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Paul Bowman, "Anarchist Guide to Islamic History"Anonymous Comrade writes: "The following is a beginners guide to Islamic history by Anarchist writer Paul Bowman.
"Beyond the Undifferentiated Mass Roughly 1 in 5 of the world's population is muslim - that's over a billion people. Yet for all the talk about a global society with the telecommunication revolution bringing knowledge to the masses, what most westerners from christian backgrounds know about Islam can be written on the back of a small postage stamp. So here then is a crash course.
Fundamentalism? The term "fundamentalism" originated in the US from a political movement of anti-progressive christians who wished to abolish the secular independance of the state from christian beliefs. It is misleading to apply the label of "fundamentalist" in this sense, to muslims as it is a formal part of their belief that no such division between matters social, political and religious should exist. That doesn't mean that there aren't differences as to how this formal unity between religion and politics should be put into practice, but the label fundamentalist only obscures the issue.
Religious or Cultural conservatism? Consequently it is often the case that what is claimed to be islamic practice is more often the pre-existing cultural and social traditions of a given ethnic society. Many of the declaredly islamic traditions of the Pashtuns of Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, have much more to do with Pashtun cultural norms than islamic law.
A Unified Ideology?
Sunni The main body decided that the leadership (the Caliphate) should pass to whoever from within Muhammed's clan the muslim establishment best felt represented continuity. The Shias, in contrast, supported the claim of Ali, the husband of the prophet's favourite daughter. They insisted that the legitimacy of the Caliphate came only from god, not the religious establishment. In time as those who had known the prophet and remembered his sayings and acts began to die off, this oral tradition of guidance supplementary to the Koran (the sunnah) was written down into several books, six of which became recognised as authoritative sources of guidance - the Hadith. For Sunnism then, society's laws must be determined through reference to the Koran and the Sunnah. For Shi'ites, however, the true path can only be found through the divinely appointed intermediaries - the true Caliphs or Imams.
Kharawaj - too radical by far Since the time of the Kharawaj, the history of the rise and fall of various dynasties of Caliphs and different empires has lead the Sunni tradition to view orthodoxy as something that needs to be tempered with a pragmatism of tolerating differences between muslims and not being over hasty in determining who, of the people who identify as muslims, is or is not a muslim. This catholicity along with an emphasis on the established majority opinion as the source of religious authority has helped to mitigate some of the destabilising effects of radicalism while allowing economic prosperity to be parallelled by a flowering of cultural, scientific and philosophical diversity and enquiry. However, even within the Sunni mainstream, revivalist and puritan sects have arisen both in the past and in more modern times.
Sufi - It's not my Jihad if I can't dance to it The introspective struggle of the Sufis is, according to them, a form of Jihad (devout struggle), one against the false, earthly self - the Nafs. These strivings have produced some of Islam's most loved poetry, but is also most famously associated with ascetic disciplines such as physical exertions including music and wild dancing to induce visions and spiritual breakthroughs - something which has always made them unpopular with those who believe that music, dancing and celebration in general is the work of the devil.
Shia or Shi'ite
Isma'ilite We now move on to the two modern sects who have most influence on the story we are today interested in Afghanistan and related networks throughout the world.
Wahhabi - the only good innovator is a dead one A nomadic herding economy, with its main animal wealth being so easily carried off, lends itself to continual strife between tribes based around livestock rustling and struggles over access to grazing land and limited watering holes. This existence has formed a population where impoverishment sits together with a high degree of mobility and martial experience. Throughout history those people who have been able to unite the warring tribes against an external enemy have been able to mobilise a highly effective military force for conquest of the outside world. This was Muhammed's achievement, in getting the merchants of the trading cities of Mecca and Medina to pay taxes (zakat) to buy off the raiding tribes and lead them in a campaign of conquest accross the middle east and North Africa. Although a great and wealthy empire eventually resulted, by the beginning of the 20th century conditions in the Arabian interior remained pretty much as impoverished and undevelopped as they had in Muhammed's time.
