WORLD FUTURES 2022, VOL.78, NOS. 2-4, 121-135
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Doha, Qatar
Abstract
Ziauddin Sardar has had a uniquely rich life experience, and an equally unique ability to share it. In both geographical and historical terms, few individuals have had the opportunity to witness so many great transformations, from an insider vantage point. The focus of this paper is his transition through the transformations of modern Islamic activism, a process with far-reaching consequences, and he was in the thick of it all. One issue highlighted is the Western origins of Islamism.
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Long before meeting Ziauddin Sardar, I experienced his “ghost.” When I joined the London-based magazine Arabia in the summer of 1982, I heard vague stories about his brief passage through the magazine, which made sense only later. However, by the time of my much briefer stint at Afkar/Inquiry in late 1986, the “ghost” and legend of Zia was much more tangible. By then, I knew more of him, after reading his writings, and we had a few encounters on the London Muslim scene. As I will detail later, we also developed a close collaborative relationship. Notably, Zia published my first two books, both became instant hits, and one very controversial.
Of course, now we know the reason for his ejection from Inquiry, which did not take long to unfold after the departure of one of its main founders. This was not the first time Zia antagonized his (usually conservative) backers and it would not be the last. Making himself a persona non-grata in what should have been his zone of comfort became a pattern (Sardar, 2005). This goes to the heart of the Zia trajectory-mission, and the paradoxical role of the pioneer-rebel he continued to play as he surfed the Islamist tides that emerged in the late 1960s, with London as its epicenter. At once leading, even helping create successive “waves” of Islamist activ- ism, he usually and sometimes suddenly jumped ship (or more often, was forced to walk the plank). He would then identify, help build up, and surf the next wave, with similar results. In each case, a combination of genius, agility and good luck put him at the forefront of key trends, while the rebellious predisposition catapulted him ahead and beyond.
No less remarkable was his ability to reconcile, or at least straddle, antagonistic trends, finding himself at home in both, yet wreaking havoc within each; or his deft/miraculous anticipation or creation of new trends. He would be at the right place, at the right time, ready to be at the forefront. Because of this, his interesting trajectory is also revelatory, dispelling many of the myths engulfing important trends, in particular Islamism.
Analysts who claimed to have “discovered” Islamism in the 1970s and continued to speculate about its origins causes and drivers, need to gaze at Zia’s apparently confused and confusing trajectory, to discover how late and irrelevant their “discoveries” were. His story is also a reminder that Islamism, like nationalism and communism, originated in Western universities, where many leaders developed their ideas, and found their mission. Just like key secular nationalists (Sun Yat-sen, Ho Chi Minh, Habib Bourguiba, Leopold Senghor, Ahmed Sekou Toure Kwame Nkrumah), and key Islamic thinkers (Ali Shariati, Sayyid Qutb, Malik Bennabi, Hassan Turabi, Necmettin Erbakan), Zia found an intellectual circle in London, and one that ripples around the world in his various networks. Many circles have emerged within Western-inspired and controlled colonial cultural bubbles. Taking a ship (or, later, a plane), to what Benedict Anderson called “sites of pilgrimage” in the Metropolis where the pilgrims were transformed into men by the time they returned home (Anderson, 2006).
Zia’s early intellectual formation occurred within the emerging expatriate Islamist consciousness movements amongst Muslim students, at a time when Islamism was slowly emerging, and at a time when both traditionalism and Islamic revivalism were challenged by rising leftist or nationalist trends. Conservative authoritarianism or statist nationalism in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere were also making their mark. In this environment, European capitals often offered a refuge/ incubator for an emerging Islamic consciousness, especially during the anti-colonial struggle. Hot spots of conflict, such as Algeria, Palestine, Suez, and Lebanon, became the focus of Islamic solidarity and self- discovery for students with diverse origins and cultures.
Organizations like the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), where Zia became a key volunteer activist, and later a leader, was the training ground for many figures who later became leaders in their own countries. As evident from its name, the FOSIS came into existence when several Islamic societies, usually regionally based and made up mainly of international students, had already been established. Representatives of a few of those, including a contingent from Dublin, met in Birmingham in 1962 to agree the formation of this umbrella organization. Since then, the balance of member- ship had shifted toward more home students, and so did the focus of con- cerns (Nabi, 2014).
