All Entries in the "Odporúčané" Category
Arabský zajtrajšok
DAVID B. OTTAWAY
októbra 6, 1981, mal byť v Egypte dňom osláv. Pripomenulo to výročie najväčšieho víťazstva Egypta v troch arabsko-izraelských konfliktoch, keď sa v úvodných dňoch podguráženej armády krajiny prehnali cez Suezský prieplav 1973 Jomkipurská vojna a poslala izraelské jednotky na ústup. V pohode, bezoblačné ráno, Káhirský štadión bol preplnený egyptskými rodinami, ktoré si prišli pozrieť vojenskú výstuhu s jej hardvérom., Prezident Anwar el-Sadat,architekt vojny, s uspokojením sledoval, ako pred ním defilujú muži a stroje. Bol som nablízku, novoprišlého zahraničného spravodajcu.Zrazu, jedno z armádnych nákladných vozidiel sa zastavilo priamo pred hodnotiacim stánkom práve vo chvíli, keď nad hlavami zahučalo šesť prúdových lietadiel Mirage v akrobatickom predstavení., maľovanie oblohy dlhými červenými stopami, žltá, Fialová,a zelený dym. Sadat vstal, očividne sa pripravujú na výmenu pozdravov s ďalším kontingentom egyptských jednotiek. Urobil zo seba dokonalý cieľ pre štyroch islamistických vrahov, ktorí vyskočili z kamiónu, vtrhol na pódium, a prešpikovali jeho telo guľkami. Keď vrahovia pokračovali celú večnosť, aby postriekali stánok svojim smrtiacim ohňom, Chvíľu som zvažoval, či mám dopadnúť na zem a riskovať, že ma ušliapu na smrť panikári diváci, alebo zostanem na nohách a risknem zatúlanú guľku.. Inštinkt mi povedal, aby som zostal stáť na nohách, and my sense of journalistic duty impelled me to go find out whether Sadat was alive or dead.
| Sep 26, 2010 | Komentáre 0
Islam and the Making of State Power
seyyed vali reza nasr
In 1979 General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the military ruler of Pakistan, declared that Pakistan would become an Islamic state. Islamic values and norms would serve as the foundation of national identity, law, economy, and social relations, and would inspire all policy making. In 1980 Mahathir Muhammad, the new prime minister of Malaysia, introduced a similar broad-based plan to anchor state policy making in Islamic values, and to bring his country’s laws and economic practices in line with the teachings of Islam. Why did these rulers choose the path of “Islamization” for their countries? A ako sa kedysi sekulárne postkoloniálne štáty stali agentmi islamizácie a predzvesťou „skutočného“ islamského štátu?
Malajzia a Pakistan sa od konca 70. do začiatku 80. rokov 20. storočia vydali jedinečnou cestou rozvoja, ktorá sa líši od skúseností iných štátov tretieho sveta.. V týchto dvoch krajinách bola náboženská identita integrovaná do štátnej ideológie, aby formovala cieľ a proces rozvoja s islamskými hodnotami.
Tento podnik tiež priniesol veľmi odlišný obraz o vzťahu medzi islamom a politikou v moslimských spoločnostiach. V Malajzii a Pakistane, boli to skôr štátne inštitúcie ako islamistickí aktivisti (tí, ktorí obhajujú politické čítanie islamu; tiež známy ako revivalisti alebo fundamentalisti) that have been the guardians of Islam and the defenders of its interests. This suggests a
very different dynamic in the ebbs and flow of Islamic politics—in the least pointing to the importance of the state in the vicissitudes of this phenomenon.
What to make of secular states that turn Islamic? What does such a transformation mean for the state as well as for Islamic politics?
This book grapples with these questions. This is not a comprehensive account of Malaysia’s or Pakistan’s politics, nor does it cover all aspects of Islam’s role in their societies and politics, although the analytical narrative dwells on these issues considerably. This book is rather a social scientific inquiry into the phenomenon of secular postcolonial states becoming agents of Islamization, and more broadly how culture and religion serve the needs of state power and development. The analysis here relies on theoretical discussions
in the social sciences of state behavior and the role of culture and religion therein. More important, it draws inferences from the cases under examination to make broader conclusions of interest to the disciplines.
