Author's note: This article is based on ideas that I have been developing over a period of about seven years. In an earlier version it was presented to a conference in New Zealand in 1981 and later published and circulated locally as “Working Paper No. 2” by the Australasian Middle East Studies Association under the title “Towards a Typology of Modern Islamic Movements?” (Christchurch: University of Canterbury, 1982). Later versions were presented informally in Jakarta and Yogyakarta in 1984, in Cairo in January 1985, and as a paper at the XVth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions in Sydney, Australia, in August 1985. Let me express my appreciation to those who have heard and responded to these ideas and particularly to the unnamed evaluators whose comments, both acerbic and constructive, have provided stimulus and guidance for the final revision. Appreciation is also due to Dr. David Brewster, my predecessor at the University of Canterbury, one of whose class handouts bequeathed to me started my thinking on the subject. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from constitutions are from A. P. Blaustein and G. H. Flanz, eds., Constitutions of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1984).

¹ Haddad, Yvonne rightly complains of “the tendency of Western readers to dismiss ‘fanaticism’ and ‘fundamentalism’ as passing fads that need to be ignored because of their transient nature” (The Link, 15, 4 [09/10, 1982], 4). Also, the term carries with it many associations from its original use in a Protestant Christian context that are inappropriate for an Islamic context. My current preference for an alternative is given below, p. 321 and fn. 91.Google Scholar

² Space prohibits a thorough examination of the literature relevant to this subject, but let me indicate how I see this typology in relation to a few recent treatments. Binder, Leonard in The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (New York: John Wiley, 1964), pp. 31–40,Google Scholar appears to use “secularist” and “modernist” much as I use “secularist” and “Islamic modernist.” His “traditionalist” (or “traditional Islam”) appears to correspond to my adaptationist (neo-)traditionalism, his “early fundamentalism” to my rejectionist traditionalism, and his “[later] fundamentalism” to my radical Islamism and probably the “right-wing” of my Islamic modernism. He claims to find a basically similar analysis in the works of H. A. R. Gibb, W. C. Smith, and Albert Hourani. Esposito's, John “four positions or attitudes toward modernization and Islamic socio-political change,” “secularist,” “conservative,” “neo-traditionalist,” and “Islamic reformist” (along with “modernist”), correspond to my “secularist,” “(neo-)traditionalist,” “radical Islamist,” and “Islamic modernist” respectively (Islam and Politics [Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984], pp. 216–18).Google ScholarMintjes, H. uses the terms “secularist,” “modernist,” and “traditionalist” pretty much as I do and his “fundamentalist” corresponds to my “radical Islamist” (“Mawlana Mawdudi's Last Years and the Resurgence of Fundamentalist Islam,” Al-Mushir, 22, 2 [1980], 46–73).Google ScholarHumphreys, R. Stephen’ use of the terms “secularist,” “modernist,” and “traditionalist” seems to correspond to mine (“Islam and Political Values in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria,” Middle East Journal, 33, 1 [Winter 1979], 1–19).Google Scholar His “fundamentalist” seems to correspond to my “rejectionist neo-traditionalist” but whether it includes my “radical Islamist” is less than clear. He describes Qutb, Sayyid as “militantly Fundamentalist in tone, Modernist in content” (p. 6) but he may have in mind his somewhat earlier, more “moderate” works (see fn. 47 below). In describing fundamentalism as a “tendency” and a “set of attitudes” (p. 4) rather than a group or a movement, he appears to be making the same point that I make by speaking of ideological “Orientations.”Google ScholarHaddad, Yvonne, in Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History (Albany: SUNY Press, 1982), esp. pp. 7–23,Google Scholar and “The Islamic Alternative” (The Link, 15, 4 [09/10, 1982], 1–14)Google Scholar presents a threefold typology: “acculturationist,” “normativist,” and “neo-normativist.” The first seems to correspond to my “secularist,” the second to my “rejectionist traditionalist,” and the third to my “radical Islamist” and “rejectionist neo-traditionalist.” My “modernist” category would probably be divided between her “acculturationist” and “neo-normativist” categories, but I do not know where she would put my “adaptationist (neo-)traditionalist.” My typology in its formal aspect is, I think, particularly close to that of Rahman, Faziur as found in several writings: “Revival and Reform in Islam” (The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 2 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970], part VIII, ch. 7);Google Scholar“Islamic Modernism: Its Scope, Method and Alternatives” (IJMES, 1, 4 [10, 1970], 317–33);Google Scholar “Islam: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Welch, A. T. & Cachia, P., eds., Islam: Past Influence and Present Challenge (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), pp. 315–30;Google ScholarIslam, 2nd edition (Chicago & New York: University of Chicago Press, 1979), chs. 12–14;Google Scholar and “Roots of Islamic Neo-Fundamentalism,” in Stoddard, Philip H. et al. , eds., Change and she Muslim World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1981), pp. 23–35.Google Scholar My “Islamic modernism” corresponds on the whole to the various forms of “modernism” that he discusses, and my “radical Islamism” corresponds to his “neo-revivalism” or “neo-fundamentalism” (sometimes “fundamentalism” in the earlier writings). While I disagree with his analyses and critiques at some points, I have unfailingly found his views immensely stimulating. Another writer whose categories bear a significant and interesting relation to mine is John, Voll (see “The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist,” IJMES, 10, 2 [05, 1979], 167–86;Google ScholarIslam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World [Boulder, Cob.: Westview Press, 1982];Google Scholar and “Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Styles of Islamic Renewal,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 4, 1 & 2 [1982], 110–26).Google Scholar In Islam: Continuity and Change he presents four “styles of action”: “adaptationist,” “conservative,” “fundamentalist,” and a style which emphasizes “the more personal and individual aspects of Islam” (pp. 29–31). The first three correlate with my types as follows: his “adaptationist” = my “secularist” and “adaptationist neo-traditionalism,” his “conservative” = my “adaptationist traditionalist,” and his “fundamentalist” = my “radical Islamist” and “rejectionist (neo-)traditionalist.” It is from him that I have adapted the term “adaptationist.” His fourth type seems to me relevant to a different scale, text-oriented/leader-oriented (see fn. 9, below). Thus, like Yvonne Haddad, he in effect divides the spectrum into three rather than four types. An important difference between his treatment and mine is that he is describing “styles of action” while I am describing “ideological orientations.” One might say that a given “style of action” issues from or is congenial to a given “ideological orientation,” but they are not identical. This may be why he classes as “fundamentalists” figures such as Qaddafi and Ali Shariati whom I will put elsewhere (cf. fn. 46 below). Another difference between our treatments is that his categories are intended to apply to the whole of Islamic history, while mine are designed specifically for the modern period. My “secularism” and “radical Islamism” could be considered as distinctively modern manifestations of his “adaptationism” and “fundamentalism” respectively.

