unterstützung von (in alphabetischer Reihenfolge): Barbara Häcki, Joël László, Nataša Miškovic, Maurus Reinkowski, Ulrike Stehli-Werbeck und Sevinç Yaşargil.

This dissertation rethinks the common center-periphery perspective which frames the Middle East a... more This dissertation rethinks the common center-periphery perspective which frames the Middle East as the seat of authoritative religious reasoning vis-à-vis a marginal South Asian Islam. Drawing on 15 months of archival research and interviews conducted in Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, and the United Kingdom, I demonstrate how Shīʿī and Sunnī religious scholars (ʿulamā) in colonial India and Pakistan negotiate a complex web of closeness and distance that connects them to eminent Muslim jurists residing in the Arab lands and Iran. The project attempts to move beyond scholarly paradigms that investigate the transnational travel of ideas in terms of either resistance and rejection, on the one hand, or wholesale adoption, on the other. Rather, I show how local South Asian scholars occupy a creative and at times disruptive role as brokers, translators, and self-confident pioneers of modern and contemporary Islamic thought. Relying on unexplored sources in Urdu, Arabic, and Persian, the dissertation examines these dynamics through the lenses of sectarianism, reform, and religious authority. It demonstrates how Indian Shīʿīs in the 1940s were haunted by the specter of Pakistan as a potentially exclusively Sunnī state. These substantial cleavages resurfaced in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Khomeini's model of the Rule of the Jurisprudent led sectarian Deobandīs to frame Shīʿīs as detrimental to their vision of creating a model Sunnī Islamic polity which was supposed to fulfil the promise of Pakistan. In the context of internal Shīʿī debates, I pay close attention to modernist challenges to Lucknow's Shīʿī clerical establishment in the late colonial period. Building on this conflict, I discuss how both reformist ʿulamā and their traditionalist, esoteric critics sought to appropriate the authority of leading Iranian and Iraqi Ayatollahs in order to emphasize their faithfulness to the Shīʿī mainstream. Both groups advanced their own, diverging vision of how to achieve a rapprochement with the Sunnī majority. The question of religious authority also plays a central role during the succession struggle after the death of a major “Source of Emulation” (marjaʿ al-taqlīd). I highlight the ability of Pakistani scholars to acquire religious clout during such periods of uncertainty. Similar agency is reflected in the unique ways in which Pakistan's Shīʿīs gradually made sense of the Iranian Revolution and how they filtered its transnational implications through the prism of their local religious needs. This study in its transnational scope speaks to historians of South Asia, the Middle East, and Islam, as well as to scholars working in the fields of Islamic thought, transnational history, Shīʿī studies, and religion more broadly.

This is an abstract of my PhD Dissertation which I wrote at Princeton's Department of Near Easter... more This is an abstract of my PhD Dissertation which I wrote at Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies and defended on 10 September 2015. The Committee Members were Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Faisal Devji (Oxford), Bernard Haykel and Michael Cook. My dissertation was awarded the 2016 S. S. Pirzada Prize on Pakistan by UC Berkeley's Institute for South Asia Studies (http://southasia.berkeley.edu/pirzada-awardees).

by Gorgias Press, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Joas Wagemakers, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David Hernández de la Fuente, Anna Rogozhina, Elena Narinskaya, Johanne Louise Christiansen, Amina Inloes, Marcus Milwright, Najib George Awad (Dr. Phil; Dr. Theol. Habil.), Ryan Schaffner, Laura Hassan, Mark D Calder, Pietro Longo, Paolo Maggiolini, Keenan Baca-Winters, Saer El-Jaichi, Avraham Elmakias, Orhan Elmaz, Luca Patrizi, Rana Issa, Adam Sabra, Clinton Bennett, Adrian C . Pirtea, Michael R J Bonner, and Paul C. Dilley

Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and for... more Gorgias Press' 2018 Islamic Studies' catalogue sets out a selection of Gorgias' published and forthcoming publications that are related to Islamic and Near Eastern studies, as well as studies carried out for other fields of research that intersect with Islamic studies.

Political Theology , 2021