Islamic Political Utopianism (original) (raw)

"Taking People as They Are: Islam as a ‘Realistic Utopia’ in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb"

This article presents an interpretation of Sayyid Qutb’s political theory based on a prominent feature of his thought: the claim that Islamic law and human nature (fitra) are in perfect harmony, and that the demands of Islamic law are easy and painless for ordinary human moral capacities. I argue that Qutb is not only defending Islamic law as true and obligatory, but also as a coherent “realistic utopia”—a normative theory that also contains a psychological account of that theory’s feasibility. Qutb’s well-known fascination with the earliest generation of Muslims (the salaf) is an integral part of this account that serves two functions: (1) as a model of the fesibility and realism of an ideal Islamic political order, and (2) as a genealogy of the political origins of moral vice in society. Qutb’s project is thus an account of exactly why and how Islam requires politics, and how modern humans can be both free and governed.

The Utopian Dimension of a (Possible) Islamic Philosophy of History

This chapter deals with a sensitive issue in Islamic thought: that of the relationship between past and present, between counter-utopia and utopia. The Moroccan historian ' Abdallāh Laroui said that the past, or, in other terms, history, weighs heavily on Muslim consciousness. The mythologisation of the past has produced counter-utopia and a distortion of the philosophical view of history. Counter-utopia means that Muslims must look at the pristine glory of the Golden Age of the Prophet Muhammad and the first four Rightly Guided Caliphs in order to build the future: exactly the opposite of Ernst Bloch's 'principle of hope'. This outlook led many Sunni 'ulamā' to negate and refuse progress, because that Golden Age was and is considered-against the historical reality, at least regarding the caliphs, of whom three out of four were assassinated-the insuperable model of politics and associated life to be reproduced without changes. This distortion, as it were, of historical time involves a huge difficulty in projecting a philosophy of history, especially in Sunnism. In the Middle Ages, philosophers like al-Fārābī and Averroes theorised political utopias while on the other hand, Shiism is waiting for the return of the occulted Imam Mahdī, who will realise the kingdom of justice on earth. Therefore, Shiism seems more inclined than Sunnism towards a positive consideration of historical development. The troubled present of the Islamic world and thought needs, however, a utopia which looks at the future, recovering the correct dimension of the 'principle of hope'. In Hegelian terms, it would mean to find out a teleology of history. This outlined dialectics is the backbone of the present chapter. In recent times a number of Sunni reformers, like Khaled Abou el-Fadl and Tariq Ramadan among others, proposed a balanced re-negotiation and implementation of ideal sharī'a as a straight path in order to renew Islamic society and thought. Their work will be discussed thoroughly.

Introduction: Rethinking an 'Islamic Utopia'

Religion and Society: Special section 'Muslim Youths and Their Utopian Visions', 2022

This article argues for a non-normative and pluralistic approach to the study of utopia among Muslim people. The authors employ the contributions to this special section as a starting point to redress a number of ethnocentric biases clouding the relationship between utopia and Islam. They criticize arguments that deny Muslims the ability to produce ‘genuine’ utopias, highlighting commonalities between a religious culture and the secular culture in the West that has endorsed the notion of utopia. At the same time, the contributors show how in scholarly research a normative and prejudicial concept of ‘Islamic utopia’ has obscured the variety of forms that utopianism assumes among Muslim people, particularly the youth. This article envisages an inductive approach that takes into account both the different positionalities from which the concepts of Islam and utopia are appropriated and the diverse political outcomes that are produced.

Fictionalising the Utopian Impulse as Postsecular Islam: An East-West Odyssey

2011

This essay offers a counterview to the postulation that humanity’s utopian propensity is a secular undertaking bereft of divine inspiration. This domin- ant interpretation in utopian theory renders utopianism in the religious non-Western world inconceivable. Invoking Islam’s post-secular leanings, I argue that the utopian desire is replete with theological underpinnings. Engaging first with pro-religious discourses on the utopian impulse by Ernst Bloch and Nurcholish Madjid, I will then theorise a literary mode of reading framed by Fredric Jameson’s ‘utopology’ and Bloch’s ‘concrete utopia’. I will demonstrate in faith-based fiction an interpretation of Islam that is ‘this-worldly’ and ‘rational’—qualities that uphold utopianism as a secular, European phenomenon. Finally, I posit that Islam’s post-secular condition must also be seen as a postcolonial one.

A Caliphate of Ideas? Islamic Politics in Dialogue with Contemporary Marxism

ReOrient. Vol. 8, 2023

This article deconstructs the conceptual framework of the social theorist Salman Sayyid by critically examining his work on the political and hegemony in relation to the thought of the post-Marxist philosopher Ernesto Laclau. Sayyid elaborates a theory of the political that necessitates a communal break with existing society, a move very similar to Laclau and post-Marxist thought more generally. In analyzing Sayyid's theories of the caliphate with Laclau's conception of hegemonic struggle, the author suggests that the construction of any caliphate should think about the question of solidarity with "plebs" or those discarded from the system of capitalism. The article concludes with an analysis of how Sayyid's theoretical praxis can be applied in American Muslim political activism through the concept of the counterpublic.

Allal Al-Fassi’s Utopia: Liberalism and Democracy within the Revivalist System of Thought

International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

This paper examines the political writings of the Moroccan nationalist Allal Al-Fassi (1910-1974). It argues that there exists a considerable political tendency in these writings with excessive utilisation of jargon related to liberalism and political theory. In his intellectual and political project, Al-Fassi theorises about the possibility of creating a modern state on solid democratic and liberal foundations. Yet, however legitimate and seemingly liberal his theorisation might seem, the paper argues that the formation of a liberal state and a democratic society appears to be a mere dream given the fact that Al-Fassi grounds his conceptions within the Salafist and revivalist intellectual systems. Reading between the lines of his political works, nevertheless, reveals the dominance of Salafist intellections which deem the past and Islam as restorative in attaining a modern renaissance, at the political, economic, and cultural levels. This work, thus, problematizes three central po...