³ Humphreys makes the same point in “Islam and Political Values,” p. 2.Google Scholar

⁴ My use of the term “modernity” here fits very well with the definition of modernization as an increase in conscious human control over the environment, especially if that includes the social as well as the physical environment. On this definition certain recent tendencies in the West, connected, e.g., with environmentalism, that question the ideal of complete human control of the environment and prefer to speak of harmony with it, might be called “post-modern.”Google Scholar

⁵ Islam in Modern History (New York: New American Library, Mentor, 1957), p. 47. See chapters one and two for what in my view is still an excellent analysis of the spiritual crisis of modern Islam.Google Scholar

⁶ It is not intended here to imply that only external factors have shaped modern Muslim developments. Obviously internal factors, such as pre-modern revivalist movements, have also been important, but in terms of this typology their importance has been in influencing which types of responses particular Muslims would give, rather than the typology as such.Google Scholar

⁷ It seems to me we might define ideology as a systematically developed worldview oriented toward stimulating and guiding social change (cf. the definition proffered by St. John, Ronald Bruce, “a system of ideas, beliefs and myths justifying or attacking a given social order,” IJMES 15, 4 [11 1983], 471). What is new, in relation to traditional Islam, is the greater social and worldly orientation, the conscious and systematic elaboration of a social doctrine, and the expectation of significant social change wrought by human effort.Google Scholar

⁸ “Resurgent Islam in the Persian Gulf,” Foreign Affairs, 63, 1 (Fall 1984), 108–27. Bill does not make clear the doctrinal content of “fundamentalism” as he uses the term, but it seems to correspond to my radical Islamism and rejectionist (neo-)traditionalism. Insofar as he identifies fundamentalism with “populist” Islam, he fails to take account of the fact that “fundamentalism” is now the establishment in Iran and to a considerable degree in Pakistan. It also obscures the fact that certain forms of modernism, such as that of Ali Shariati and the Mujahidin-i Khalq (see pp. 313–14) can be “populist” in his sense (see also note 9).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ This is the case also with Voll's distinction between “text-oriented” and “leader-oriented” (“Wahhabism and Mahdism”). Ataturk's movement was a “leader-oriented” secularism and the Iranian revolution was certainly “leader-oriented,” while 'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq's book presents a “text-oriented” secularism and both Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb a “text-oriented” radical Islamism. Similarly, “the Technical Military Academy group” and the “Takfir wa-Hijra group” as described by Ibrahim, Saad Eddin (“Anatomy of Egypt' Militant Islamic Groups: Methodological Note and Preliminary Findings,” IJMES 12, 4 [12, 1980], 423–53) would appear to be fairly close in ideological orientation, but the former seems more “text-oriented” and the latter more “leader-oriented.”Google Scholar

¹⁰ Space forbids more than occasional reference to the ways in which Shi'i-Sunni differences may affect these types. Suffice it to say that I believe all the types may be found, with the characteristics ascribed to them here, among both Sunnis and Shi'is, although Shi'is probably tend more toward the extremes of the Islamic totalism scale.

