The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent investigations of these attacks have called attention to Islamic puritanical movements known as Wahhabism and Salafiyya. The Al Qaeda terrorist network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, have advocated a message of violence that some suggest is an extremist interpretation of this line of puritanical Islam. Other observers have accused Saudi Arabia, the center of Wahhabism, of having disseminated a religion that promotes hatred and violence, targeting the United States and its allies. Saudi officials strenuously deny these allegations. This report provides a background on Wahhabi Islam and its association to militant fundamentalist groups; it also summarizes recent charges against Wahhabism and responses, including the findings of the final report of the 9/11 Commission and bills relevant to this issue in the second session of the 109th Congress.
The above report is written by Christopher M. Blanchard.
Using the UK Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities, we explore the determinants of religious identity for Muslims and non-Muslims. We find that Muslims integrate less and more
slowly than non-Muslims. A Muslim born in the UK and having spent there more than 50 years shows a comparable level of probability of having a strong religious identity than a non-
Muslim just arrived in the country. Furthermore, Muslims seem to follow a different integration pattern than other ethnic and religious minorities. Specifically, high levels of income as well
as high on-the-job qualifications increase the Muslims’ sense of identity. We also find no evidence that segregated neighborhoods breed intense religious and cultural identities for
ethnic minorities, especially for Muslims. This result casts doubts on the foundations of the integration policies in Europe.
The above paper is written by Alberto Bisin, New York University, Eleonora Patacchini, University of Rome, Thierry Verdier, and Yves Zenou, Stockholm University.
Are Islam and democracy compatible? A large literature has developed arguing that Islam has all the ingredients of modern state and society. Many Muslim intellectuals seek to prove that Islam enshrines democratic values. But rather than lead the debate, they often follow it, peppering their own analyses with references to Western scholars who, casting aside traditional Orientalism for the theories of the late literary theorist and polemicist Edward Said, twist evidence to fit their theories. Why such efforts? For Western scholars, the answer lies both in politics and the often lucrative desire to please a wider Middle East audience. For Islamists, though, the motivation is to remove suspicion about the nature and goals of Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and, perhaps, even Hezbollah.
The above essay is written by David Bukay, University of Haifa.
Sayyid Qutb's experience in Greeley, Colorado, bad haircuts, the anthropology and sociology of tourist behavior, the weirdly colonialist assumptions of post-colonialist scholars, the idea that Arabs can be just as touristically dorky as their American counterparts, the debauchery of Truman-era church sock-hops, Arabic travel writing, Occidentalism, Orientalism, the notion that Americans are emotionally inferior to chickens, Qutb's influence on al-Qaida, culture shock, Otherness.
In a new Carnegie Paper, Carnegie Endowment experts Brown, Hamzawy, and Ottaway discuss the continuing ambiguity amongst Islamists on fundamental democracy and human rights issues. Islamist Movements and the Democratic Process in the Arab World: Exploring Gray Zones seeks to move beyond stark views of the Islamist challenge as either a democratizing force or an extreme threat to democracy and to present a nuanced view of the position of Islamist parties. The authors consider mainstream movements in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, analyzing not only where the movements stand but also where they have yet to develop clear positions. In view of the recent victory by Hamas in Palestine and the electoral success of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian elections, understanding the thinking of Islamist movements is more important than ever.
The above paper is written by Nathan Brown, Amr Hamzawy, and Marina S. Ottaway.
This paper is an interdisciplinary consideration of Islam in general, and of Islam within the Islamic crescent in particular. Scholarly approaches to the study of Islam are explored, as well as the unity and commonality of attitudes and sentiments that exists right across the Islamic world. This last point is contrasted with differences within Islamic countries in the crescent, particularly in the context of culture. Indeed, this paper stresses the need to understand the relationship between culture and Islam. The paper concludes with an analysis of Islam and globalization, paying particular attention to modernization and Islamic identity.
So-called radical Islam is not a discrete category. Springing from virtually the same matrix, it and moderate Islam cannot clearly and unambiguously
be separated, so that the social categories of ‘Muslim democrats’ and ‘Muslim radicals’ are not, in some respects, sharply opposed. Both are
inspired by a desire for greater Islamic penetration of Indonesian society—the shariatisation of society—though to varying degrees of intensity. Other
common features are: the rejection of Western hegemony, partly on the basis of solidarity with the perceived suffering of Muslims elsewhere in the world and partly for cultural reasons; scepticism towards the secularist government and its policies, and personally towards the president (prior to the 2004 presidential elections); and a concern about the perceived lawlessness and moral decline of Indonesian society, for which (at least partially) the West is to blame.
The above essay is written by Erich Kolig, University of Otago, New Zealand.
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Among the four major world cultural traditions—Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity—Islam appears to have the most pervasive role in
contemporary politics. The vast and varied spectrum of the scholarly works that have addressed this distinctive phenomenon started with a tradition that presumed a conflict between Islam and political modernity, while noting the centrality and universality of the faith for Muslims. This conception runs contrary to the admission of the reality of secular politics in historical Islam. If there is, on the contrary, a congruity between Islam and modernity, one still needs to provide an account of the speecificity of Muslim politics. Addressing this issue, another tradition stressed that because of its very survival into the modern era, the great Islamic tradition can play a significant role in political modernization and nation building. While this argument may be true in the cases of the historical experiences of a number of Islamic countries in the early twentieth century, it is not consistent with the overly transnational and other worldly objectives of radical Islamism of late. A third tradition opted for the analysis of the macro social processes in order to account for the rise of political Islam, while a fourth focused on the micro processes of the objectification of religion and the fragmentation of religious authority to explain Muslim politics. These explanations, however, would be incomplete without a serious assessment of the role of the rentier economy in the rise of Muslim exceptionalism. Following a critical assessment of the extant literature, this essay makes several suggestions for future research.
The above essay is written by Mansoor Moaddel, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, Eastern Michigan University.