| Sep 25, 2010 | Komentáre 0
FEMINISM BETWEEN SECULARISM AND ISLAMISM: THE CASE OF PALESTINE
Dr, Islah Jad
Legislative elections held in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2006 brought to power the Islamist movement Hamas, which went on to form the majority of the Palestinian Legislative Council and also the first majority Hamas government. These elections resulted in the appointment of the first female Hamas minister, ktorá sa stala ministerkou pre záležitosti žien. Medzi marcom 2006 a jún 2007, tento post prevzali dve rôzne ministerky Hamasu, ale obaja mali problém riadiť ministerstvo, pretože väčšina jeho zamestnancov nebola členmi Hamasu, ale patrili k iným politickým stranám, a väčšina z nich bola členmi Fatahu, dominantné hnutie ovládajúce väčšinu inštitúcií palestínskej samosprávy. Napäté obdobie boja medzi ženami Hamasu na ministerstve pre záležitosti žien a členkami Fatahu sa skončilo po prevzatí moci Hamasom v pásme Gazy a následnom páde jeho vlády na Západnom brehu – boj ktorý niekedy nabral násilný spád. One reason later cited to explain this struggle was the difference between secular feminist discourse and Islamist discourse on women’s issues. In the Palestinian context this disagreement took on a dangerous nature as it was used to justify perpetuating the bloody political struggle, the removal of Hamas women from their positions or posts, and the political and geographical divides prevailing at the time in both the West Bank and the occupied Gaza Strip.
This struggle raises a number of important questions: should we punish the Islamist movement which has come to power, or should we consider the reasons which led to Fateh’s failure in the political arena? Can feminism offer a comprehensive framework for women, regardless of their social and ideological affiliations? Can a discourse of a shared common ground for women help them to realize and agree upon their common goals? Is paternalism only present in Islamist ideology, and not in nationalism and patriotism? What do we mean by feminism? Is there only one feminism, or several feminisms? What do we mean by Islam – is it the movement known by this name or the religion, the philosophy, or the legal system? We need to go to the bottom of these issues and consider them carefully, and we must agree upon them so that we can later decide, as feminists, if our criticism of paternalism should be directed at religion (viera), which should be confined to the heart of the believer and not be allowed to take control of the world at large, or the jurisprudence, ktorý sa týka rôznych škôl viery, ktoré vysvetľujú právny systém obsiahnutý v Koráne a výroky proroka – Sunna.
| Sep 19, 2010 | Komentáre 0
ISLAMISTICKÝ ŽENSKÝ AKTIVIZMUS V Okupovanej Palestíne
Rozhovory s Khaledom Amayrehom
Rozhovor so Sameerou Al-Halaykou
Sameera Al-Halayka je zvoleným členom Palestínskej legislatívnej rady. Bola
narodený v dedine Shoyoukh neďaleko Hebronu v r 1964. Má BA v šaríi (islamský
judikatúra) z Hebronskej univerzity. Pracovala ako novinárka od r 1996 do 2006 kedy
vstúpila do Palestínskej legislatívnej rady ako zvolená členka v 2006 voľby.
Je vydatá a má sedem detí.
Q: V niektorých západných krajinách panuje všeobecný dojem, že ženy prijímajú
podradné zaobchádzanie v rámci skupín islamského odporu, such as Hamas. Is this true?
How are women activists treated in Hamas?
Rights and duties of Muslim women emanate first and foremost from Islamic Sharia or law.
They are not voluntary or charitable acts or gestures we receive from Hamas or anyone
else. Teda, as far as political involvement and activism is concerned, women generally have
the same rights and duties as men. After all, women make up at least 50 per cent of
society. In a certain sense, they are the entire society because they give birth to, and raise,
the new generation.
Therefore, I can say that the status of women within Hamas is in full conformity with her
status in Islam itself. This means that she is a full partner at all levels. Indeed, it would be
unfair and unjust for an Islamic (or Islamist if you prefer) woman to be partner in suffering
while she is excluded from the decision-making process. This is why the woman’s role in
Hamas has always been pioneering.
Q: Do you feel that the emergence of women’s political activism within Hamas is
a natural development that is compatible with classical Islamic concepts
regarding the status and role of women, or is it merely a necessary response to
pressures of modernity and requirements of political action and of the continued
Israeli occupation?
There is no text in Islamic jurisprudence nor in Hamas’ charter which impedes women from
political participation. I believe the opposite is true — there are numerous Quranic verses
and sayings of the Prophet Muhammed urging women to be active in politics and public
issues affecting Muslims. But it is also true that for women, as it is for men, political activism
is not compulsory but voluntary, and is largely decided in light of each woman’s abilities,
qualifications and individual circumstances. None the less, showing concern for public
matters is mandatory upon each and every Muslim man and woman. The Prophet
Muhammed said: “He who doesn’t show concern for the affairs of Muslims is not a Muslim.”