On January 15 1902 a tribesman from the interior in his twenties, accompanied by 15 hand-picked men, scaled the walls of the city of Riyadh in the dead of night. Taking the garrison of the regional governor of the Ottoman empire completely by surprise, this daring band of Bedouin warriors, overwhelmed the garrison and their leader, who the world would come to know simply as Ibn Saud, was proclaimed ruler by the townsfolk. Ibn Saud went on to unite the tribal leaders of the interior and lead them in the conquest of the rich cities and holy centres of Medina and Mecca. He did so not only in the name of the House of Saud, but in the name of a new puritan brand of Sunni Islam - Wahhabism. This double act had managed to cause the ruling Ottoman empire serious grief beforehand and had been almost wiped out several times previously. Now with Ibn Saud the old plan would finally be put into action again. By 1911 Saud was putting into plan an ambitious scheme to forge the disparate and eternally warring Bedouin tribes of the interior into a united and ideologically committed force. With the tribesmen having no common national identity beyond their tribe, the zeal of Wahhabism would act as the unifying glue that held the new state together in place of nationalism. In 1912 he founded the first Ikhwan (Brethren) colony with Bedouin from all tribes in new model settlements where they would undergo education and indoctrination by Wahhabi clerics along with military training. In time this would forge an unstoppable new military force that would sweep accross Arabia and conquer the holy cities. By 1921 this process was complete. However Saud now faced the usual problem of those who mobilise new radical forces to conquer political power - how to demobilise them before they started to destroy the very bases of political power itself.
The problems had already become apparent when the Ikhwan had taken Mecca. On hearing some unfortunate who had decided a welcoming blast on a trumpet should great the conquerors, the Wahhabis, for whom music is anti-islamic, rioted and mass destruction and slaughter ensued. Convinced that any innovation since Muhammed's time was anathema, they tore down minarets (developed, like much mosque architecture since Muhammed's time) and, believing that any worship of relics, saints, or tombs of holy men was an affront to the doctrine that only god can be worshipped, they went round smashing up many such pilgrimmage sites, much to the distress of those who made their living of the pilgrims that came to visit them. The wahhabi religious police (mutawa) led a reign of terror in the cities, crashing into people's homes and, if so much as sniffing the scent of tobacco, would thrash the unfortunates senseless. By 1927 the Ikhwan were denouncing Ibn Saud for selling out the cause and eventually rose in rebellion against him. The ensuing struggle was bloody, one ultra-zealous band nearly managing to destroy the tomb of the Prophet himself, but the radicals were eventually put down. Their leaders fled to Kuwait, only to be handed back over to Saud by the eager to please British. Thus ended the first phase of the Wahhabi's jihad. Although the Ikhwan's military campaign was halted, the Wahhabis continued to export their religious revolution. The most successful first stop was across the Red Sea in Egypt, where they supported the formation of Hassan al Banna's Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun). The Brotherhood was formed to combat Egypt's secular constitution of 1923. After the defeat of Egypt and other Arabs trying to stop the creation of Israel in 1948, they rose against the government and were part of the revolution that brought the secular pan-arab nationalist Nasser to power. Nasser's programme was for an anti-imperialist struggle against the western powers (he nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956) combined with 'socialist' industrial development and modernisation. This latter part was heatedly opposed by the Brotherhood and the ensuing failed assasination attempt brought about their suppression by Nasser and the undying opposition between militant Islamism and pan-arab nationalism ever since. Nasser's "socialist" rhetoric and friendliness towards the Soviet union, panicked the western powers, particularly the US who were holding the ring for western imperialism since the British bowed out of the region after the 1956 Suez fiasco. The US involvement with the militant Islamists as a bulwark against Soviet influence in the Middle East dates from this period.
Deobandis - back to basics
In many ways the rising had been the last attempt to go back to the pre-colonial social order of India under the Mughal empire. The traditional leaders and ruling class had demonstrated incompetence or even refused to back the soldier-led mutiny at all. If Indian society was to escape from British clutches it would have to find a new way forward, rather than simply looking back. Like the Wahhabis, the Deobandi's faith is a severe puritan one which bans music, dancing, worship of saints or holy relics and sees an external, physical Jihad (Jihad bis Saif) as a central pillar of the faith. They took part in the struggle for independance from the British and for the partition of Indian to create Pakistan. The Deobandis are one of the main Sunni communities in Pakistan and have been constantly in struggle both against the Shi'ite minority in Pakistan and the other main Sunni community the Brelvis. These latter are more influenced by Sufi traditions that have long persisted in the harsh mountains of the Hindu Kush that dominate Kashmir and Afghanistan as well as in the mountainous Caucasus regions including Chechnya. Although the Sufi muslims of Chechnya and Afghanistan have certainly shown that the "inner" jihad for enlightenment (Jihad bin Nafs) is no contradiction to the external jihad of the AK47, in Pakistan the "Jihadis" that have fought the Indians in Kashmir and the Russians in Afghanistan, are almost exclusively drawn from the Deobandis. It was their religious schools (madrassas) set up on the frontier that took in the orphans of the Afghan war, that no one else would feed, and turned them into Taliban soldiers. Since the end of the war in 1989 hostility between Deobandis and Brelvis and both against Shi'ites, has resulted in a rising number of bomb and riot attacks on rival mosques and assasinations in Pakistan.