¹¹ Fazlur Rahman says, “Secularism in Islam … is the acceptance of laws and other social and political institutions without reference to Islam, i.e., without their being derived, or organically linked to the principles of the Qur'an and the Sunna… Islamic modernism… means precisely the induction of change into the content of the Shari'a” (“Islamic Modernism,” p. 311).

¹² The only references to religion in the Constitution are in Articles 37 and 55. The former reads: “The state recognizes no religion whatever and supports atheist propaganda for the purpose of inculcating the scientific materialist world outlook in people,” and the latter reads “Fascist, anti-democratic, religious, war-mongering, and anti-socialist activities and propaganda… are prohibited.” Mosques and churches were officially closed in 1967.

¹³ The 1980 Afghanistan constitution speaks of “the resolute following of the principles of the sacred religion of Islam” (Basic Principles) and includes the “rules of Sharicah law” as residual law (Art. 56). The South Yemeni constitution recognizes Islam as religion of state, although not until Article 46.

¹⁴ My translation of ketuhanan yang maha esa, though ketuhanan is more literally “lordship” than “divinity.” It is worth noting that the Indonesian phrase not only uses a very abstract term for God but also avoids words of Arabic derivation, which have a more Islamic flavor. The Jakarta Charter of 1945 included a provision that Muslims should be obliged to follow Islamic law, but this was not included in the constitution. For further details see Boland, B. J., The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 24–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ The preamble to the Turkish constitution notes “the determination of the Turkish Republic, an equal and honorable member of the family of nations, to insure its everlasting existence, welfare, and material and spiritual well-being and its determination in attaining the standards of contemporary civilization.”

¹⁶ For example, the following from Nasser: “We boast that we stick to religion, each one of us according to his religion. The Muslim upholds his religion and the Christian upholds his, because religion represents the right and the sound way. …It is the great secret behind the success of this Revolution: the adherence to religion” (Smith, D. E., ed., Religion and Political Modernization [New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1974], p. 275).Google Scholar

¹⁷ For example, the well known statement of Hussein, Taha, “In order to become equal partners in civilization with the Europeans, we must literally and forthrightly do everything that they do; we must share with them the present civilization, with all its pleasant and unpleasant sides” (The Future of Culture in Egypt, Glazer, S., trans. [Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954], p. 21).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Turkey's efforts to have the adhan recited in Turkish are an extreme example of government interference in religion for nationalist goals, but not the only one there. On the efforts of the Egyptian government to use religion for its own purposes, see especially Crecelius, Daniel, “The Course of Secularization in Modern Egypt,” chapter 3 in Esposito, J., ed., Islam and Development (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1980), esp. pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Noted, for example, by Smith in Islam in Modern History, p. 85. The very firmness and security of this identity must have been one of the factors that made it possible for Atatürk to undertake his radically secularist reforms.

²⁰ Pahlavi, Muharnmad Reza Shah, Mission for My Country (London: Hutchinson, 1961), pp. 20, 23–24.Google Scholar

²¹ See Haim, S. O., ed., Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 57–64, 167–71, 214.Google Scholar The close relation between Arabism and Islam is stressed by al-Bazzaz, 'Abd al-Rahman in “Islam and Arab Nationalism”Google Scholar (ibid., pp. 172–88), although he seems to me here more Islamic modernist than secularist since he justifies Arab Nationalism at the bar of Islam, rather than vice-versa.

²² For example, Taha Hussein's well known distinction between a “reasoning” personality “that investigates, criticizes, analyses,” and a “sentient” one “that feels pleasure and pain, rejoices, sorrows, … without criticism, investigation or analysis” (al-Siyasa al-usbu'iyya [Cairo], July 17, 1926, 5, cf. translation in Adams, Charles, Islam and Modernism in Egypt [London: Oxford University Press, 1933], p. 258).Google Scholar See also my discussion of this and similar views held by Taha Hussein's colleague, Amin, Ahmad, in my The Faith of a Modern Muslim Intellectual (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Islamic Studies in Association with Vikas, 1982), pp. 8–9, 68–83.Google Scholar

²³ This comment is based on material contained in two recent articles: St. John, Ronald Bruce, “The Ideology of Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi: Theory and Practice,” IJMES, 15, 4 (11, 1983), 471–90,Google Scholar and Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, “Islamic Resurgence or New Prophethood: The Role of Islam in Qadhdhafi's Ideology,” in Dessouki, Ali E., ed., Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World (New York: Praeger, 1982), Pp. 196–220,Google Scholar and on perusal of the English translation of his Green Book (Tripoli: Public Establishment of Publishing, Advertising and Distribution, n.d.).Google Scholar

²⁴ A label such as “moderate Islamism” might be more consistent with the next label, “radical Islamism,” but it seems to me that “moderate” may be a bit misleading for a type that includes groups such as the Mujahidin-i Khalq of Iran. “Islamist modernism” would be better and would fit my definition of Islamism as Islam qua ideology, but I stick with “Islamic modernism” as the better known term and one that is generally adequate.

