Post-Islamism and the religious discourse of 'ABD al-Salam yasin

International Journal of Middle East Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 241-261

  Lauzière, Henri ^a  

^a GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATTITUDINAL SURVEY; ISLAMISM; RELIGION;

EID: 21244492293     PISSN: 00207438     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020743805372059     Document Type: Review

References (112)

1. Olivier Carré, L'utopie islamique dans I'Orient arabe (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1991);
2. Olivier Roy, L'échec de l'islam politique (Paris: Seuil, 1992);
3. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: expansion et déclin de l'islamisme (Paris: Gallimard, 2000).
4. Olivier Roy, L'islam mondialisé (Paris: Seuil, 2002). Roy uses the terms "Islamism" and "political Islam" interchangeably.
5. The most elaborate theoretical framework on post-Islamism is Olivier Roy, "Le post-islamisme," Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 85-86 (1998): 11-30. Roy and his colleagues recognize that some post-Islamists choose blind violence over compromise to cope with the failure of political Islam.
6. Ibid., 10.
7. See also Sandra Honor, "De la religion à l'éthique: esquisse d'une médiation contemporaine," Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 85-86 (1998): 31-46. This article, however, fails to demonstrate the historical and causal links between the failure of political Islam and al-Buti's spiritual discourse.
8. Roy, "Avant-propos," 10.
9. The few studies on 'Abd al-Salam Yasin emphasize the political dimension of his discourse. In English, see Emad Eldin Shahin, "Secularism and Nationalism: The Political Discourse of 'Abd al-Salam Yassin," in Islamism and Secularism in North Africa, ed. John Ruedy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), 167-86.
10. In French, the most comprehensive and detailed analysis is the seventh chapter of Mohamed Tozy, Monarchie et islam politique au Maroc, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1999).
11. In Arabic, the standard work is Muhammad Darif, Jama'a at-Adl wa-l-Ihsan: qira'a fi al-masarat (Casablanca: Manshurat al-Majalla al-Maghribiyya li-'Ilm al-Ijtima' al-Siyasi, 1995).
12. The historical narrative is best articulated in Kepel, Jihad, 61-114.
13. Its intellectual dimension is examined in Roy, L'échec, 52-83.
14. Several individuals and Islamic movements throughout modern history have identified themselves as, or were branded, Salafis. From the late 19th century onward, the term "Salafiyya" referred to the revivalist thought of Islamic modernists such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad 'Abduh. 'Allal al-Fasi was heir to that tradition. He endeavored to reform Islam, to free Muslims from stagnation and past accretions, and to reconcile Islam with reason and modernity. More recently, literalist and puritanical Islamic militants have claimed an exclusive monopoly over the label Salafiyya, but their peremptory assertion is not valid historically. With respect to Morocco, one may avoid typological confusion by referring to al-Fasi's modernist brand of Salafiyya as a "nationalist" Salafiyya (al-salafiyya al-wataniyya) and to the more rigorist and literalist brand - which Roy calls neo-fundamentalism - as a Salafiyya of "Wahhabi" inspiration (al-salafiyya al-wahhābiyya).
15. See Muhammad Darif, al-Islam al-siyasi fi al-Maghrib: muqariba watha'iqiyya (Casablanca: Manshurat al-Majalla al-Maghribiyya li-'Ilm al-Ijtima' al-Siyasi, 1992), 135.
16. Amina Bekkali, "Le pouvoir et les islamistes au Maroc: dieu à partager," in Les états arabes face à la contestation islamiste, ed. Bassma Kodmani-Darwish and May Chartouni-Dubarry (Paris: Armand Colin, 1997), 169-95;
17. Emad Eldin Shahin, Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic Movements in North Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), 172.
18. The most serious threats to the regime came from ambitious officers in the Royal Armed Forces, who led two failed coups in 1971 and 1972. Other threats came from leftist dissidents such as Muhammad Basri (alias le fqih), who planned armed struggle against the state on several occasions between 1969 and 1973. Moroccan Islamists played no role in these events.
19. See Pierre Vermeren, Histoire du Maroc depuis l'indépendance (Paris: La Découverte, 2002), 33-65.
20. Dale F. Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), 7-10.
21. Out of nationalism, al-Fasi claimed that Moroccan Sufis were orthodox until the 15th century. This led him to dispute a sweeping critique of Sufism that Rashid Rida (d. 1935) had published in the journal al-Manar. Yet both men agreed that Sufism was a superstitious and blamable form of religiosity in the 20th century. See 'Allal al-Fasi, al-Tasawwuf al-Islami fi al-Maghrib (Rabat: Mu'assasat 'Allal al-Fasi, 1998), 19-20.