Zia joined the organization when still at secondary school, even though it was composed of mainly international graduate students. FOSIS had a lasting impact on his trajectory, helping him mature intellectually under the mentorship of prominent Islamist figures. He also made most of the important friendships that would be crucial for many of his future ventures within its ranks (Sardar, 2005). At that time, FOSIS was rather inclusive, and not only geographically (Africa, Asia, Middle East), but across sects and political convictions.
Zia named the Sudanese philosophy professor, Jaafar Shaikh Idris, as one of his guides. Jaafar was an amiable guy, although by the time I made his acquaintance in the 1980s, he had was fast becoming a hardened Salafi. (I had a brief and an unfriendly brush with him at Khartoum University in late 1970s, but he did not know me then). During the Iran- Iraq war, Jaafar became a semiofficial Saudi propagandist. This followed a split in the Sudanese Islamist movement in which Jaafar led the more conservative faction. I remember once he responded to my criticism of his siding with Saddam against Iran saying: “If I had an army, I would have joined Saddam’s war.” Had he met Zia during that period, the two would not have been on speaking terms.
Islamist Transformations
The transformations experienced by Idris reflected the increasing polarization and radicalization of the Muslim scene. FOSIS was dominated by an alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Pakistan-based Jamaat Islami. The groups espoused similar positions based on the vague aspiration of restoring Islam’s past splendor. The creation of organizations was supposed to be the tool to achieve this, but it soon became a goal. In spite of the convergence of their views (even though the Jamaat was more conservative and rigid), they were adamant on remaining sep- arate. In fact, they negotiated a deal to carve out respective zones of exclusive influence: the Arab world for the Brotherhood, and South Asia for the Jamaat (1).
The grip of the groups on FOSIS was light at first, appearing more “Muslim” than “Islamist.” European and American converts played a prominent role (Malcolm X was hosted as he was transiting to Hajj in 1964). The group also protested the execution of Sayyid Qutb in 1966, among other things. (Zia was later very critical of Qutb, accusing him— unfairly—of radicalizing the Brotherhood, and—wrongly—describing the men who murdered Sadat as Brotherhood members who were avenging Qutb)(2). But the grip tightened over time.
Suffice it to say that Qutb borrowed his ideas from Maududi, whose Jamaat Islami remained largely pacifist. The “political” nature of most Islamist movements meant that they were entangled in other political identities/consideration. As shown from the turf rivalry between Jamaat and Ikhwan, there was an ethnic/nationalist angle to the contests. There was also a latent sectarian dimension. All these would impose themselves as decisive factors on the scene at a later stage.
Surfing the Waves
Unbeknownst to Zia and his fellow dreamers of an Islamic revival, “revivalist” waves had been slowly forming over the horizon. The adage “beware of what you wish for” applied to this bunch. At the juncture between Zia’s ascendancy to the top leadership of FOSIS and his disen- chantment with it, the October/Ramadan war of 1973 erupted between Israel and its Arab neighbors (Egypt and Syria) with momentous conse- quences. This time, the Arabs were on the offensive, and Arab solidarity did materialize as Saudi Arabia led the coalition of Arab oil producers into a targeted embargo. Before that, while researching a book on Science and Technology in the Middle East in 1974, Zia visited Iran, Iraq, and Syria, coming face to face with the early rumblings of the anti-Shah protests in Iran. Again, he appeared more interested in metaphysics and politics than his actual specialization—mathematics at that time.
A couple of years later, he was invited to Saudi Arabia by a former FOSIS colleague. There, he spent over five years helping establish and run a research center on Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca). While there, he helped raise money for a London-based research Center, the Muslim Institute, which he then entrusted to a couple of former colleagues from (yes, you guessed it) FOSIS (Sardar, 2005).
s, you guessed it) FOSIS (Sardar, 2005).
There was a supreme irony here. On Zia’s return to the UK in 1981, the Iranian revolution has already created a new revolutionary order, and he joined his maverick friend, Kaleem Siddiqi, to rally to the revolution. Using Saudi money to run what had virtually become an Iranian propaganda outfit was something to behold. More interestingly, Zia continued to receive Saudi funds for another Chicago-based center, as he helped found the Iranian-funded Afkar/Inquiry. Even more remarkable was his eventual ejection from the Institute, as he became critical of Siddiqui’s increasing dogmatism and blind subservience to the Mullahs in Iran. Another friend lost, another new adventure awaiting. Soon after, he was also thrown out of Inquiry as mentioned earlier.
