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Post-Islamism is a neologism in political science, the definition and applicability of which is disputed. Asef Bayat and Olivier Roy are among the main architects of the idea. [1]
The term has been used by Bayat to refer to "a tendency" towards resecularizing of Islam after the "exhaustion" of political Islam; [2] by Olivier Carré to refer to an era of Islamic history (following the decline of the Abbasids but before modernity) where the political-military and religious realms were separated; [1] by Olivier Roy to a recognition that after repeated efforts Islamists had failed to establish a "concrete and viable blueprint for society"; [3] and by Mustafa Akyol to refer to a backlash against Islamism in countries like Turkey, Iran, and Sudan. [4]
The term was coined by Iranian political sociologist Asef Bayat, then associate professor of sociology at The American University in Cairo in a 1996 essay published in the journal Middle East Critique . [5] [6] Bayat used it to refer "to the pragmatist orientation of Iran’s leadership after the death of Khomeini". [7]
Bayat describes it as "a condition where, following a phase of experimentation, the appeal, energy, symbols and sources of legitimacy of Islamism" becomes "exhausted, even among its once-ardent supporters", and a "fusion between Islam (as a personalized faith) and individual freedom and choice; ... with the values of democracy and aspects of modernity" emerges in its stead. As such, "post-Islamism is not anti-Islamic, but rather reflects a tendency to resecularize religion." It originally pertained only to Iran. [2] In this context, the prefix post- does not have historic connotation, but refers to the critical departure from Islamist discourse. [8] A decade later in 2007 Bayat described post-Islamism as both a "condition" and a "project". [1]
French politician Olivier Carré used the term in 1991 from a different perspective, to describe the period between the 10th and the 19th centuries, when both Shiite and Sunni Islam "separated the political-military from the religious realm, both theoretically and in practice". [1]
Olivier Roy argued in Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah in 2004 that "Islamists around the world" had been unable "to translate their ideology into a concrete and viable blueprint for society", leading "Muslim discourse" to enter "a new phase of post-Islamism". [3]
Peter Mandaville describes a evolution away from the "political Islam of the sort represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and the broader Ikhwani tradition" which failed to gain mass public support and "found it progressively more difficult to offer up distinctively 'Islamic' solutions to basic problems of governance and economy", and towards "a parallel retreat of religiosity into the private domain" and "the rise of Islamic hip hop, urban dress, and other popular culture forms as new spaces of resistance and activist expression", "working through platforms and network hubs rather than through formal, hierarchical social and political organizations". [7]
Mustafa Akyol (of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute) writing in 2020, postulates not just a "tendency to resecularize" or a moderation/mellowing/tiring of Islamism, but a strong reaction by many Muslims against political Islam, including a weakening of religious faith — the very thing Islamism was intended to strengthen. The backlash has arisen especially in places where Islamists have been in power (Turkey, Iran, Sudan), and extends to a decline in religiosity among young Muslims. [4]
According to Salwa Ismail, the terms "Postmodern Islamism" and "New Age Islamism" are used interchangeably. [9]
In Iran, the Reformist movement [10] [11] and the group known as the Melli-Mazhabi (who are ideologically close to the Freedom Movement) [12] have been described as post-Islamist.
The advent of moderate parties Al-Wasat Party in Egypt, as well as Justice and Development Party in Morocco appeared to resemble emergence of post-Islamism, although scholars disputed this. [13] [14] A similar characterization applies to the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). [15]
A 2008 Lowy Institute for International Policy paper suggests that Prosperous Justice Party of Indonesia and Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey are post-Islamist. [16] According to Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan (2012), many analysts consider Turkish AKP an example of post-Islamism, similar to Christian democratic parties, but Islamic. [17] However, some scholars such as Bassam Tibi dispute this. [18] İhsan Yılmaz argues that the party's ideology after 2011 is different from that of between 2001 and 2011. [19] Post-Islamism has also been used to describe the "ideological evolution" within the Ennahda of Tunisia. [20]
Writing in 2020, Mustafa Akyol suggests a backlash against Islamism among Muslim youth has come from all the "terrible things" that have happened in the Arab world recently "in the name of Islam" – such as the "sectarian civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen". [4]
Islamism is a religio-political ideology. The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are dedicated to realizing their ideological interpretation of Islam within the context of the state or society. The majority of them are affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements, often designated as "al-harakat al-Islamiyyah." Islamists emphasize the implementation of sharia, pan-Islamic political unity, the creation of Islamic states,, and rejection of non-Muslim influences—particularly Western or universal economic, military, political, social, or cultural.
Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah, the history of Islam, and elements of political movements outside Islam. Traditional political concepts in Islam include leadership by elected or selected successors to Muhammad, known as Caliphs in Sunnī Islam and Imams in Shīʿa Islam; the importance of following the Islamic law (sharīʿa); the duty of rulers to seek consultation (shūrā) from their subjects; and the importance of rebuking unjust rulers.
The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated officially as AK Party in English, is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic. Third-party sources often refer to the party as national conservative, social conservative and espousing neo-Ottomanism. The party is generally regarded as being right-wing on the political spectrum, although some sources have described it as far-right since 2011. It is one of the two major parties of contemporary Turkey along with the Republican People's Party (CHP).
The Republican People's Party is a Kemalist and social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president and founder of the modern Turkish Republic. The party is also cited as the founding party of modern Turkey. Its logo consists of the Six Arrows, which represent the foundational principles of Kemalism: republicanism, reformism, laicism (Laïcité/Secularism), populism, nationalism, and statism. It is currently the second largest party in Grand National Assembly with 130 MPs, behind the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The Felicity Party is an Islamist Turkish political party. It was founded in 2001, and mainly supported by conservative Muslims in Turkey.
There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors. Today, a number of Muslim-majority countries are Islamic yet secular democracies.
Asef Bayat is an Iranian-American scholar. He is currently the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, Sociology, and Middle Eastern studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was previously a Professor of Sociology and Middle Eastern studies and held the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He served as Academic Director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and ISIM Chair of Islam and the Modern World at Leiden University.
Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish writer and journalist. He is the author of Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, long-listed in 2012 for the Lionel Gelber Prize, a literary award for the world's best non-fiction book in English. He became a contributing opinion writer for the International New York Times in 2013. He is mainly famous in the western world for his arguments that Islam is highly compatible with classical liberalism and Enlightenment values, and that Islamic practice and the governance of Muslim-majority countries should be reformed along those lines similar to what previously happened in Christian-majority Europe.
The Nationalist Movement Party is a Turkish far-right, ultranationalist political party. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has been linked to violent paramilitaries and organized crime groups. Its leader is Devlet Bahçeli.
The National Salvation Party was an Islamist political party in Turkey, founded on 11 October 1972 as the successor of the banned National Order Party. The party was formed by a core group of working cadres of the now banned MNP, with Süleyman Arif Emre serving as the registered founding chairman. Given the banning of the MNP by the staunchly secular state, only 19 individuals were ready to form the party. Necmettin Erbakan, who took part in the formation of the party, officially joined the party in May 1973, taking over the reins of the party in October 1973. The party grew more popular and in 1973 elections it gained 11.8% of votes, gaining 48 seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. In 1977 elections it gained 8.56% of votes and won 24 seats. In 1974 it formed the coalition government with the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) of Bülent Ecevit. MSP was closed down after the 1980 military coup.
Millî Görüş is a religious-political movement and the ideology of a series of Islamist parties inspired by Necmettin Erbakan. It argues that Turkey can develop with its own human and economic power by protecting its core values and moving forward with faster steps by rivaling the Western countries. Multiple political parties in Turkey adopted the ideology, such as New Welfare Party, Felicity Party, Virtue Party, Welfare Party, National Salvation Party and National Order Party.
Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.
The “Turkish model” refers to the focus on Republic of Turkey as "an example of a modern, moderate Muslim state that works." Turkey has been seen as combining a secular state and constitution, with a government run by a political party or political parties with "roots in political Islam". The AKP, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has ruled Turkey with a large majority in parliament since 2002. During this time Turkey has had good relations with the West, but also cordial ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran and a more pro-Palestinian policy. It has had vigorously contested, "substantially free and fair" elections, a vibrant culture, and has undergone an economic boom, developing a "large and growing middle class." However, as of summer 2013 and the crushing of the Taksim Gezi Park protests, some commentators complained that the model has come "unstuck".
Conservative democracy is a label coined by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey to describe Islamic democracy. Forming as a modernist breakaway party from former Islamist movements, the AKP's conservative democratic ideology has been described as a departure from or moderation of Islamic democracy and the endorsement of more secular and democratic values. The electoral success and the neo-Ottoman foreign policy of the AKP that aims to broaden Turkey's regional influence has led to the party's conservative democratic ideals to be mirrored in other countries, such as by the Justice and Development Party in Morocco and the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia.
Conservatism in Turkey is a national variant of conservatism throughout Turkey reflected in the agendas of many of the country's political parties, most notably the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which describes its prevailing ideology as conservative democracy. Elements of Turkish conservatism are also reflected in most parties situated on the political right, including the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). In Turkey, it is often referred to as Türk tipi muhafazakârlık.
Erdoğanism or Tayyipism refers to the political ideals and agenda of Turkish President and former Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who became Prime Minister in 2003 and served until his election to the Presidency in 2014. With support significantly derived from charismatic authority, Erdoğanism has been described as the "strongest phenomenon in Turkey since Kemalism" and used to enjoy broad support throughout the country until the 2018 Turkish economic crisis which caused a significant decline in Erdoğan's popularity. Its ideological roots originate from Turkish conservatism and its most predominant political adherent is the governing Justice and Development Party, a party that Erdoğan himself founded in 2001.
Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of culture and politics in Turkey. Conspiracism is an important phenomenon in understanding Turkish politics. This is explained by a desire to "make up for our lost Ottoman grandeur", the humiliation of perceiving Turkey as part of "the malfunctioning half" of the world, and a "low level of media literacy among the Turkish population."
Turkish–Islamic synthesis is a type of Turkish nationalism which has an Islamist leaning instead of secular. It is often associated with the Idealist ideology.
The religio-political ideology of Islamism which has "arguably altered the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders" (according to at least one observer, is active in many countries around the world.
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