Moreover, Palestinian Islamist women have to take all objective factors on the ground into
account when deciding whether to join politics or get involved in political activism.
| Sep 19, 2010 | Komentáre 0
IRANIAN WOMEN AFTER THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION
Ansiia Khaz Allii
More than thirty years have passed since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, yet there remain a number of questions and ambiguities about the way the Islamic Republic and its laws deal with contemporary problems and current circumstances, particularly with regard to women and women’s rights. This short paper will shed light on these issues and study the current position of women in various spheres, comparing this to the situation prior to the Islamic Revolution. Reliable and authenticated data has been used wherever possible. The introduction summarises a number of theoretical and legal studies which provide the basis for the subsequent more practical analysis and are the sources from where the data has been obtained.
The first section considers attitudes of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards women and women’s rights, and then takes a comprehensive look at the laws promulgated since the Islamic Revolution concerning women and their position in society. The second section considers women’s cultural and educational developments since the Revolution and compares these to the pre-revolutionary situation. The third section looks at women’s political, social and economic participation and considers both quantative and qualitative aspects of their employment. The fourth section then examines questions of the family, the relationship between women and the family, and the family’s role in limiting or increasing women’s rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
| Sep 19, 2010 | Komentáre 0
Women in Islam
Amira Burghul
Despite major consensus amongst a large number of philosophers and historians that the
principles and teachings of Islam caused a fundamental change in the position of women
compared to the prevailing situation in countries in both East and West at the time, and despite
the agreement of a large number of thinkers and legislators that women during the time of the
Prophet (PBUH) were granted rights and legal privileges not granted by man-made laws until
recently, propaganda campaigns by Westerners and people with a Westernised perspective
consistently accuse Islam of being unjust to women, of imposing restrictions on them, a
marginalising their role in society.
This situation has been made worse by the atmosphere and conditions prevalent across the
Muslim world, where ignorance and poverty have produced a limited understanding of religion
a rodinné a medziľudské vzťahy, ktoré bránia spravodlivosti a civilizovanému spôsobu života, obzvlášť
medzi mužmi a ženami. Malá skupina ľudí, ktorí dostali príležitosť
získať vzdelanie a schopnosti sa tiež dostali do pasce presvedčenia, že dosiahnutie spravodlivosti
pre ženy a využitie ich schopností závisí od odmietnutia náboženstva a zbožnosti a
osvojiť si západný spôsob života, ako výsledok ich povrchného štúdia islamu na jednej strane
a vplyv odklonov života na toho druhého.
Len veľmi malému počtu ľudí z týchto dvoch skupín sa podarilo utiecť a odvrhnúť sa
ich plášte nevedomosti a tradície. Títo ľudia študovali svoje dedičstvo do veľkej hĺbky
a detail, and have looked at the results of Western experiences with an open mind. They have
distinguished between the wheat and the chaff in both the past and the present, and have dealt
scientifically and objectively with the problems which have arisen. They have refuted the false
charges made against Islam with eloquent arguments, and have admitted to concealed flaws.
They have also re-examined the sayings and customs of the Infallible Ones in order to
distinguish between what is established and holy and what has been altered and distorted.
The responsible behaviour of this group has established new directions and new ways of dealing
with the question of women in Islamic societies. They have clearly not yet tackled all problems
and found final solutions for the many legislative gaps and deficiencies, but they have laid the
ground for the emergence of a new model for Muslim women, who are both strong and
committed to the legal and effective foundations of their society.
With the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the blessing of its leaders, which is the
main religious authority for the participation of women and their effective political and social
participation, the scope for strong debate over women in Islam has been significantly expanded.
The model of Muslim women in Iran has spread to Islamic resistance movements in Lebanon,
Palestine other Arab countries and even the Western world, and as a result, propaganda
campaigns against Islam have abated to some extent.
The emergence of Salafi Islamic movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and similar
Salafi hnutia v Saudskej Arábii a severnej Afrike, a ich fanatický spôsob zaobchádzania so ženami,
vyprovokovali nervóznych divákov, ktorí sa obávajú oživenia islamu, aby spustili novú propagandu
kampane obviňujúce islam z inšpirácie k terorizmu a z toho, že je voči nemu zaostalý a nespravodlivý
ženy.
| Sep 17, 2010 | Komentáre 0
podmazávanie: Ako islamofóbi šíria strach, bigotnosť a dezinformácie
FÉR
Júlia Hollarová
Jim Naureckas
Urobiť islamofóbiu mainstreamom:
Ako moslimovia vysielajú svoju bigotnosť
V National Book Critics Circle sa stala pozoruhodná vec (NBCC) nominácií vo februári 2007: Normálne namyslená a tolerantná skupina nominovaná na najlepšiu knihu v oblasti kritiky, kniha, ktorá je všeobecne vnímaná ako hanobenie celej náboženskej skupiny.