In 1987, he went to Malaysia as an advisor to then Education Minister Anwar Ibrahim, another FOSIS acquaintance. In another irony, Ibrahim later tried to broker a deal for Zia with the Saudis, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The offer was of a huge sum of money, no strings attached, to support his “research.” However, as the cheque was being made, a condition was stipulated, subtly requesting the payee not to criticize the Kingdom. Such conditions go without saying, since no regime pays someone to criticize it. Zia, for some reason, would not agree to this stipulation, and the deal fell through.
The significance of this chain of entanglements is in their coincidence with waves of revolutionary fervor. The 1970s oil boom put Saudi Arabia and Iran center-stage in the region, even globally. At first, they were allies. However, with the eruption of the 1978–1979 Iranian revolution, and the ascendency to power of Ayatollah Khomeini and his pan-Islamist project, the two countries no longer saw eye-to-eye. While the authoritarian, secular and pro-Western Shah was a national competitor to Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the two regimes had more in common, in particular, shared threats: internal dissent and radical regimes in the region, and a common reliance on US protection. The fact that both were successful in subjugating religious authority to state rule also minimized sectarian friction.
Throughout this period, the “Islamic revival” was gathering steam, as Muslim masses everywhere became more assertive, and more religiously observant. Part of this was due to increasing literacy, self-confidence, and more wealth. However, disillusion and traumas also played a role, following episodes such as the June 1967 routing of Arab armies by Israel, the arson attack on the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem a year later. As Zia’s own trajectory indicated, migration to the West was a catalyst. Even short stays there by expatriate students heightened the consciousness of religious identity and launched quests for more spirituality. This coincided with the youth rebellions of the 1960s in the West, where anti-colonial themes were being emphasized. In this rebellious atmosphere, a rising number of Westerners, including a few celebrities, choose Islam as spiritual refuge and protest gesture at the same time, particularly among African Americans.
The life experience of Zia, as young immigrant in an unfamiliar place, confronting a very hostile physical environment (terrible cold), compounded by poverty, which was in turn exacerbated by a hostile social environment (constant racist bullying) was very disorienting. Obtaining simple things previously taken for granted, such as halal food, became a struggle. Gravitating toward religion was at once a question of identity and a refuge. Revivalism has been a feature of Muslim history long before modernity, but intensified from the late 18thth century, as many movements, personalities and governments endeavored to propose or implement reforms. Tradition was often evoked, as in movements like Wahhabism in Arabia (from 1744), Mahdism in Sudan (1881), and multiple so-called “neo-Sufi” movements, dotted the scene in the 19th century, and had important transformative impacts. However, tradition was also challenged, both by radical “traditionalist” revolutionaries like Mhadism and Wahhabism, and by modern reformists. In the 20th century, mass movement, such as the Khilfat Movement in India, sought to assert popular religious sentiments to influence policy. They were followed by the emergence of organized movements such as the MB and Jamaat, and similar movements elsewhere, including mass movements in Indonesia whose membership ran into tens of millions. Additionally, influential figures who did not run formal organizations, such as Ayatollah Khomeini, Baqir Al-Sadr, Malik Bennabi, and Ali Shari’ati, also amassed considerable support.
Islamism was also implicated in what Malcolm Kerr called the Arab cold war, the contest between the radical camp (led by Nasser and other Arab nationalists) and the conservative camp, of which Saudi Arabia and Iran were stalwarts (Kerr, 1971). Both camps enlisted conservative clerics on their side, even though the Shah was less keen on Islamic activism than the Wahhabi-influenced Saudis. While the Saudi kingdom had relatively moderated in its third phase as it was re-founded at the dawn of the twentieth century, becoming a Western ally and largely tamed its clerics, it remained a very strict puritan regime. Persecuted Islamists sought refuge there from 1950s, providing the endangered kingdom and neighboring Gulf states a useful shield against radical propaganda from the rising republics. The groups were not allowed to organize openly in the Kingdom or interfere in its internal politics. However, members were individually incorporated into the bureaucracy and educational and media institutions. They also played a crucial role in the ideological and propaganda battle against the radicals. At the same time, the Saudis cultivated their own homegrown clerics, who may not have been a match for Nasser’s propaganda, given their archaic ways and poor familiarity with modern thought. However, they had been influential in mobilizing rigidly indoctrinated generations of conservative believers, and even steering modern Islamists toward more conservatism. With the oil boom, the more conservative strain of Saudi “Salafism” came to dominate the scene, displacing the relatively modern Islamism, and it provoked violent conflict.
