Politicization of Religion or Sacralization of Politics: Two Faces of Political Islam
Abstract
With the Islamic State increasing its reach in the Levant and violence in the name of Islam being perpetrated around the globe, Islam and politics appear highly intertwined in our age. In this Boisi Center lunch, distinguished scholar of the Middle East Ali Banuazizi will critically examine the connection between Islam and the political realm.
Speaker Bio
Ali Banuazizi聽is a political science professor at Boston College. His research focuses on the political cultures of the Middle East; comparative study of religion, civil society, and politics in the Middle East; and Iran鈥檚 social history and contemporary domestic politics and foreign relations. He is currently the director of the Program in Islamic Civilization and Societies (ICS) and chair of the International Studies Academic Advisory Board at Boston College; is on the editorial board and advisory council of the journal聽Iranian Studies, of which he is a founding editor; and is a past president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS). He is the editor of several volumes, including聽The New Geopolitics of Central Asia and Its Borderlands, and the author of numerous journal articles. He earned his B.S. from the University of Michigan, his M.A. from the New School for Social Research in New York and his Ph.D. from Yale University.
Event Photos
Boston College political science professor Ali Banuazizi speaking about Islam and politics at the Boisi Center, February 18, 2015.
Photos by MTS photography
Event Recap
On February 18, 2015, Boston College political science professor Ali Banuazizi addressed a packed Boisi Center lunch colloquium on the relation of Islam and public life. His focus was largely on the Middle East, where members of ISIS/ Islamic State had recently committed another act of exceptional violence in executing a captured Jordanian pilot.
Banuazizi argued that we can see two related but (mostly) distinct tendencies of political Islam in the contemporary period: one toward the 鈥減oliticization of religion鈥� and another toward the 鈥渟acralization of politics.鈥� It is the latter, Banuazizi said, that we ought to condemn.
The 鈥減oliticization of religion鈥� is a long-standing Islamic tradition of active engagement in politics by individuals鈥╫r groups primarily on the basis of their religious convictions. At a time when secular ideologies such as socialism鈥╝nd nationalism have lost much of their appeal in the Muslim world, Banuazizi said, it is understandable that an Islamic ideology would emerge and be attractive, especially since it pushes followers to look to its own traditions (rather than Western ones) for political guidance.
This can be distinguished from attempts to sacralize an ideology, a political movement, or a territorial state by claiming that they are based on divine will and providence. Groups like al-Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and more recently the Islamic State claim divine inspiration for their terror campaigns. But their oft-stated goal of a return to a golden age of Islam mistakenly equates a small communi鈥╰y of the faithful during the prophet鈥檚鈥╨ife with the idea of the modern 鈥渟tate,鈥� which developed many centuries later. Indeed, Banuazizi argued, Islamic theology offers no blueprint for establishing an 鈥淚slamic state鈥� and has relatively little to say about managing the political affairs of the community.
Nevertheless, a battle-hardened ISIS is 鈥╝ lethal threat to religious minorities in the region as well as Muslims who do not follow its highly distorted view of Islam. Only military force can dislodge it at this point, said Banuazizi.
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Further Reading
Fouad Ajami,聽聽(Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2014).
Mohammed Ayoob,聽聽(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007).
Joe Cochrane, ","听New York Times, April 2014.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, ","听Atlantic, January 6, 2015.
Kathy Gilsinan, ","听Atlantic, July 25, 2014.
Shadi Hamid,聽聽(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
David D. Kirkpatrick, ","听New York Times, January 8, 2015.
Bernard Lewis, ","听Atlantic聽(February 1993).
Bernard Lewis,聽聽(New York: Randon House, 2004).
Colum Lynch, ","听Foreign Policy, February 12, 2015.
Kenan Malik, ","听New York Times, January 3, 2015.
Bassam Tibi,聽聽(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).
Bassam Tibi,聽聽(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012).
Mustapha Tlili, ","听New York Times, June 3, 2014.
James Traub, "," Foreign Policy, February 9, 2015.
Graeme Wood, ","听Atlantic聽(March 2015).
In the News
In June 2014, the Islamic State declared the formation of a caliphate. Since then it has both been聽听补苍诲听聽throughout the Middle East. On February 18, 51茶馆 professor聽Ali Banuazizi聽will address a Boisi Center lunch audience on the聽connection between politics and Islam.