“Political Islam in Central Asia; The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir” by Emmanuel Karagiannis (original) (raw)
Related papers
Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia: The Rhetorical Struggle for Survival
The end of Suharto regime on 21 May 1998 has provided Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), which literally means Liberation Party of Indonesia, with an incentive to emerge and engage in the public sphere. HTI is an Islamic revivalist group that seeks to reestablish the caliphate and to implement shariah (Islamic law). Being a branch of the international Hizbut Tahrir movement, the group inevitably confronts with a major challenge insofar as it seeks to appeal to the Indonesian public: because it is compulsory for all HTI members to fully comply with the group's universal rules and its supreme leader's instructions, HTI must strategically convey its messages to the public in ways that would allow it to circumvent the sociopolitical and legal constraints within Indonesian context without having to deviate from its universal platform. This article examined the group's platform, structure, and personalities to offer a better understanding of the group. It also analyzed the group's recruitment, its media and networking through whict it attempts not only to mobilize support, but also to forge alliances with the other Islamic groups. Lastly, it explored the group's rhetoric to account for its tactics aiming to confront unfavorable public discourses and opinions that pose a threat to its survival.
(Im)Possible Muslims, PhD dissertation, Columbia 2017.pdf
Founded in 1952 by the Palestinian jurist Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani (1909-1977), Hizb ut-Tahrir’s (HT) raison d’être is the re-establishment of the Caliphate. HT currently has a presence in over forty countries, an estimated membership of a million people, and some millions of supporters across the world. My dissertation examines how HT’s formulation of the caliphate—particularly as it expresses itself in Britain—functions as a site of “Muslim modernity.” It is my contention, in other words, that HT’s ideas of the caliphate are inseparable from, and are thought through—consciously and unconsciously—modern western notions of being and thinking which permeate “the unconscious of knowledge” for people around the world, for the crucial reason that colonialism fundamentally reconfigured knowledge systems across the world, not least the Muslim world. I argue, in other words, that contemporary modes of being Muslim—whether religiously, politically, culturally, ethically—are necessarily inflected by modern western notions of being, as they form the backdrop to our global sense of being in the world. As such, HT’s modern Islamic political project—or any Islamic project, for that matter—is not so much an alien mode of thinking about politics—or ethics, or culture, or religion, or what have you—vis-à-vis western modes of being and thinking, but rather is part and parcel of modern western life writ large.
The Emerging Red-Green Alliance: Where Political Islam Meets the Radical Left
Terrorism and Political Violence vol. 25, 2013
No matter how unlikely it may seem, radical Leftists and Islamists have come closer in recent years. Drawing on substantial ideological interchange, and operating at both state and non-state levels, the two movements are building a Common Front against the United States and its allies. In this article, we use framing theory to examine the contemporary convergence of political Islam and the radical Left. Both radical Leftists and Islamists have utilized the master frame of anti-globalization/anti-capitalism and the master frame of anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism to elicit support from the widest possible range of people. The emerging Red-Green alliance presents a complex challenge that will require careful attention from U.S. and European policymakers.
When the Green Gets Greener: Political Islam's Newly-Found Environmentalism
Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2015
Although the environmental movement was established in the West, there is currently an Islamist variant that has received less attention. The Quran and the Hadiths provide guidance for the faithful on the relationship between Allah, humanity and nature. The article will examine and compare the environmental agendas of six Islamist groups: Hizb'allah, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami, and al Qaeda. While they all share similar concerns, Islamists have developed globalized, glocalized, or localized ‘scales’ of engagement, depending on the targeted audience. Finally, the article will examine the security implications of Islamist environmentalism, including the possibility of an alliance between Islamists and militant environmentalists.
Despite the vast amount of research conducted by scholars from different disciplines on Islam in Central Asia, reasons behind the emergence of independent Islamic leaders have remained a largely untapped source for studying reasons for tension between state and religion in secular countries. Scholars have focused on radical and political manifestations of Islam. This study provides a different perspective on Islam in Central Asia by exploring factors for official imams to pledge loyalty to the state and reasons for independent imams to contest the state control and definition of Islam in Kyrgyzstan. It reveals how and why Islamic religious leaders either cooperate with the state or resist the control it exerts over Muslim population. The case studies of two imams from Kara Suu are explored in the study. The analysis of their stories focuses on their education, life experiences, features of the town they lived and worked in, political and economic situation in the country, retaining of material assets, and their personalities. The study’s results show that independent imams’ resistance is conditioned by political and economic liberalization. Their decisions are also reinforced by educational and life experiences, the environment they operate in, and personality. My interdisciplinary research contributes to the existing debate by exploring the interplay between political and economic liberalization and the emergence of mild form of political Islam.