1979 was a watershed year, witnessing the overthrow of the Shah and a violent localized revolt by hard-line Wahhabis who occupied the Holy Mosque in Mecca. That was also the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As the US decided to make Afghanistan “the Soviet Union’s Vietnam,” Islamic movements and activists became the heroes of the hour, as Ronal Reagan’s “freedom fighters.” This does not, however, validate the simplistic/conspiratorial narratives about the US having “created” Islamism; this claim is as ridiculous as arguing that Russia and China created South East Asia’s communism. Rather, it was the local actors who, in both cases, “saved” the relevant allied great power by winning the war. Finding a ferocious, but simultan- eously low maintenance proxy to vanquish your enemy for you is not easy, as good imperialists would tell you. More important, winners cre- ate momentum. The “victories” achieved in Iran and later in Afghanistan, made the erstwhile persecuted and marginalized Islamism “fashionable” for the first time. Even secular/radical left-wing luminaries, like Michel Foucault and Roger Garaudy were “converted” to the cause, literally in the case of the latter.
I reiterate here the point that I made earlier: Islamism was part of major international shifts that had their focus in the West. Religious revivalism was not a phenomenon restricted to the Muslim world, but part of a worldwide religious resurgence (Armstrong, 2011; Kepel, 1994; Westerlund, 1996).
Religion and Revolution
There is a sense in which speaking about an “Islamic revival” may be misleading. It is true that Iranian revolution of 1978–1979 was the focus of region-wide, even international, revolutionary fervor. This was because the revolution was a practical alliance between radical left-wing groups, including the Iranian Communist party, and religiously motivated actors, as well hybrid groups which mixed Marxism and religion in various combinations. For this reason, it took a decidedly anti-imperialist turn that resonated widely beyond the Muslim world. In this, it had also departed radically from the habitual “Islamic” trends that were opposed to the left, and usually allied to pro-Western regimes, such as Saudi Arabia. Such movements were far from revolutionary. They were very conservative, and they played a decidedly counter-revolutionary role in defending the status-quo against revolutionary threats. This included the Afghan jihad.
The Iranian revolution thus broadened the appeal of Islamism precisely because of the influence of leftism, while also emboldening Islamists by demonstrating the feasibility of Islamist-led mass insurrections that could overthrow one of the most powerful regimes in the region, in spite of the regime’s massive army, fierce security apparatus, abundant resources, and solid international backing. It also showed that a modern Islamic’ state was not a mere utopia.
This is a reminder of the rather marginal and “provisional” status of Islamist groups until that moment and perhaps still. The movements fell into four major categories:
Small clandestine groups in countries that outlaw such movements, as in Saudi Arabia and many Central Asian countries (until the end of Communism for some).
Movements that suffered violent suppression after periods of tacit toleration, as happened in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Algeria. Not surprisingly, the relevant countries remained unstable.
Movements that had reached a modus vivendi with the regimes, as in Kuwait, Jordan, Malaysia, Bahrain, and India. It is also interesting that these countries have, except for Bahrain, remained stable, with no regime change or practices of excessive oppression.
Movements in countries that permitted only informal Islamist presence, and either withdrew it later (UAE, many former Communist countries), or turned it into formal acceptance, and later selective incorporation (Algeria, Yemen, Morocco, Indonesia, Turkey).
There are some paradoxical cases. Saudi Arabia, which implements the strictest Islamic codes, well beyond the demands of most extreme groups, does not tolerate any organized public presence by any Islamist movement, especially not local ones. Also, Turkey, presumably ruled by an “Islamist” party as we often hear, has a constitution that is strictly (some would say fanatically) secular, and does not permit any political organization along religious lines. The ruling AKP adheres to the secular constitution and had never declared an Islamist agenda. It rather identifies as a “conservative” party espousing democracy. AKP leader, Erdogan, came into conflict with Egyptian Islamists when, during his first visit to Egypt after January 2011 revolution, he recommended a secular constitution for Egypt (Ozcan, 2014).