22. Details on earlier Moroccan Salafis and their relationship to Sufism are found in Henry Munson, Jr., Religion and Power in Morocco (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 97-102.
23. Tozy, Monarchie et islam politique, 234-35. Qutb's thought had clear Salafi underpinnings. Though his exegesis yielded revolutionary conclusions, he was a resolute scripturalist who disregarded and even rejected mysticism.
24. See Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi', Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 99-100, 146-47.
25. Darif, Jama'a al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan, 63-64.
26. 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Ihsan (Casablanca: Matbu'at al-Ufuq, 1998), 7-8. This is the Sufi order of the Butshishi family from Madaq, in eastern Morocco. It is a 20th-century offshoot of the Algerian Qadiriyya order. The Butshishiyya is both elitist and mass-based. It attracts upper-middle-class disciples (university professors, engineers, bank executives, etc.) as well as illiterate followers.
27. See Mohamed Tozy, "Le prince, le clerc et l'état: la reconstruction du champ religieux au Maroc," in Intellectuels et militants de l'islam contemporain, ed. Gilles Kepel and Yann Richard (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 82-83.
28. As quoted in Darif, Jama'a al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan, 64.
29. Yasin, al-Ihsan, 10, 24.
30. 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Islam bayna al-da'wa wa-l-dawla: al-minhaj al-nabawi li-taghyir al-insan (Casablanca: Matba'at al-Najah, 1972), 360-61.
31. On the limits of Islamic modernism and its rationalism, see 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Islam ghadan: al-'amal al-Islami wa-harakiyya al-minhaj al-nabawi fi zaman al-fitna (Casablanca: Matba'at al-Najah, 1973), 771-74.
32. For more on al-Dabbagh and his posthumously published book al-Ibriz, see Bernd Radtke, "Ibriziana: Themes and Sources of a Seminal Sufi Work," Sudanic Africa 7 1996): 113-58.
33. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 5-7.
34. Yasin, al-Islam ghadan, 188-92.
35. Ibid., 197.
36. Yasin, al-Islam bayna al-da'wa wa-l-dawla, 475.
37. Ibid., 292.
38. Ibid., 313.
39. 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, La révolution à l'heure de l'islam (n.p., 1980), 27.
40. See also Darif, Jama'a al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan, 26-27.
41. 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Minhaj al-nabawi: tarbiyatan, tanziman wa-zahfan, 2nd ed. (n.p., 1989), 52-53. The first edition was published in 1982.
42. Ibid., 32.
43. Yasin, al-Islam ghadan, 208-18.
44. Qur'an 16:90. This Qur'anic translation and the subsequent one are from Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1955).
45. The verse is quoted in'Abd al-Salam Yasin, Nazrat fi al-fiqh wa-l-ta'rikh (Beirut: al-Sharika al-Urubiyya al-Lubnaniyya li-l-Nashr, 1990), 7.
46. Yasin, al-Ihsan, 17-21.
47. 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, Islamiser la modernité (Rabat: al-Ofok Impressions, 1998), 224.
48. Ibid., 285.
49. See Vincent J. Cornell, The Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998).
50. Tozy, Monarchie et islam politique, 72-73.
51. Haraka al-Islah wa-l-Tajdid, "Mawqif sarih," reprinted in Muhammad Darif, al-Islamiyyun al-Maghariba: hisaba al-siyasa fi al-'amal al-Islami, 1969-1999 (Casablanca: Manshurat al-Majalla al-Maghribiyya li-'Ilm al-Ijtima' al-Siyasi, 1999), 222-36.
52. Yasin, al-Islam bayna al-da'wa wa-l-dawla, 352. The exact same references are found in his second book, which was published in 1973:
53. see Yasin, al-Islam ghadan, 777.
54. Idem, La révolution, 200-201.
55. Idem, al-Ihsan, 27, 32.
56. Ibid., 22.
57. Ibid., 29-30.
58. Ibid., 11-12.
59. Ibid., 47-49.
60. Ibid., 28-29.
61. Ibid., 370-74.
62. There is a strong possibility that Yasin built on other arguments from al-Buti's corpus. Since the late 1950s, al-Buti has put forth strikingly similar ideas to those of Yasin's discourse. Like Yasin, al-Buti believes that orthodox Sufism is intrinsic to the true meaning of Islam; he also underscores the significance of dhikr and ihsān. A good example of al-Buti's position toward Sufism is found in his critique of the Wahhabi-inspired Salafiyya, which was originally published in 1988. See Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti, al-Salafiyya: marhala zamaniyya mubaraka la madhhab Islami (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1998), 189-208.
63. In English, see Andreas Christmann, "Islamic Scholar and Religious Leader: Shaikh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti," in Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond, ed. John Cooper et al. (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998), 57-81.