The Afghan War 1979 - 1989 In this way the US and Britain helped build up a veritable International Brigade of Islamist fighters, funded by the proceeds of Gulf oil, sheltered and trained by the Pakistani intelligence services of General Zia ul Haq's regime and Western special forces. It was this network that brought together Wahhabis and Deobandis to create an international Jihadi movement of which Al Qaeda and its brother organisations like Egyptian Jihad (formed from the Muslim Brotherhood mentioned above). So what motivates this network?
The Al Qa'eda Programme
The demands are: The fifth demand is not stated but it is the foundation of the campaign against the Russians in Afghanistan that gave the movement its birth.
The defence of private property is part of the sayings of the Prophet and the subsequent Caliphs. Anti-communism is a matter of doctrine for orthodox islamists. Secondly, the creation of a state to enforce islamic law - Sharia - is the defining demand of modern islamism and has, as we saw at the very beginning, always been central to islam as a whole. Bin Laden, by contrast has his own satellite phones, a modern education in civil engineering and no aversion to setting up modern factories, construction businesses or making millions on the international financial markets. Of course these modern means are all justified by the ends of jihad. But whichever way you look at it, bin Laden is a member of the local industrialist bourgeoisie chafeing at the bit to build up commodity production in the Middle East, not knock it down.
For all the pre-modern language of his movement, the content is for more technological and industrial development, not less. The military airbases and command posts that the US troops moved into in 1990 were built by bin Laden for the Saudis to use to build an independant military force against the threat of Saddam's Iraq (for much as the current Al Qa'eda demands include the dropping of sanctions against Iraq, we must remember that bin Laden was warning against Hussain's aggressive intentions from the late 80s onwards). Bin Laden wishes to see an independantly powerful islamic Middle East, and if that requires technological and economic development then he is all for it.
Material Foundations This mass of newly landless peasants, drifting towards the shanty towns surrounding the urban centres, looking for wage work, is the sleeping giant of politics in the Islamic world. Any rising by this new proletariat would be an earthquake strong enough to shake the foundations of all the established powers, mostly despotic as they are, in the region. It is amongst this multitude that the islamists have worked hard to establish a base. They have done so by setting up a religious based welfare system. Most of the post colonial states are too concerned about paying their debts to western banks and the IMF to spend any of their meagre tax revenues on social welfare. Further the standard IMF "structural adjustment" terms prohibit any such social spending, even were any of the regimes farsighted enough to consider them. Islam has a redistributive "social democratic" taxation system built into its foundations as zakat, one of the five obligations of the religion. Islamists are able to lean on the benificiaries of trade with the west, or oil rights, for money. In return they promise to keep a lid on popular revolt, particularly any socialistic or class war elements. The current regimes, mostly being founded by people who themselves dallied with socialistic or national liberation politics in their struggle to depose colonial power, are all to aware of the destabilising potential of such politics, not too mention the interests of the local capitalists. So they are happy for the islamists to hold ideological sway over the urban proletariat, so long as their anger is diverted to handy external scapegoats, such as Israel or America. This welfare system though is dependant upon attending the mosque and being integrated into the whole islamist system of ideological formation. The system provides not only material aid, but also meeting places, places to hear news from co-religionists from afar and abroad. In a sense the islamist mission amongst the urban poor corresponds to the institutions that workers across the world have built for themselves (friendly societies, meeting houses, public speaking and international correspondance, etc.), except that in this instance these institutions and spaces are not the autonomous products of workers activity. Rather they are funded by the bosses and the rich and controlled by a power that mediates between the two, usually antagonist classes and the state. This state of affairs is not due to some innate failing of political consciousness amongst the urban proletariat, rather it is a product of the economic enviroment of mass unemployment and regime of accumulation that has not yet reached the stage of accumulating through relative surplus value, but remains founded on the absolute exploitation of those in work. The mass of the urban proletariat in many islamic countries does not have enough spare cash to set up their own autonomous spaces and aid projects, compared to the resources the islamists can access, especially for comparitively expensive services like modern health care. But the creation of autonomous spaces in the islamic world is what is desparately needed by local workers and radicals. It is in this area that international solidarity can play the most important role in the future. Solidarity can help build up the spaces for the proletariat of North Africa and the Middle East to find a libertory path between the devil of rotten despotic regimes and the deep blue sea of militant islamic capitalism. The writer Paul Bowman is an internationalist, anti-fascist, anarchist and libertarian communist active for over 15 years in Yorkshire, Northern England." |
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