Mainstream Islamism without fear. The cases of Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in Pakistan.

• Author: Amin, Husnul
• Position: Report

Introduction

In this paper, mainstream Islamism and Islamic political parties (IPPs) mainly refer to Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rehamn Group (JUI-F). The JI as one of the oldest Islamist movements in the Muslim world is inspired by Mawdudi's (1903-79) ideology of revivalism through the establishment of an Islamic state (Mawdudi, 1980; Azmi, 2002; Moten 2002; Bahadur 1997; Nasr 1994; Sayeed 1957; also see the JI website: www.jamaat.org). The JUI-F represents the largest political force of traditional-Deobandi Islam. That is, a Sunni sect which subscribes to an interpretation of the doctrinal text by the graduates of Deobandi seminaries. The first Islamic school of the Deobandi sect was founded in 1866 in the British Indian district of Saharanpur (for a detailed historical account of the Deoband movement, see e.g., Metcalf, 1982, pp. 87-263). The historical roots of the JUI-F can be traced back in Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) in British Colonial India (Pirzada, 2000). Unlike the JI that derives its support mainly from the modern educated urban middle classes, the JUI-F tends to draw from traditional rural sections of society. Most of the JI central and middle rank leadership comes from university graduates with a negligible portion from traditional madrasas (Ahmad, 1991; Nasr, 1994). In contrast, the JUI-F's organizational structure at all levels (central, provincial, district) is mainly occupied by ulema and madrasa graduates. In the given political landscape in Pakistan, the JI and JUI-F together can be safely said to represent mainstream Islamism. Among the IPPs taking part in national and provincial elections, these two parties capture the lion's share of votes. Both represent Sunni Islam. The JI has maintained a non-sectarian identity providing the space to people of different religious sects to join the party. However, the JUI-F mainly accepts membership of those Sunni Muslims that also subscribe to a Hanafi-Deobandi Islam. For the sake of this paper, I have also made a distinction between "militant" and "institutional" Islamism. The IPPs discussed in this paper may be referred to the latter category. The institutional Islamists primarily opt for democratic means, take part in elections, form electoral alliances with other religious and secular parties, and join coalition governments. However, it is still difficult to neatly separate the JI and JUI-F from their tacit connections and moral approval of the jihadi movements around the globe. Domestically, for the establishment of their intended Islamic state, these parties rely on electoral processes and they do not call for an overthrow of the existing political order through a violent revolution.

For the German scholar of Syrian origin and Professor of International Relations, Bassam Tibi (2012), Islam and Islamism are two distinguishable, nay mutually exclusive categories. In his rather simplistic conceptualization, the former stands for a religion, while the latter for a totalitarian ideology. Thus unlike Islam, Islamism necessarily aims to establish a totalitarian Islamic state based on sharia. According to Tibi, "it is a great mistake to view Islamism as liberation theology characterized by an 'attempt to repair'" (2012, p. 186). On the contrary, he argues, Islamism proffers an "agenda of cultural-totalitarian purification" and as there can be no "democratic totalitarianism," there cannot be a "democratic Islamism" (ibid). This bold verdict on political Islam leads Tibi to conclude that it is completely unlikely for Islamists to accept pluralism and abhor violence. Islamism (in contrast to Islam) "poses a grave challenge to world politics, security, and stability" (ibid). The Islamists aim at radical transformation of the modern nation-state system to a totalitarian Islamic state. Their vision of an Islamic order is "is nothing less than a vision of totalitarian rule" (Tibi, 1998, p. 18). This leads him to state that Islamists "constitute the most serious challenge to democracy in our age" (ibid, p. 26). Islamism in Tibi's academic discourse is thus an equivalent of Hannah Arendt's totalitarianism. In order to be able to reflect later on Tibi's inappropriate use of the term, it seems relevant here to quote from one of the seminal writers, Hannah Arendt (1953), and to know her explanation of totalitarianism, "In a perfect totalitarian government, where all men have become One Man, where all action aims at the acceleration of the movement of nature or history, where every single act is the execution of a death sentence which Nature or History has already pronounced, that is, under conditions where terror can be completely relied upon to keep the movement in constant motion, no principle of action separate from its essence would be needed at all. Yet as long as totalitarian rule has not conquered the earth and with the iron band of terror made each single man a part of one mankind, terror in its double function as essence of government and principle, not of action, but of motion cannot be fully realized. Just as lawfulness in constitutional government is insufficient to inspire and guide men's actions, so terror in totalitarian government is not sufficient to inspire and guide human behavior." (p. 340)