Nominácia filmu Brucea Bawera Kým Európa spala: Ako radikálny islam zvnútra ničí Západ sa nezaobišlo bez kontroverzií. Minulý kandidát Eliot Weinberger knihu odsúdil na výročnom stretnutí NBCC, nazývať to „rasizmus ako kritika“ (New York Times, 2/8/07). Prezident predstavenstva NBCC John Freeman napísal na blog skupiny (Kritické množstvo, 2/4/07): ''Nikdy som nebol
viac v rozpakoch z voľby, ako som bol s Bruceom Bawerom Kým Európa spala…. Jeho hyperventilovaná rétorika vychádza zo skutočnej kritiky do islamofóbie.
Aj keď cenu nakoniec nezískal, Kým Európa spala, uznanie v najvyšších literárnych kruhoch bolo symbolom presadzovania islamofóbie, nielen v americkom vydavateľstve, ale aj v širších médiách. This report takes a fresh look at Islamophobia in today’s media and its perpetratrators, outlining some of the behind-the-scenes connections that are rarely explored in media. The report also provides four snapshots, or “case studies,” describing how Islamophobes continue to manipulate media to in order to paint Muslims with a broad, hateful brush. Our aim is to document smearcasting: the public writings and appearances of Islamophobic activists and pundits who intentionally and regularly spread fear, bigotnosť a dezinformácie. The term “Islamophobia” refers to hostility toward Islam and Muslims that tends to dehumanize an entire faith, portraying it as fundamentally alien and attributing to it an inherent, essential set of negative traits such as irrationality, intolerance and violence. And not unlike the charges made in the classical document of anti-Semitism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, some of Islamophobia’s more virulent expressions–like While Europe Slept–include evocations of Islamic designs to dominate the West.
Islamic institutions and Muslims, of course, should be subject to the same kind of scrutiny and criticism as anyone else. For instance, when a Norwegian Islamic Council debates whether gay men and lesbians should be executed, one may forcefully condemn individuals or groups sharing that opinion without pulling all European Muslims into it, as did Bawer’s Pajamas Media post (8/7/08),
“European Muslims Debate: Should Gays Be Executed?”
Similarly, extremists who justify their violent actions by invoking some particular interpretation of Islam can be criticized without implicating the enormously diverse population of Muslims around the world. After all, reporters managed to cover the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh–an adherent of the racist Christian Identity sect–without resorting to generalized statements about “Christian terrorism.” Likewise, media have covered acts of terrorism by fanatics who are Jewish–for instance the Hebron massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein (Extra!, 5/6/94)–without implicating the entirety of Judaism.
| Sep 16, 2010 | Komentáre 0
The Totalitarianism of Jihadist Islamism and its Challenge to Europe and to Islam
BASS PRE VÁS
When reading the majority of texts that comprise the vast literature that has been published by self-proclaimed pundits on political Islam, it is easy to miss the fact that a new movement has arisen. Further, this literature fails to explain in a satisfactory manner the fact that the ideology which drives it is based on a particular interpretation of Islam, and that it is thus a politicised religious faith,
not a secular one. The only book in which political Islam is addressed as a form of totalitarianism is the one by Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (2003). The author is, však, not an expert, cannot read Islamic sources, and therefore relies on the selective use of one or two secondary sources, thus failing to grasp the phenomenon.
Jedným z dôvodov týchto nedostatkov je skutočnosť, že väčšina z tých, ktorí sa nás snažia informovať o „hrozbe džihádistov“ – a Berman je pre toto štipendium typický – nielenže nemajú jazykové znalosti na čítanie zdrojov vytvorených ideológmi politického islam, ale aj nedostatok vedomostí o kultúrnom rozmere hnutia. Toto nové totalitné hnutie je v mnohých smeroch novinkou
v dejinách politiky, pretože má svoje korene v dvoch paralelných a súvisiacich javoch: najprv, kulturalizácia politiky, ktorá vedie k tomu, že politika je konceptualizovaná ako kultúrny systém (pohľad, ktorý propagoval Clifford Geertz); a po druhé návrat posvätného, alebo „očarovanie“ sveta, as a reaction to its intensive secularisation resulting from globalisation.