²⁵ English translation by Farah, Caesar E. (New York: New American Library, 1964), p. 82;Google Scholar cf. al-Risala al-khalida (Cairo: al-Majlis alA'la lialshu'un al-Islamiyya, 1964), p. 53.Google Scholar In my view the title would be better translated “Eternal Mission” and may be compared with the “eternal mission” of the Arab nation in Ba'athist thinking. A slight variation on this position is that of Muhammad 'Amara who speaks of a “distinction” (tamayuz) but not a “separation” (infisal) between “Islamic religion” (al-din al-islami) and “the thought of Muslims” (fikr al-muslimin) in worldly matters (al-Islam wa-al-mussaqbal [Cairo & Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1405/1984], p. 43). In the latter area there is considerable freedom for ijtihad even where there are authoritative texts (pp. 31ff.).

²⁶ For convenience, I shall use “modernist” instead of “Islamic modernist” where the context makes the meaning clear. “Modernist” sometimes is used to include secularists as well as islamic modernists. For example, Adams, C. C. includes both al-Raziq, 'Ali 'Abd and Husayn, Taha in the chapter on “The Younger Egyptian Modernists” in Islam and Modernism in Egypt (New York: Russell & Russell, 1968, originally published in 1933), pp. 253–68.Google Scholar

²⁷ Risala (Arabic), p. 212, my translation; cf. English translation, p. 105.Google Scholar

²⁸ Risala, English translation, pp. 54ff., 90–92, 101–2. In the chapter on “The Islamic State” it is hard to say whether the Sharita means much more than the fact that there are moral laws that even a sovereign nation may not rightfully violate (pp. 111–14),Google Scholar something Smith claims for the Turks, (Islam in Modern History, pp. 185–87).Google Scholar

²⁹ E.g., Muhammad, Mahathir, Prime Minister of Malaysia, as quoted in the New York Times, 05 16, 1985, 2.Google Scholar

³⁰ See especially Anderson, J. N. D., Law Reform in the Muslim World (London: Athlone Press, 1976), ch. 2.Google Scholar

³¹ 'Abduh, Muhammad for example, said that a Muslim was obliged to accept only mutawatir hadith, and was free to reject others about which he had doubts (Risalat al-Tawhid, 17th Printing [Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahira, 1379/1960], pp. 201–3;Google Scholar English translation by Cragg, K. and Masa'ad, I., The Theology of Unity [London: Allen and Unwin, 1966], pp. 155–56).Google ScholarAmin, Ahmad, in his popular series on Islamic cultural history, cautiously suggested that there were few if any mutawatir hadith (especially, Fajr al-Islam, 10th edition [Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Misriyya, 1965], p. 218);Google Scholar see also Juynboll, G. H. A., The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1969), and my Faith of a Modern Muslim Intellectual, p. 113.Google Scholar

³² McDonough, Sheila, The Authority of the Past: A Study of Three Muslim Modernists (Chambersburg, Pa.: American Academy of Religion, 1970), p. 37.Google Scholar

³³ According to him, the Medinan part of the Qur'an, which contains the legal details, is the “First Message of Islam,” which was necessary at the time of the Prophet but is now superseded by the “Second Message” of Islam, which is found in the general principles contained in the Meccan part. On Taha and his movement see Magnarella, Paul, “The Republican Brothers: A Reformist Movement in the Sudan,” Muslim World, 72, 1 (01 1982), 14–24,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stevens, Richard P., “Sudan's Republican Brothers and Islamic Reform,” Journal of Arab Affairs, I, 1 (1981), 135–46.Google Scholar

³⁴ In Arabic, ta'wil. Whether interpretation or reinterpretation is a debatable issue which I do not wish to prejudge here.

³⁵ See Qur'an 4:3 on polygyny, 5:38 on cutting off the hand of the thief, 24:2–5 on whipping for fornication (the provision for stoning for adultery is in the Hadith). On jihad and the treatment of unbelievers, the difficult passages for modernists are the so-called “verses of the sword,” such as 9:5 on the Arab pagans and 9:29 on the people of the Book. In these and other Qur'anic references 1 follow Pickthall's, numbering (The Meaning of the Glorious Koran [New York: New American Library, Mentor, n.d.]).Google Scholar

³⁶ Qur'an 24:4.