A review of literature shows that Tibi is not alone in his essentialist leanings. For instance, Middle East historian Bernard Lewis (2002) thinks that the inability of Muslims to be congruent with requirements of modern age testifies to the fact that something has gone wrong with Islam. The Orientalists, the conventional authorities on Islam, "have been accused of being essentialist and insensitive to the change, negotiation, development, and diversity that characterizes lived Islam" (Anjum, 2007, p. 656). This approach to stereotyping Islam and Muslim societies is weaved in studies conducted by scholars such as Bernard Lewis (2002, pp. 43-45), Emmanuel Sivan (1990, p. 3) and Daniel Pipes (1984, pp. 144-47). Furthermore, the essentialists have been reducing "the political and cultural universes of Islam to an Islam defined primarily by Arab experiences in history. Further still, Arab Islam is increasingly viewed through the precepts and practices of the Wahhabi creed originating in Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century, which is followed by a negligible fraction of all Muslims around the world" (Soguk, 2010, pp. 12-13). Such reductionist academic practices conceal the rich diversity across the Muslim world. More precisely, from a survey of a vast body of literature, political anthropologist, Irfan Ahmad (2005, p.14) has pointed out at least five non-verifiable basic assumptions permeating in studies on Islamism. The reviewed literature on Islamism problematically assumes that Islamism: 1) is an uprising against modernism and secular democracy, where Islamic movements and secularism are parallel categories with no point of intersection; 2) stands for a pure and indigenous culture (Islamic) vis-a-vis an impure modernity (Western); 3) is fixed, stagnant, and immutable; 4) is essentially in incompatible with modernity, and; 5) consists of angry and irrational actors.

In her creative work Enemy in the Mirror, American political scientist Roxanne L. Euben problematizes the approaches of treating "Islamism" and "European" as distinct entities never interacting with each other. She argues that the critique of Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyid Qutb, of Western imperialism, corrupt and incompetent Middle Eastern regimes and secular modernity is not unique (Euben, 199b). On the contrary, Qutb's critical assessment of the above is also shared by Christian fundamentalists and neo-liberal philosophers. In a review article, Bernhardsson (2002) beautifully summarizes this: "by situating Qutb in a cross-cultural comparative context, Euben undermines the perceived opposition between "us" and "them" or "Islam" and "the West" (p. 140). There are numerous other studies that question the compartmentalization of human life into secular/religious and modern/traditional parallels. These studies also reject the belief of early modernization theorists that traditions will fade away at the advanced stage of societal evolution towards modernization and development. Andrew Shryock, a cultural anthropologist, attempts to problematize the dichotomization of Islam into bashers (Islamophobes) and admirers (Islamophiles), "to expose the tactical ignorance, malign and benign, that suffuses educated opinion on all things Muslim. Neither Islamophobia nor Islamophilia has cornered the market on mis/representation. [What is needed is] a deeper, more critical understanding of how patterns of anxiety and attraction are continually reinvented ... and how they relate to prevailing ideas--of race, gender, citizenship, secularism, human rights, tolerance, and pluralism--that are important to Muslims and non-Muslims alike." (Shryock, 2010, p. 21)

The current research further extends and thus contributes to the academic discussion on empirical case studies of Islamism around the globe. The main aim is to question the validity of self-serving biases and stereotypes produced by the media. After the introduction, the remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section briefly explains the era of neoliberal policy in Pakistan, and then introduces mainstream Islamist political parties in Pakistan. Methodology and data analysis are discussed in detail in section two, and the last section concludes the paper.

Neoliberalism and Mainstream Islamism in Pakistan

Neoliberalism here is understood in the light of the Washington Consensus, as coined and popularized by John Williamson in his various studies (see for example, Williamson, 1990; 2004, pp. 1-14). The list of policy prescriptions that generated consensus among the international financial institutions (specifically the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) and the US government...