The analysis of political ideologies that are based on religions, and that can exert appeal as a political religion as a consequence of this, involves a social science understanding of the role of religion played by world politics, especially after the bi-polar system of the Cold War has given way to a multi-polar world. In a project conducted at the Hannah Arendt Institute for the application of totalitarianism to the study of political religions, I proposed the distinction between secular ideologies that act as a substitute for religion, and religious ideologies based on genuine religious faith, which is the case in religious fundamentalism (see note
24). Another project on ‘Political Religion’, carried out at the University of Basel, has made clearer the point that new approaches to politics become necessary once a religious faith becomes clothed in a political garb.Drawing on the authoritative sources of political Islam, this article suggests that the great variety of organisations inspired by Islamist ideology are to be conceptualised both as political religions and as political movements. The unique quality of political Islam lies is the fact that it is based on a transnational religion (see note 26).
| Sep 15, 2010 | Komentáre 0
Islam, Political Islam and America
Arabský pohľad
Is “Brotherhood” with America Possible?
khalil al-anani
“there is no chance of communicating with any U.S. administration so long as the United States maintains its long-standing view of Islam as a real danger, a view that puts the United States in the same boat as the Zionist enemy. We have no pre-conceived notions concerning the American people or the U.S. society and its civic organizations and think tanks. We have no problem communicating with the American people but no adequate efforts are being made to bring us closer,” said Dr. Issam al-Iryan, chief of the political department of the Muslim Brotherhood in a phone interview.
Al-Iryan’s words sum up the Muslim Brotherhood’s views of the American people and the U.S. government. Other members of the Muslim Brotherhood would agree, as would the late Hassan al-Banna, who founded the group in 1928. Al- Banna viewed the West mostly as a symbol of moral decay. Other Salafis – an Islamic school of thought that relies on ancestors as exemplary models – have taken the same view of the United States, but lack the ideological flexibility espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Muslim Brotherhood believes in engaging the Americans in civil dialogue, other extremist groups see no point in dialogue and maintain that force is the only way of dealing with the United States.
| Sep 15, 2010 | Komentáre 0
Notes on the Isocratic Legacy and Islamic Political Thought: The Example of Education
JAMES MUIR
An unfortunate feature of human history is the tendency for religious differences and con icts to nourish themselves with the poisonous brew of ignorance and prejudice. While much can sometimes be done to reduce prejudice, it seems to me that scholars and educators ought to be primarily concerned with the more fundamental and enduring goal of reducing ignorance. One’s success in reducing ignorance—including one’s own—will depend upon one’s motives.
The study of Islamic educational philosophy may be motivated by current practical concerns: the desire of British Muslims to have Islamic schools, whether funded privately or by the state, is one topical example. From the perspective of educational philosophy, však, such a motive is exceedingly narrow, circumscribed by the concepts and categories of the local political disputes of the moment. For those motivated by a desire for knowledge and understanding of a tradition outside their own, it is most doubtful that any study of Islamic philosophy restricted by current practical concerns can be at all productive. There is no simple correspondence between knowledge and “relevance.”
There must, však, be some connection between two traditions of thought and practice if there is to be a point of departure, and a point of entry, which allows the scholar to step from one tradition to another. The legacy of Isocrates may constitute one such point of departure, which will help us to understand the relation between two traditions, the classical Greek and the Islamic. The dominance of the Isocratic legacy in Western education is well established and widely known among historians, classicists
and political philosophers, although awareness of it has only just begun to surface among educationists.2 Similarly, the Isocratic legacy to education (and the rich tradition of Arabic Platonism in philosophy) has in uenced Islamic thought, though in ways that are
still not yet well understood. The intention of this paper is to suggest that a modi ed form of the Isocratic educational tradition is a fundamental component of Islamic political thought, namely, Islamic educational thought. This general wording of the intention of this paper in terms of Islamic political thought may give rise to a misunderstanding. Islam, of course, is regarded by its adherents as a uni ed and universal system of belief and behaviour.
| Sep 09, 2010 | Komentáre 0
Liberal Democracy and Political Islam: the Search for Common Ground.
Mostapha Benhenda
This paper seeks to establish a dialogue between democratic and Islamic political theories.1 The interplay between them is puzzling: for example, in order to explain the relationship existing between democracy and their conception of the ideal Islamic political
regime, the Pakistani scholar Abu ‘Ala Maududi coined the neologism “theodemocracy” whereas the French scholar Louis Massignon suggested the oxymoron “secular theocracy”. These expressions suggest that some aspects of democracy are evaluated positively and others are judged negatively. For example, Muslim scholars and activists often endorse the principle of accountability of rulers, ktorý je charakteristickým znakom demokracie. Práve naopak, často odmietajú princíp oddelenia náboženstva a štátu, ktorý sa často považuje za súčasť demokracie (najmenej, demokracie, ako ju dnes v Spojených štátoch poznáme). Vzhľadom na toto zmiešané hodnotenie demokratických princípov, zdá sa zaujímavé určiť koncepciu demokracie, ktorá je základom islamských politických modelov. Inými slovami, mali by sme sa pokúsiť zistiť, čo je demokratické v „teodemokracii“. Za týmto účelom, medzi pôsobivú rozmanitosť a pluralitu islamských tradícií normatívneho politického myslenia, v podstate sa zameriavame na široký myšlienkový prúd siahajúci až k Abu ‘Ala Maududimu a egyptskému intelektuálovi Sayyedovi Qutbovi.8 Tento konkrétny myšlienkový trend je zaujímavý, pretože v moslimskom svete, je základom niektorých najnáročnejších opozícií voči šíreniu hodnôt pochádzajúcich zo Západu. Na základe náboženských hodnôt, tento trend vytvoril alternatívu politického modelu k liberálnej demokracii. Všeobecne povedané, Koncepcia demokracie obsiahnutá v tomto islamskom politickom modeli je procedurálna. S určitými rozdielmi, táto koncepcia je inšpirovaná demokratickými teóriami, ktoré presadzujú niektorí konštitucionalisti a politológovia.10 Je tenká a minimalistická, do určitého bodu. For example, nespolieha sa na žiadnu predstavu o suverenite ľudu a nevyžaduje žiadne oddelenie náboženstva a politiky. Prvým cieľom tohto príspevku je rozpracovať túto minimalistickú koncepciu. Robíme to podrobné preformulovanie, aby sme túto koncepciu izolovali od jej morálky (liberálny) foundations, which are controversial from the particular Islamic viewpoint considered here. Indeed, the democratic process is usually derived from a principle of personal autonomy, which is not endorsed by these Islamic theories.11 Here, we show that such principle is not necessary to justify a democratic process.
| Sep 09, 2010 | Komentáre 0
On the American Constitution from the Perspective of the Qur’an and the Madinah Covenant
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad
This paper is by no means an exhaustive comparison of the American Constitution with the Qur’an and the Madinah Covenant. Rather, it explores the kinds of insights that a comparison between these two documents may suggest. Accordingly, the constitutional topics selected are those in which the author or the commentators on earlier drafts perceived an assessment within the Islamic sources.4 This paper should be taken as an invitation for future studies with more systematic comparisons. In addition to rational inference from the text of the Qur’an and of the Madinah Covenant, I shall draw on the views of the Prophet’s Companions as recorded in the leading Hadith books. Analogously, the views of the Founding Fathers of the American Republic on constitutional
matters are articulated in The Federalist Papers.We shall begin by reviewing the Madinah Covenant, and then evaluate the Constitution’s goals as expressed in the preamble. After that, we shall explore a variety of topics in the main body of the text that lend themselves to the examination proposed here. In particular, these are the roles of the branches of government according to the separation of powers, the role of elections in determining the next head of state, the penalty for treason, the existence of the slave trade and racism, the republican form of government, the provisions for amending the Constitution, religious tests, and the Bill of Rights. Konečne, we consider the Madisonian arguments on how the Constitution may be considered a model for avoiding fitnah.
The Madinah Covenant That Muslims attach great significance to their organization as a political community can be seen in the fact that their calendar is dated neither from the birth nor the death of the Prophet, but from the establishment of the first Muslim polity in the city-state of Madinah in 622. Before Madinah was founded, the Arabs had no state to “establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty …” The custom at that time was that those who were too weak to protect themselves became clients of a protector (wali). Muhammad, himself an orphan, was brought up under the protection of his uncle Abu Talib.
After his uncle’s death in 619, Muhammad received an invitation from Yathrib’s feuding Arab tribes to govern there. Once in Yathrib, he entered into a covenant with all of its residents, whether they had accepted Islam or not. Even the Jews living on the city’s outskirts subscribed to it.
| Sep 09, 2010 | Komentáre 0
ISLAM A LIBERÁLNA DEMOKRACIA
Robin Wright
Of all the challenges facing democracy in the 1990s, one of the greatest lies in the Islamic world. Only a handful of the more than four dozen predominantly Muslim countries have made significant strides toward establishing democratic systems. Among this handful–including Albania, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Libanon, Mali, Pakistan, and Turkey–not one has yet achieved full, stable, or secure democracy. And the largest single regional bloc holding out against the global trend toward political pluralism comprises the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
Yet the resistance to political change associated with the Islamic bloc is not necessarily a function of the Muslim faith. Indeed, the evidence indicates quite the reverse. Rulers in some of the most antidemocratic regimes in the Islamic world–such as Brunei, Indonézia, Iraku, Oman, Qatar, Sýria, and Turkmenistan–are secular autocrats who refuse to share power with their brethren.
Overall, the obstacles to political pluralism in Islamic countries are not unlike the problems earlier faced in other parts of the world: secular ideologies such as Ba’athism in Iraq and Syria, Pancasila in Indonesia, or lingering communism in some former Soviet Central Asian states brook no real opposition. Ironically, many of these ideologies were adapted from the West; Ba’athism, for instance, was inspired by the European socialism of the 1930s and 1940s. Rigid government controls over everything from communications in Saudi Arabia and Brunei to foreign visitors in Uzbekistan and Indonesia also isolate their people from democratic ideas and debate on popular empowerment. In the largest and poorest Muslim countries, moreover, problems common to [End Page 64] developing states, from illiteracy and disease to poverty, make simple survival a priority and render democratic politics a seeming luxury. Konečne, like their non-Muslim neighbors in Asia and Africa, most Muslim societies have no local history of democracy on which to draw. As democracy has blossomed in Western states over the past three centuries, Muslim societies have usually lived under colonial rulers, kings, or tribal and clan leaders.
Inými slovami, neither Islam nor its culture is the major obstacle to political modernity, even if undemocratic rulers sometimes use Islam as their excuse. 1 In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the ruling House of Saud relied on Wahhabism, a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam, first to unite the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula and then to justify dynastic rule. Like other monotheistic religions, Islam offers wide-ranging and sometimes contradictory instruction. In Saudi Arabia, Islam’s tenets have been selectively shaped to sustain an authoritarian monarchy.
| Sep 08, 2010 | Komentáre 2
Islam and the New Political Landscape
Les Back, Michael Keith, Azra Khan,
Kalbir Shukra and John Solomos
IN THE wake of the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 septembra 2001, and the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 a 2005, a literature that addresses the forms and modalities of religious expression – particularly Islamic religious expression – has flourished in the penumbral regions that link mainstream social science to social policy design, think tanks and journalism. Much of the work has attempted to define attitudes or predispositions of a Muslim population in a particular site of tension such as London or the UK (Barnes, 2006; Ethnos Consultancy, 2005; GFK, 2006; GLA, 2006; Populus, 2006), or critiqued particular forms of social policy intervention (Bright, 2006a; Mirza et al., 2007). Studies of Islamism and Jihadism have created a particular focus on the syncretic and complex links between Islamic religious faith and forms of social movement and political mobilization (Husain, 2007; Kepel, 2004, 2006; McRoy, 2006; Neville-Jones et al., 2006, 2007; Phillips, 2006; Roy, 2004, 2006). Conventionally, the analytical focus has spotlighted the culture of Islam, the belief systems of the faithful, and the historical and geographical trajectories of Muslim populations across the world in general and in ‘the West’ in particular (Abbas, 2005; Ansari, 2002; Eade and Garbin, 2002; Hussein, 2006; Modood, 2005; Ramadan, 1999, 2005). In this article the emphasis is different. We argue that studies of Islamic political participation need to be contextualized carefully without recourse to grand generalities about culture and faith. This is because both culture and faith are structured by and in turn structure the cultural, institutional and deliberative landscapes through which they are articulated. In the case of the British experience, the hidden traces of Christianity in the formation of the welfare state in the last century, the rapidly changing cartography of spaces of the political and the role of ‘faith organizations’ in the restructuring of welfare provision generate the material social context determining the opportunities and the outlines of new forms of political participation.
| Sep 08, 2010 | Komentáre 0
The Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam
Dr. Muhammad Iqbal
As a cultural movement Islam rejects the old static view of the universe, and reaches a dynamic view. As an emotional system of unification it recognizes the worth of the individual as such, and rejects bloodrelationship as a basis of human unity. Blood-relationship is earthrootedness. The search for a purely psychological foundation of human unity becomes possible only with the perception that all human life is spiritual in its origin.1 Such a perception is creative of fresh loyalties without any ceremonial to keep them alive, and makes it possible for man to emancipate himself from the earth. Christianity which had originally appeared as a monastic order was tried by Constantine as a system of unification.2 Its failure to work as such a system drove the Emperor Julian3 to return to the old gods of Rome on which he attempted to put philosophical interpretations. A modern historian of civilization has thus depicted the state of the civilized world about the time when Islam appeared on the stage of History: It seemed then that the great civilization that it had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next, and law and order were unknown . . . The
old tribal sanctions had lost their power. Hence the old imperial methods would no longer operate. The new sanctions created by
Christianity were working division and destruction instead of unity and order. It was a time fraught with tragedy. Civilization, like a gigantic tree whose foliage had overarched the world and whose branches had borne the golden fruits of art and science and literature, stood tottering, its trunk no longer alive with the flowing sap of devotion and reverence, but rotted to the core, riven by the storms of war, and held together only by the cords of ancient customs and laws, that might snap at any moment. Was there any emotional culture that could be brought in, to gather mankind once more into unity and to save civilization? This culture must be something of a new type, for the old sanctions and ceremonials were dead, and to build up others of the same kind would be the work
of centuries.’The writer then proceeds to tell us that the world stood in need of a new culture to take the place of the culture of the throne, and the systems of unification which were based on bloodrelationship.
