Political aspects of Islam
Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah (accounts of the sayings and living habits attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad during his lifetime),[1] the history of Islam, and elements of political movements outside Islam.[2] 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.[3]
This article is about the issue of politics in the religion of Islam. For the movement of "Political Islam", see Political Islam.A significant change in the Muslim world was the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922).[4][5] In the modern era (19th–20th centuries), common Islamic political themes have been resistance to Western imperialism and enforcement of sharīʿa law through democratic or militant struggle.[4] Events such as the defeat of Arab armies in the Six-Day War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism as a viable alternative have increased the appeal of Islamic movements such as Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, and Islamic democracy, especially in the context of the global sectarian divide and conflict between Sunnīs and Shīʿītes,[6][7] along with the popular dissatisfaction with secularist ruling regimes in the Muslim world.[6][8][9][10]
Modern era
Reaction to European colonialism
In the 19th century, European colonization of the Muslim world coincided with the French conquest of Algeria (1830), the fall of the Mughal Empire in India (1857), the Russian incursions into the Caucasus (1828) and Central Asia (1830-1895), and ultimately in the 20th century with the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922),[4] to which the Ottoman officer and Turkish revolutionary statesman Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had an instrumental role in ending and replacing it with the Republic of Turkey, a modern, secular democracy[78] (see Abolition of the Caliphate, Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate, Kemalism, and Secularism in Turkey).[78]
The first Muslim reaction to European colonization was of "peasant and religious", not urban origin. "Charismatic leaders", generally members of the ulama or leaders of religious orders, launched the call for jihad and formed tribal coalitions. Sharia, in defiance of local common law, was imposed to unify tribes. Examples include Abd al-Qadir in Algeria, Muhammad Ahmad in Sudan, Shamil in the Caucasus, the Senussi in Libya and Chad, Mullah-i Lang in Afghanistan, the Akhund of Swat in India, and later, Abd al-Karim in Morocco. All these movements eventually failed "despite spectacular victories such as the massacre of the British army in Afghanistan in 1842 and the taking of Kharoum in 1885."[79]
The following sources generally prescribe to the theory that there is a distinct 20th-century movement called Islamism:
The following sources challenge the notion of an "Islamist movement":
These authors in general locate the issues of Islamic political intolerance and fanaticism not in Islam, but in the generally low level of awareness of Islam's own mechanisms for dealing with these, among modern believers, in part a result of Islam being suppressed prior to modern times.
On democracy in the Middle East, the role of Islamist political parties, and the War on Terrorism: