Political Islam in the Middle East

Question: To what extent do the models of political Islam put forth in the Iranian revolution depart from or parallel other Islamic political movements in the 20^thMiddle East?

Popular American concepts of Islamic political movements in the Middle East tend to see them as anachronistic anti-modernists who want to return the region to a system of governance that it experienced long ago.

But as a Palestinian journalist in Damascus once told me, commenting on the Iranian ulama: “I can dress like King Arthur, but that doesn’t make me medieval.”

In fact, the models of political Islam put forth in the Iranian revolution are distinctly part of the international political order and unprecedented in pre-modern history. In this respect, they parallel all models of political Islam put forward in the 20^th Century. In its nationalistic undertones and use of Western political institutions, Iranian political Islam resembles movements like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah (notwithstanding differences in sect). At the same time, political movements like those behind Al-Qaeda, while also distinctly modern and dependent on the contemporary system of political institutions, depart markedly from the Iranian brands of political Islam. Such movements call for a struggle that transcends national borders and has less clear objectives in terms of governance and social justice.

The political Islam behind the Iranian revolution was by no means the first Islamic political movement, but it was one of the most successful. The factors that drove the movement were the same as those that drove political Islam everywhere. First, there was the corruption of the existing government. After the CIA assisted the reinstatement of Mohammed Reza Shah over the non-aligned populist Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, the government grew steadily away from its people. Its manipulation by the United States was obvious. Abrahamian writes that the Shah “received technical assistance from the Israeli intelligence service, as well as from the CIA and the FBI” to establish the feared police force, SAVAK (419). The Shah sold out the oil nationalization that Mossadegh had worked so hard for, and he used his new power to “crush” all opposition parties (Abrahamian 419). The economy suffered severely and the numbers of urban poor swelled. A bitterness spread in Iran and hopes for Mossadegh’s model of a secular nationalism faded. It was in this atmosphere that Ayatollah Khomeini spread his message of an Islamic state via “cassettes, telephone lines, and networks of ulama” (Gelvin 286).

While the Iranian revolution asserted its goals as the creation of an Islamic state, the driving force behind its popularity seems to be its opposition to the repression and foreign intervention that it rallied against. In this, it was like other nationalistic movements in the region. While it professed an Islamic ideal, its aims were distinctly Iranian. The most potent aspect of its Islamic side seems to have been the cultural authenticity of the Ulama, which stood in stark contrast to the Shah’s Westernized manner and habits of excess. But beyond the Ulama’s authenticity as a longstanding Iranian cultural fixture, the revolution made use of just as many Western institutions and ideals as it did Islamic. Gelvin points out that the new name of the country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, includes a word that has no basis in Islamic history – “republic.” In fact, the Iranian revolution promised to deliver a decent government to Iranians according to Islamic principles of social justice and law, making use of the extant political institutions, which were mostly transplants of European provenance. “Rather than Islamizing the nation, it might be argued that the revolution nationalized religion,” writes Gelvin (291).

The Iranian revolution is a good starting point for examining other Islamic political movements in the Middle East both because it inspired a new era of the phenomenon, and because its causes and modalities resemble those of even those Islamic political movements that preceded it by half a century. Norton’s description of Shia populism is one that resonates with many different varieties of political Islam, whether Sunni or Shia: “Hopes born of education, urban migration and other facets of social mobilization are often thwarted by ineffective, corrupt or unresponsive government. Thereby [sic] fostering a ripe opportunity for populist ideologues to mobilize support” (Rahnema et al 191). Throughout the 20^th Century, this mobilization has often been an Islamic one.

In the late 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt grew on social circumstances that closely resembled those that came about in Iran 50 years later. At the time, Egypt had gained nominal independence but suffered from constant British intervention. Its government was composed of a Westernized elite who had little connection to the common people. The Muslim Brotherhood advocated for a realignment of Egyptian society according to Islamic principles, but not for a scrapping of all modern institutions of government. The parallels with the Iranian revolution can be traced long into the period of Egyptian independence, even though the Brotherhood is a Sunni organization and the Iranian revolution is, of course, Shiite. As in Iran, the experiment of secular nationalism was tried and failed, and the Muslim Brotherhood increased its popularity as Egyptians grew increasingly alienated from their leadership under Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. While nothing as sweeping as the Iranian Revolution has come to pass in Egypt, the possibility of such a movement is one of the great fears of the Mubarak regime.

Hamas is another political group with an Islamic orientation with many parallels to the Iranian Islamic political movement that led to revolution, though it has completely different origins. When Hamas was founded in 1987, it was not modeled after the Iranian Revolution. But like the Iranian revolution, it was – and still is – essentially a nationalist movement that articulates its principles according to Islamic ideals. As such, it is – like the Iranian movement and the Muslim Brotherhood before it – a distinctly modern creature. As we learned in lecture, Hamas’s essential appeal is its uncompromising opposition on behalf of a native population (Palestinians) to a foreign-influenced oppressor (Israel).

Then, there is Hezbollah. To the outside world, the party is sometimes mistaken for one with a pan-Islamic vision and (oddly enough because it represents a completely different sect and people) sometimes confused with Hamas. But Hamas – like the other Islamic political movements – is a distinctly Lebanese nationalistic organization that professes to be guided by the principles of Islam in its endeavors. It grew out of Shia opposition to Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon – just like the other movements grew in opposition to foreign oppression. Hezbollah’s religious orientation gave it credibility with the marginalized Lebanese Shia, out of whom the movement coalescent from several different groups in the early 1980s. And while Hezbollah has ideological links to Iran and is politically supported by Syria, it has never attempted to expand outside of Lebanon. Far from being a completely unprecedented kind of movement, it is essentially a nationalistic militia that makes use of Islamic symbolism, language and principles – as well as numerous European institutions and ideas.

This is, by and large, the story of Islamic political movements in the Middle East. They tend to be spurred by the same forces, and use the same existing frameworks for discourse and action that their secular opponents use. Rarely do they seriously challenge the international system of Westphalian states.

The exception, of course, is Wahhabi-inspired groups like Al Qaeda that are not bound to any specific territory. American-Saudi cooperation, as we learned in our lectures, spawned such groups to counter the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. With that threat vanquished, the groups became a sort of liberation movement without a distinct population in need of liberation, and have turned their energies to a broader quest for Islamic purity. It should be noted, however, that even this movement depends on the existence of modern political structures for its existence; it was, after all, born out of wars between them.

In the particulars of their manifestations, models of political Islam in the Middle East vary greatly. They represent different sects and assert roles for religion in the state of varying magnitudes. But the undercurrents of nearly all the models are strikingly similar: they are viable, nationalistic movements that draw on their Islamic orientation for authenticity and for guiding principles. They arise in response to similar circumstances. Far from being throwbacks to an earlier era, they make effective use of modern political systems and institutions. Their clothes may look medieval, but everything else about them is decidedly contemporary.

Cited works

Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran between Two Revolutions

Cleveland, William, A History of the Modern Middle Eas.t

Gelvin, James, The Modern Middle East.

Owen, Roger and Sevket Pamuk, Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century.

Rahnema, Ali, ed., Pioneers of Islamic Revival.