It is amazing, he adds, that such a culture should have arisen from Arabia just at the time when it was most needed. There is, však, nothing amazing in the phenomenon. The world-life intuitively sees its own needs, and at critical moments defines its own direction. This is what, in the language of religion, we call prophetic revelation. It is only natural that Islam should have flashed across the consciousness of a simple people untouched by any of the ancient cultures, and occupying a geographical position where three continents meet together. The new culture finds the foundation of world-unity in the principle of Tauhâd.’5 Islam, as a polity, is only a practical means of making this principle a living factor in the intellectual and emotional life of mankind. It demands loyalty to God, not to thrones. And since God is the ultimate spiritual basis of all life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature. Konečný duchovný základ všetkého života, ako je chápaný islamom, je večné a odhaľuje sa v rozmanitosti a zmene. Spoločnosť založená na takejto koncepcii Reality sa musí zmieriť, vo svojom živote, kategórie trvalosti a zmeny. Musí mať večné princípy, aby mohol riadiť svoj kolektívny život, lebo večné nám dáva oporu vo svete ustavičných zmien.
| Sep 08, 2010 | Komentáre 0
islamská reformácia
Adnan Khan
Taliansky premiér, Silvio Berlusconi sa po udalostiach o 9/11:
„...musíme si byť vedomí nadradenosti našej civilizácie, systém, ktorý zaručuje
blahobyt, rešpektovanie ľudských práv a – na rozdiel od islamských krajín – rešpekt
za náboženské a politické práva, systém, ktorý má svoje hodnoty a chápe rozmanitosť
a tolerancia...Západ si podmaní národy, like it conquered communism, even if it
means a confrontation with another civilisation, the Islamic one, stuck where it was
1,400 years ago…”1
And in a 2007 report the RAND institute declared:
“The struggle underway throughout much of the Muslim world is essentially a war of
ideas. Its outcome will determine the future direction of the Muslim world.”
Building moderate Muslim Networks, RAND Institute
The concept of ‘islah’ (reform) is a concept unknown to Muslims. It never existed throughout the
history of the Islamic civilisation; it was never debated or even considered. A cursory glance at classical
Islamic literature shows us that when the classical scholars laid the foundations of usul, and codified
their Islamic rulings (fiqh) they were only looking to the comprehension of the Islamic rules in order to
apply them. A similar situation occurred when the rules were laid down for the hadith, tafseer and the
Arabic language. Scholars, thinkers and intellectuals throughout Islamic history spent much time
understanding Allah’s revelation – the Qur’an and applying the ayaat upon the realities and coined
principals and disciplines in order to facilitate understanding. Hence the Qur’an remained the basis of
study and all the disciplines that evolved were always based upon the Qur’an. Tí, ktorí sa stali
ovplyvnený gréckou filozofiou, ako sú moslimskí filozofi a niektorí z Mut'azilah
sa považovali za ľudí, ktorí opustili záhyb islamu, keďže Korán prestal byť základom ich štúdia. Teda pre
každý moslim, ktorý sa pokúša odvodiť pravidlá alebo pochopiť, aký postoj by mal zaujať ku konkrétnemu
vydanie Koránu je základom tejto štúdie.
Prvý pokus o reformu islamu sa uskutočnil na prelome 19. storočia. Na prelome
storočia bola Ummah v dlhom období úpadku, keď sa globálna rovnováha síl posunula
z Khilafahu do Británie. Narastajúce problémy zachvátili Khilafah, kým bola západná Európa
uprostred priemyselnej revolúcie. Ummah stratila svoje pôvodné chápanie islamu, a
v snahe zvrátiť úpadok, ktorý pohltil Uthmáncov (Osmani) niektorí moslimovia boli poslaní do
West, a v dôsledku toho boli ohromení tým, čo videli. Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi z Egypta (1801-1873),
pri návrate z Paríža, napísal životopisnú knihu s názvom Takhlis al-ibriz ila talkhis Bariz (The
Ťažba zlata, alebo Prehľad Paríža, 1834), chvália ich čistotu, láska k práci, a nad
všetku spoločenskú morálku. Vyhlásil, že musíme napodobňovať to, čo sa robí v Paríži, obhajovanie zmien
islamskej spoločnosti od liberalizácie žien k systémom vládnutia. Táto myšlienka, a ostatným sa to páči,
znamenal začiatok nového trendu v islame.
| Sep 07, 2010 | Komentáre 0
IkhwanScope na Facebooku
IkhwanScope na Scribd
IkhwanScope na Twitteri