The shift occasioned by the rise of the “Islamic Republic” in Iran offered, for the first time, a workable governance model that appeared to be demo- cratic in some form, involving elections, legislature, and a modern fac ̧ade in figures like the first prime minister and later a president. This created an atmosphere in which previous Islamic utopias began to sound more realistic. It also championed all sorts of liberation causes. This is why Islamic intellectuals like Zia were blown off their feet. However, as the Iranian system began to descend into chaotic violence, engage in excessive brutality against opponents, slide into an authoritarian theocracy, and got embroiled in wars and blatant sectarianism, aspiring Islamists began to distance themselves from it. The mantra became that “the system we plan to create will not follow the Iranian model.” Ironically, this is what Islamist were saying earlier about the “Saudi model,” when it was only “Islamic state” around. Every other model adopted, whether in Pakistan under Zia ul-Haq in the 1970s, in Sudan under Nimeiri in 1980s (and more emphatically under Omar El-Bashir, 1989–2019), also received the same treatment: “nothing to do with us or our plan.” This is not surprising, since the majority of Muslims acknowledge only the “Righteous Caliphate” (the first three decades after the death of the Prophet) as authentically Islamic. Most Shi’a do not recognize the first three Caliphs.
It is ironic, though, that the only models Islamists grudgingly endorsed (Malaysia from the 1980s, Turkey from 2002, Indonesia from 1998 and Tunisia since 2011), were overtly secular quasi-democratic regimes This might give credence to Zia’s claim that the Islamist project is a dead end. I have argued the same earlier, in my book, Who Needs an Islamic State (1991, 2008), which Zia commissioned and published. However, I had sounded a more optimistic note then about possibilities of innovative thinking that would breathe the spirit of Islam into modern life in a way that would be more authentic as well as well as liberating. While Zia also proposed a similar direction for change, one senses despair in his later works.
Hopping off the Surfing Board
I have suggested earlier the metaphor of the surfer to describe Zia’s relationship with modern Islamism. He was an active participant in the process from a vantage point that brought him in touch with people who became top Islamist (and at times national) leaders around the Muslim world. He also played the paradoxical role of pioneer thinker as well as a perpetual dissident, managing to be repeatedly at the right place and the right time to join an ascending trend, play a leading role in it, and hop off (or walk the plank) just before the ship began to sink.
Zia was there when intellectual Islamism was attracting the Muslim world’s brightest minds in Western universities. He was in Saudi Arabia as the oil boom made it an economic and religious powerhouse. He joined the fans of the Iran revolution as it became the dominant politicoreligious trend in the Muslim world. He became a leading voice of British Muslims as the community began to build its own distinct identity and assert its public presence. Then he became a leading light in the rising trend of “post-Islamism” when that revisionist trend began to emerge (even though he rarely identified with the trend explicitly).
This is how he himself depicted that trajectory in his recent, and most “heretical” book (Sardar, 2016):
During my youth, I was a Muslim activist. I established an Islamic society at my school, ran the London Islamic Circle that met on Saturdays at the Central London Mosque [in] Regent’s Park, and became the General Secretary of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) during my university years. So most of my youth was spent in gatherings of what we lovingly called ‘brothers and sisters in Islam’... [Who] were all working together to usher some intellectual, social and political resurgence in Islam. [However],[t]hose innocent ideals have now evaporated (p. 161).
He ascribed the debacle to several “wrong turns,” starting with the sectarianism that followed the Iranian Revolution. The Rushdie affair (from 1989) foregrounded “puritanism” among British Muslims. By the turn of the millennium, most British mosques fell in the hands of dog- matic hardliners. The stream of terror attacks inaugurated by the September 11 atrocities (soon to be followed by London’s own 7/7 (2005) and culminating in 2014 in ISIS, derailed the positive quest for an Islamic revival. (One should add here the disastrous “Islamisation” projects in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan). All these horrors went in tan- dem with attacks and invasions that had turned Muslim territories, from Palestine, Iraq and later Syria, to Afghanistan and Kashmir, into slaughter zones, where the innocent suffer most (Sardar, 2016).
What is remarkable about the tone of despair in his book is the more categorical blame of “Wahabi” Islam, meaning the puritan, literalist version of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, for the terrorist surge. Zia even moves perilously further, blaming “orthodox Islam,” i.e., the dominant strand of Islam, in other words Islam as such, for the crisis and violence. He argued that heresy should take center stage and dethrone orthodoxy (Sardar, 2016).
A few years back, Zia would have condemned such utterances as “Orientalist claptrap.” He probably deliberately sought to overdo it, since he was writing in a series titled “provocations.” Nevertheless, there is a valid point to be made here: how can we continue to place responsibility for the wanton violence committed by apparently deranged Muslims on others? There is an element of collective responsibility and guilt, if only because the umma has failed to seriously “excommunicate” and isolate the crazy fanatics, cutting them off from any source of legitimacy. It is imperative also to deprive them from all excuses, by referring, as Zia himself does, to the plight of Palestinians, Iraqis, and other marginalized victims. The umma can only fulfill its responsibility when the terror criminals are cut off, and branded for the criminals they really are, not just against others, but against Islam. They cannot be treated as misguided zealots, but as outright vile criminals against faith.
There is a hadith (an authentic one, since the principle is repeatedly emphasized in the Quran) that a person who makes his neighbor feel unsafe can never be a believer. The abuse of trust, hiding among civilians in order to hurt them, is a treachery that is deemed as the gravest sins in the Quran. A graver sin is making people feel unsafe from believers. It is also not sacrilege to say that the whole Muslim community is now, collectively, in error. The Quran has censured followers of earlier revelations for not adhering to the true spirit of their faith, selectively adopting teachings and values according to expediency. That approach was condemned as the epitome of unbelief (Quran, 2: 85).
This said, however, we also owe an obligation to truth and accuracy. Wahabis have a lot to account for but cannot be blamed for all violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, or even for the bulk of it. It is true that Wahabism emerged as a violent movement, committing many atrocities as it overran Arabia and neighboring regions. However, once the Wahabi state was established in Saudi Arabia, it was pacified. Instances of violent acts perpetrated by Saudi Wahabis were, and continue to be, rare. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, since the state continued to enforce strict Wahabi norms, the individual Wahhabi did not need to resort to any violence. This is similar to the cases in Iran, Israel and Modi’s India, where the extremist agendas are adopted by the state itself, making the potential terrorist redundant (except in cases, like that of Yitzhak Rabin, when a slackening leader needs to be disciplined). This happened in Saudi Arabia, from the perspective of extremists, when US troops were admitted to Saudi Arabia to fight Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. And that was the origin of the current crisis.
The second reason behind the pacification was the Saudis alliance with the West (UK and later the US) from the inception of their state. Since Arabia had been under Ottoman rule, and the Ottomans had dismantled early attempts at Wahhabi statehood, it was easy for the monarchs to sell their followers the idea that the Western attacks on the Ottoman empire was not an attack on Islam, but on Muslim heretics who deserved it. The threats of communism and radical Arab regimes made it easier to convince the most ardent of Islamic radicals that the West was the proverbial lesser evil. Thus, Osama bin Laden had no qualms about fighting shoulder to shoulder with CIA operatives in Afghanistan, in a conflict when it was not clear if the jihad was for the sake of Islam, or for the sake of Reagan (and it did not seem to matter). Bin Laden’s mood changed only when the Americans came to “occupy” the “Peninsula of Muhammad.”
Thus, the claim that Wahhabism is inherently violent or anti-Western is contradicted by facts and a long history of pacifism. The same can be said of other dogmatic and very conservative groups, such Jamaat Islami in Pakistan and India, or the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), or the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, and Algeria. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine stubbornly refused to engage in Jihad in Palestine until the intifada erupted in 1988. The “jihad” in Palestine was spearheaded by secular nationalist or left-wing parties (most were led by Marxist Christians). The Brotherhood then had made the classical argument that jihad needs the authorization of a legitimate Islamic state, or caliphate. That is why Israel was happy to lend support to Islamists, hoping to use them against the real threat at that time, the PLO. The Palestinian Islamists were forced to join the armed struggle not out of religious fervor, but because they were threatened with disintegration due to a split by Iranian-inspired factions, the rise of Jewish religious extremism and the specter of total de-legitimisation by the PLO factions (Hroub, 2008).
Interesting also was the way Jammaat Islami India distanced itself from the conflict in Indian Kashmir, which looked more like a Pakistani- Kashmiri nationalist cause. For this reason, the mantra repeated by Israel, American neo-conservatives, and the likes of Tony Blair and Emmanuel Macron (and a chorus of Arab rulers from Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia), that all conflicts in Muslim regions are “Islamist” is untenable. Blair had argued that the conflicts in Palestine, Bahrain, Iraq, Aceh (in Indonesia), Kashmir, the Philippines, and Somalia, were all due to “Islamic radicalism.” That is nonsense. As we have seen, even in the same country, as in India, not every “radical Muslim” is interested in the Kashmir conflict. The prescription, to which Zia unfortunately subscribed, that “religious reform” is the solution, and that heretical (or even non- Muslim) authorities should enforce such a “reform” is dangerous non- sense. In Islam, the only incontrovertible justification for jihad is the defense of religious freedom. Interference with the freedom of worship by “infidel” authorities would unleash fanaticism of monumental proportions.
Zia himself recalled the “nuclear” magnitude of conflict which the Christian religious reform unleased but dismissed this as irrelevant in the case of Islam. That claim is not supported by history. Wahhabism was indeed so violent in its inception mainly because it saw itself as a religious reform movement, intent on saving souls, a process that demands the despatching of quite a few souls to hell to save the rest. As I have explained elsewhere, to invite a religious reformation is usually to invite violent conflict (El-Affendi, 2003).
To fathom the genesis of violence, one must look at the stories that the perpetrators tell. My colleagues and I have explained this in detail in a collective work incorporating nine case studies of mass atrocities on four continents (El-Affendi, 2014). The recent mob attack on the United States Congress on January 6, 2021, is a textbook illustration of our arguments. If you espoused horror narratives of victimization and urgency, serious threats to identity and cherished values, presumed villains conspiring in the dark, preferably with some religious sprinkling, then you will see any atrocity as a “lesser evil,” necessary to save the nation, or “get your country back,” as former President Trump put it.
Conclusion: Zia's Islamic Odyssey
I have known Ziauddin Sardar first and foremost as a friend and a challenging intellectual interlocutor. He was a sort of mentor and enabler, challenging me to think provocatively, and always creating forums for debate. For many others, he was a polymath, a reminder of figures like Aristotle and great Islamic philosophers like Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd: someone who can write an introduction to mathematics in the morning, and an introduction to cultural studies in the afternoon, and a tome on Islamic theology after dinner. He was also a sort of social-intellectual magnate. His Colindale home was a pilgrimage site. As he detailed in his multiple memoirs, there is always a story of unannounced visitors, frequently with stories and surprises, and irresistible job offers/missions. I cannot count how many times I have been entertained at that welcoming place.
More interestingly from our current angle, is his uniquely rich experi- ence, and his equally unique ability to share it that stands out. In both geographical and historical terms, few individuals have had the opportun- ity to witness so many great transformations, from an interesting, usually insider, vantage point. Zia transitioned from a Pakistani village boy to a prominent British intellectual, passing through a number of phases: a science student, a Muslim student leader, a prominent journalist and writer, a leading Muslim intellectual-activist, a leading intellectual on the British scene, and finally, a leading Muslim skeptic.
Geographically, he had been a Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta rolled into one. He criss-crossed the world, but also plowed Britain from inside out. There is probably no village, suburb or neighborhood on this Sceptered Isle he had not visited. It is rare for anyone to have so many opportuni- ties to witness history and geographies in the making, nor to exploit those opportunities to the limit. He was so often involved in making history while simultaneously recording it, dissecting it, deconstructing it, and finally, unmaking it.
I, too, came from similar humble origins, a small northern Sudanese village by the Nile. The first time I encountered a white couple visiting our village, I ran home in terror. My mum reassured me that the “apparition” was “Christians” who often come to visit the “Idol,” some hundred yards downhill from our home. (She was referring to stone memorial of Colonel John Donald Hamill Stewart, a Scottish officer, who was murdered by the locals near that spot in 1884 as he tried to escape the Mahdist blockade. He was the second-in-command to General Charles Gordon, the then governor of Sudan. His boss did not make it either). Fifteen years later, I was part of a batch of Sudanese pilots training at the airport of North Eastern city of Carlisle. A couple of my colleagues were shopping in town when a child shouted to her mum: Look, mummy, niggers! Perhaps me too would have shouted to my friends, next time white strangers drifted by: Look, Nasranis! (Christians).
I have traveled such a long way, seen so much, passed through so many trials and tribulations, and have had great friends like Zia. What a life! We have been tested but are truly blessed!
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
The author has learned of this deal in a meeting with the (Saudi) member of the Brotherhood who negotiated it during a visit by this member to the premises of Arabia magazine in 1985.
Qutb was accused of aiding and abetting a splinter group which tried to reconstruct the Brotherhood after its dissolution in 1955, and had stocked some weapons, claiming that it was for self-defense in case the regime targets it again. The killers of Sadat had no connection whatsoever with the Brotherhood, but was a new group which emerged among students in the 1970s.
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