³⁷ Qur'an 4:129.

³⁸ For an example of this argument, see Rahman, , Islam, 2nd ed., p. 38.Google Scholar

³⁹ On the modernist treatment of jihad, see Peters, R., Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton, 1979), ch. 4.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ “Islamic Modernism” in IJMES, 1, 329–31,Google Scholar and “Islam: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Welch & Cachia, pp. 323–27.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Said, , Moghny, Abdel, Arab Socialism (London: Blanford Press, 1972), p. 50.Google Scholar Ahmad Shalaby sees the annual meeting of the U.N. as copying the Hajj, Islamic (Islam, Belief Legislation, Morals [Cairo: Renaissance Bookshop, 1970], p. 225). See note 43, below.Google Scholar

⁴² Anbiya' Allah (Cairo & Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1977), p. 436.Google Scholar Cf. lqbal's, Muhammad discussion of ijma' as a legislative assembly (The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam [Lahore: Ashraf, 1960], Pp. 173–74,Google Scholar and al-Akkad, Abbas Mahmoud [Aqqad], The Arab's Impact on European Civilization, Cashmiry, & Al-Hadi, , trans., 2nd ed. (Cairo, Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, n.d.), pp. 140–46.Google Scholar Along the same line, though more subtle, is Iqbal's interpretation of the finality of prophethood as involving the enthronement of reason (Reconstruction, pp. 126–27)Google Scholar and the idea that tawhid involves resistance to tyranny and rejection of superstition (see, e.g., Iqbal, , The Mysteries of Selflessness, Arberry, A. J., trans. [London: John Murray, 1953], pp. 21–23,Google Scholar and Shepard, Faith of a Modern Muslim, pp. 99–111).Google Scholar

⁴³ Marxism and Islam, Enan, M. M., trans. (Cairo, n.d.), p. 21;Google Scholar cf. Shalaby: “But modern civilization… could not fully copy Islam's attitudes. The United Nations Organization has been content to derive from the Pilgrimage its material part, that is, the annual meeting. It has forgotten that Islamic legislation furnished the Pilgrimage spirituality” (Islam, p. 225).

⁴⁴ “Mysticism, Equality, and Freedom” in Marxism and Other Western Fallacies, Campbell, R., trans. (Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan Press, 1980), pp. 97–111, esp. pp. 118–19. It is not that Shariati identifies Islam with either Marxism or existentialism, but he presents Islam as a solution to a Western dilemma presented in essentially Western terms.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See, e.g., Smith's criticism of Wajdi, Farid in Islam in Modern History, pp. 139–59,Google Scholar and Gibb's, complaint about “the intellectual confusions and the paralyzing romanticism which cloud the minds of the modernists of today” (Modern Trends in Islam [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947], pp. 105, 106).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁶ That Shariati is to be seen as modernist and not “fundamentalist” may be illustrated by his virtual identification of God and “the people” (al-nas) on social matters; “wherever in the Qur'an social matters are mentioned, Allah and al-nas are virtually synonymous … ‘Rule belongs to God’ [means] rule belongs to the people” (Sociology of Islam, Algar, Hamid, trans. [Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1979], p. 116).Google Scholar One could hardly imagine people like Qutb, Sayyid, Mawdudi, , or Khomeini, (Contrast Islam and Revolution, Algar, Hamid, trans. [Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981], p. 55) saying anything like that.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ A comparison of earlier and later editions of al-'Adala al-ijtima'iyya—the third edition (Cairo: Matba'at al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1952) and a much later edition (Dar al-Shuruq: Cairo and Beirut, in 1394/1974) have been available to me and illustrate how Sayyid Qutb shifted to the right along the spectrum in his later years. In these he shows the influence of Mawdudi at several points. The Muslim Brothers are generally thought of as “fundamentalist,” or radical Islamist in my terms, but in fact they undoubtedly contain a spectrum of views, some of which may be closer to modernist than radical Islamist (see fn. 53, below).

⁴⁸ The Islamic Law and Constitution, Ahmad, Kurshid, trans. and ed., 5th ed. (Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd., 1975), p. 72.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ “Flexibility is not fluidity (lit. “melting”),” Ma'alim fi al-tariq, 1975, p. 121,Google Scholar cf. English translation: Milestones (Beirut & Damascus: The Holy Koran Publishing House for the I.I.F.S.O., 1978), p. 197.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ma'alim, pp. 94–95;Google Scholar cf. Milestones, pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Mawdudi states that the Shari'a was in effect in India until the British took over (The Islamic Law, p. 118). The later edition of Sayyid Qutb's 'Adala puts much less emphasis on the failings of post-Rashidun community than the earlier edition (cf. fn. 47, above). In the earlier edition, for example, the coming to power of the Umayyads is described as a virtual disaster for Islam (1953 ed., p. 198, Hardie translation, pp. 197–98), while in the later edition it is said only to lead to a decline (1974 ed., pp. 216–17).Google Scholar

⁵² The Islamic Law, p. 118.Google Scholar

⁵³ Islam and Revolution, pp. 337–38.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ E.g., Qutb, Sayyid, 'Adala, 1974 ed., p. 94;Google Scholar cf. Social Justice, Hardie, , trans., p. 88.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See, e.g., Mitchell, R. P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 240–41.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Mawdudi, The Islamic Law, p. 118;Google ScholarQutb, S., Milestones, pp. 259–61.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The Islamic Law, pp. 265–68.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ In Islam and Revolution, pp. 27–165.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See, for example, the article “A1-Ikhwan al-Muslimin” in Echo of Islam (Ministry of Islamic Guidance, Tehran), June–July, 1982, 23, 70, and Ibrahim, , “Anatomy,” pp. 434–36.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Jihad in Islam, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ma'alim, p. 9;Google ScholarMilestones, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

⁶² Ma'alim, p. 59;Google ScholarMilestones, p. 103.Google Scholar

⁶³ On Mawdudi and the Muslim Brothers, see, e.g., Mintjes, , “Maulana Maududi's Last Days,” p. 73, fn. 85.Google ScholarQutb, Sayyid became less “socialist” as he became more radical Islamist (compare, e.g., 'Adala, 3rd ed., pp. 108, 144;Google Scholar and Social Justice, Hardie, , trans., pp. 106–7Google Scholar with 'Adala, 1974, pp. 115–16, 160–61). Comments on Iran are based on Western press reports and indications in the Tehran Times.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Islam and Revolution, p. 30.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Role of Muslim Students in the Re-Construction of the Islamic World, Khan, N. A., trans. (I.I.F.S.O., 1401/1981), p. 16.Google Scholar For Sayyid Qutb see my “Role of Islamic Fundamentalism” in Ker, John M. and Sharpe, Kevin J., eds., Religion's Response to Change (Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Chaplaincy Publishing Trust, 1985), pp. 40–41,Google Scholar also Khasa'is al-tasawwur al-Islami wa-muqawwimatuh (Cairo & Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1403/1983), p. 72.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ On the absence of the idea of progress from traditional thinking, see fn. 80, below.

⁶⁷ I prefer the expression “Islamic symbol system” or “basic Islamic symbol system” to “Islam” here. What I mean by the “basic Islamic symbol system” is those central beliefs and practices, such as the unity of God (tawhid), the final prophethood of Muhammad, and the five “pillars,” found in the Qur'an and the Sunna and viewed as an organized system. This is not simply the same as the Qur'an and the Sunna; for example, the doctrine that Muhammad is the last prophet is a central and essential part of the “symbol system” but is mentioned only once in the Qur'an. For the idea of religion as a “symbol system” see especially Geertz, Clifford, “Religion as a Cultural System” in Lessa, William A. and Vogt, Evon Z., eds., Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 205–16;Google Scholar also Robert N.Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” in ibid., pp. 73–87. Modernists insist that Islam is an essentially simple religion and one way they “simplify” the symbol system is by reducing the obligatory content of the Hadith and rejecting much of traditional fiqh. Radical Islamists such as Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb do these things too to some extent, but they also simplify the symbol system with their stress on tawhid in the sense of obedience exclusively given to God as the central linchpin of their system.

⁶⁸ Smith has remarked on this in relation to Mawdudi, (Islam in Modern History, p. 236),Google Scholar as has Adams, Charles (“The ideology of Mawlana Mawdudi” in Smith, D. E., ed., South Asian Politics and Religion [Princeton University Press, 1966], pp. 394–95).Google Scholar Sayyid Qutb also sees Islam as a system, or perhaps as a program or a method (manhaj) which gives rise to a system (see fn. 62, above). The idea of Islam as a system is closely related to the idea of Islam as an ideology (Adams, ibid.).

⁶⁹ Hodgson, Marshall, The Venture of Islam, Conscience and History in a World Civilization, Vol. 3, The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 389.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1962 and New American Library, Mentor, 1964), ch. 4.

⁷¹ Mawdudi, Qutb, and Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brothers, were all “laymen” and this point is commonly made concerning Sunni “fundamentalists” (e.g., Mintjes, “Mawlana Mawdudi's Last Years,” p. 54; Ibrahim, , “Anatomy,” p. 434).Google Scholar Nevertheless, there certainly are “fundamentalist” ulama in Egypt today, and I presume elsewhere too. Khomeini is, of course, one of the ulama, as were also the earlier figures, Abu al-Qasim Kashani and Mujtaba Nawwab Safawi (see Voll, , Islam, Continuity and Change, p. 204).Google Scholar

⁷² Though in some cases radical lslamism uses modernist interpretations in its own ways. Examples would be the idea of tawhid as meaning rejection of the worship of any but God, which modernists present as the charter of political freedom (see note 42, above) and radical Islamists use to stress the necessity of relating every area of life to Islam, and also the idea of jihad as necessary so that Islam may be freely preached, which modernists use to restrict the need for jihad where a non-Muslim government allows Muslims religious freedom but radical Islamists use to insist that government must be in the hands of Muslims (for examples see Peters, Islam and Colonialism, pp. 125–31).

⁷³ I suspect that Khomeini could accept “republic” but not “democracy” because the former in Persian (jumhuri) comes from an Arabic root, though so far as I know its use in the sense of “republic” is new.

⁷⁴ See Rahman's, Fazlur suggestion (“Islam: Challenges,” p. 326).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ E.g., Shaltut, Mahmud, al-Islam, 'aqida wa.shari'a (Cairo & Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, n.d.), pp. 270–75.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ See, for example, the attitude of Ahmad Amin's father toward the British occupation of Egypt (Shepard, , Faith of a Modern Muslim, p. 15).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The following reaction of the scholar Ahmad ibn Sa'd to the fall of the Sokoto caliphate to the British in 1903 seems to me a good example of traditionalism: “We have a precedent in what the unbelievers did with … Baghdad. They burnt it, destroyed it, desecrated the graves of the saints, tore the community apart, and killed the Caliph such that the world was without a Caliph for a while. We have a precedent and a consolation in the Qarmatian unbeliever whom God granted the power over Mecca on the Day of Sacrifice… Even the Black Stone he took and went away with it. As God restored normalcy for the Muslim by the return of the Stone and the Caliphate to them, so also do we hope God will resolve this matter for us and grant us amelioration by His power and His grace.” (Quoted in Inquiry, 1, 7, December 1984, 54.)Google Scholar Secularists, modernists and radical Islamists all realize that “normalcy” is gone forever. Cf. Rahman, Faziur, “For the traditionalist there is no new age in the real sense of the word” (“Roots,” p. 32).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ For an example, see von Grunebaum, G., Modern Islam: The Search for Cultural Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), p. 270.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ These may be seen as continuations of the “adaptionist” and “fundamentalist” styles of traditional Islam described by Voll (see note 2, above).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Traditional Islam, like other traditional religions, did not hold the Western myth of progress, a point argued forcefully by Martin Lings writing under his Muslim name, ed-Din, Abu Bakr Siraj, in “The Islamic and Christian Conceptions of the March of Time,” Islamic Quarterly, I, 4 (12, 1954), 229–35.Google Scholar

⁸¹ In fact, there is debate about this. See, e.g., Peters, Rudolph, “Idjtihad and Taqlid in 18th and 19th Century Islam,” Die Welt des Islams, 20 (1980), 131–45.Google Scholar

⁸² Yamani's, Zaki article, “Islamic Law and Contemporary Issues,” in Malik, Charles, ed., God and Man in Contemporary Islamic Thought (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1972), pp. 49–82,Google Scholar strikes me as modernist. Dekmejian reports that in 1983 the Fahd, King “called upon Islamic scholars to hold an international conference to modernize Islamic law through rigorous ijtihad” (Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World [Syracuse University Press, 1985], p. 148 and fn. 26). This has a modernist ring to me.Google Scholar

⁸³ The attitude is illustrated by the following from Nasr, Sayyed Hossein: “Of course we do not propose that Muslims should remain oblivious of the world around them. This is neither desirable nor possible. No Islamic state can avoid owning trains and planes” (Islamic Life and Thought [Albany: SUNY Press, 1981], p. 28). This seems to suggest that modern technology is more something that cannot be avoided than something to be positively valued.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Crecelius, D. accuses the ulama of the Azhar of subservience combined with obstructionism in “Non-Ideological Responses of the Egyptian ‘Ulama’ to Modernization,” chapter 7 in Keddie, Nikki, ed., Scholars, Saints and Sufis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ This seems to be the case with Faraj, 'Abd al-Salam in al-Farida al-gha'iba (n.pl., 1402/1982, pp. 7–8,Google Scholar English translation, Jihad: The Forgotten Pillar, Ottawa [?], nd.), pp. 8–10.Google Scholar The idea of Khomeini as a precursor to the return of the Twelfth Imam is evidently held by some in Iran; e.g., the author of the wall slogan I saw in Tehran in 1984, “O God, O God, protect Khomeni until the revolution of the Mahdi” and the article, “Who will be the next president of Iran” in the Tehran Times, September 14, 1981, 1–2.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ “Is There ‘Islamic Fundamentalism” in Indonesia Now?” mimeographed copy of article prepared for The New Internationalist. One of the best known policies of the Nahdatul Ulama, their holding to the four madhahib over against groups such as the Muhammadiyya, marks them as (neo-)traditionalist.

⁸⁷ See note 85, above. Hassan Hanafi states that some of these groups rejected the use of radio and television and practiced traditional rather than modern medicine (al-Haraka al-lslamiyya, part 2, al-Wadan, November 20, 1982, page numbers, etc., not available to me).

⁸⁸ Though many of the leading Ulama today might better be described as modernist. The fatwa of the sheikh of the Azhar against al-Farida al-gha'iba claims that Islam teaches that “the nation is the source of authority” (al-Fatawa al-Islamiyya min Dar al-lfta'al-Misriyya, 10, 31 [Cairo, 1404/1983], p. 3750), almost a secularist position. On the other hand, the argument that a ruler should be considered a Muslim, and thus not the object of jihad, if he does no more than perform Salat, even if he does not rule by the Shari'a (ibid., pp. 3744), has an adaptationist traditionalist flavor.

⁸⁹ Gilsenan, Michael, Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Nasr's discussion of “secularism” as “all that is, from the human point of view, non-sacred or non-divine” (Islamic Life and Thought, p. 8)Google Scholar seems to me a bit more in line with traditional Islamic thinking than most definitions of secularism. Note also his attack on progress as a “false idol” (ibid., p. 27), his willingness to accept the traditional limitation of the Sharica to the area of “personal law” (pp. 27–29), his concern for the full “intellectual and spiritual riches” of Islam (p. 32), and his concern that Islam be the judge of “the times” and not vice-versa while at the same time desiring that the traditional truths of Islam be translated into contemporary language and urging that Muslims must know the West well, not just at second hand (p. 32). Cf. note 83 above. On Lings, see note 80.

⁹¹ This term has been used by Davis, Eric in “Ideology, Social Class and Islamic Radicalism in Modern Egypt” in Arjomand, Said Amir, ed., From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (London: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 134–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹² They are, I think, more likely than others to appreciate the moral commitment that is a condition of modern science and technology and that underlies secular ideologies; e.g., Hussein, Taha, Future of Culture, p. 21.Google Scholar

⁹³ E.g., Taha Hussein's oft-quoted statement about “literally and forthrightly doing everything” the Europeans do, quoted in note 17 above.

⁹⁴ One finds these things in Amin's, Ahmad popular series on Islamic cultural history, Fajr al-Islam (Cairo, 1929 and later editions),Google ScholarDuha al-Islam, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1933–1936 and later editions),Google ScholarZuhr al-Islam, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1944–1955, and later editions). Such writing has undoubtedly contributed to the considerable amount of secularist opinion in educated circles in Egypt.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ See, e.g., Smith, , Islam in Modern History, pp. 206–7. Other examples, at least as relevant, would be the major changes in Judaism involved in the transition from ancient to “Rabbinic” Judaism and in modern times from this to either Reform Judaism or Zionism. Whether Islam has ever undergone such a shift in its basic symbol system may be doubted.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Al-Islam wa-usul al-hukm (Cairo, 1925);Google Scholar French translation, “L'Islam et les bases du pouvoir,” by Bercher, L., Revue des Etudes Islamiques, 7 (1933), 353–91, and 8 (1934), 163–222.Google Scholar See also the summary and discussion of this in Hourani, A., Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 184–92.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ According to Cragg, Kenneth, writing in 1955, 'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq's view was a “now largely accepted reinterpretation of the Caliphate”Google Scholar (Frye, Richard N., ed., Islam and the West [The Hague: Mouton, 1957], p. 158). This may be so in many circles, but I am not aware of any serious public discussion that has led to it.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ One who does recognize it, at least in the area of intellectual endeavor, and who may perhaps be located somewhere between modernism and radical Islamism on the scale, is Sardar, Ziauddin. See “Is There an Islamic Resurgence?” Afkar International, I, 1 (06 1984), 35–39,Google Scholar and “Reconstructing the Muslim Civilization,” Inquiry, 1, 6 (11 1984), 39–44.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ That the doctrine of vilayat-i faqih is new has been recognized by more than one scholar, e.g., Arjomand, Said Amir, “Traditionalism in Iran,” in Arjomand, S. A., ed., From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (London: Macmillan, 1984), 222–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Iran is of course crucial here, but its war with Iraq and international ostracism tend to keep it in an “oppositional” mode.

¹⁰¹ See, for example, the story reported by Anderson, in Law Reform, p. 75;Google Scholar also Schacht's, comments in “Problems in Modern Islamic Legislation,” in Nolte, R. H., ed., The Modern Middle East (New York: Atherton, 1963), ch. 11, esp. pp. 190–91, 199.Google Scholar

¹⁰² 'Azzam for example, equates dhimma with “modern citizenship” in The Eternal Message, p. 124, but never mentions the “verse of the sword” that relates to the people of the Book (Qur'an 9:29).