64. It is worth noting that two of al-Buti's books figure in a list of readings that Yasin recommends to his readers and to the members of al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan: see Yasin, al-Minhaj al-nabawi, 46-47.
65. Yasin, al-Ihsan, 23.
66. Idem, La révolution, 26-28.
67. Idem, al-Ihsan, 7.
68. Roy, "Le post-islamisme," 16-17.
69. See David Commins, "Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949)," in Pioneers of Islamic Revival, ed. Ali Rahmena (London: Zed Books, 1994), 128.
70. 'Roy, "Le post-islamisme," 13, 20-27. Roy swiftly suggests that Islamization through Sufi brotherhoods is a recent sociological phenomenon that follows the modernization process of the 1950s and 1960s. Today, one's adhesion to a Sufi order may be a deliberate and individual religious statement in reaction to the disenchantment of the Islamic world. This was not necessarily the case in the past, Roy claims, when joining a Sufi order was a traditional expression of communal religiosity that implied no Islamization per se.
71. C. R. Pennell, Morocco since 1830: A History (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 353.
72. Pierre Vermeren, Maghreb: la démocratie impossible? (Paris: Fayard, 2004), 229.
73. Yasin, al-Ihsan, 35-36.
74. Idem, La révolution, 39-40.
75. Qur'an 100:8-11, quoted in ibid., 50.
76. Ibid., 54.
77. The other means of implementing the prophetic method is al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan. Yasin intended his movement to provide various forms of communal support, from medical services to financial help for marriages. The function of this organization is also to provide a structure for performing dhikr in groups and for finding spiritual companionship and guidance: see Yasin, al-Minhaj al-nabawi, 74-77.
78. Ibid., 31.
79. L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 141.
80. See Abu Rabi', Intellectual Origins, 166-219.
81. See his attacks on Marxist philosophy in Yasin, La révolution, 38,74-77.
82. In the early 1970s, two Marxist-Leninist organizations - 23 Mars and Ila al-Amam - were particularly popular on university campuses; their members and sympathizers eventually took control of the National Union of Moroccan Students: see Vermeren, Histoire du Maroc, 51-54.
83. In Islamiser la modernité, the advocates of modernity include Westerners and the Westernized Arab elite. The book was clearly intended for a widespread audience and was translated into English and Arabic two years after its original publication in French. The English version is Abdessalam Yassine, Winning the Modern World for Islam, trans. Martin Jenni (Iowa City: Justice and Spirituality Publishing, 2000).
84. The Arabic version is 'Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Islam wa-l-hadatha (Oujda: Matbu'at al-Hilal, 2000).
85. Yasin, Islamiser la modernité, 137.
86. Ibid., 47.
87. Ibid., 139-43.
88. Ibid., 133.
89. See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959).
90. Yasin, Islamiser la modernité, 153.
91. Ibid., 154.
92. Ibid., 184-85.
93. Ibid., 16.
94. Ibid., 29, 55, 130.
95. Ibid., 93; the italics are in the original.
96. All these questions are addressed in 'Allal al-Fasi, Madkhal fi al-nazariyya al-'amma li-dirasat al-fiqh al-Islami wa-muqaranatuhu bi-l-fiqh al-ajnabi (Rabat: Mu'assasa 'Allal al-Fasi, 1985).
97. Idem, Difa' 'an al-shari'a (Rabat: Matabi' al-Risala, 1966), 13, 32.
98. See also Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 224-26.
99. Turabi promotes a new fiqh based on broader analogical analysis (qiys̄). See John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Makers of Contemporary Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 128-31.
100. On Qutb and fiqh, see Abu Rabi', Intellectual Origins, 196-98.
101. Mukhlis al-Sabti, al-Salafiyya al-Wahhabiyya bi-l-Maghrib: taqi al-din al-hilali ra'idan (Casablanca: Manshurat al-Majalla al-Maghribiyya li-'Ilm al-Ijtima' al-Siyasi, 1993).
102. See Yasin, Islamiser la modernité, 173-75.
103. Idem, Nazrat fi al-fiqh, 48.
104. Ibid., 15-16.
105. Ibid., 70.
106. Ibid., 60-67, 71-72, 78.
107. Idem, La révolution, 118. Yasin may exemplify a more extreme form of post-Salafi re-Islamization. In Syria, al-Buti strives to rehabilitate the spiritual dimension of Islam but continues to issue legal opinions, even over the Internet: see: http://www.bouti.com.
108. Yasin, La révolution, ii: see also idem, Nazrat fi al-fiqh, 56.
109. Al-Fasi, Difa' 'an al-shari'a, 4-5.
110. Rémy Leveau, "Réaction de l'islam officiel au renouveau islamique au Maroc," Annuaire de l'Afrique du Nord 18 (1979): 205-18.
111. Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti, who is Kurdish and was born in Turkey, acknowledged that he drew inspiration from Sa'id Nursi. Indeed, there are reasons to believe that Nursi was himself a post-Salafi intellectual and activist. While he criticized Muhammad'Abduh and the modernist Salafis for their condemnation of folk Islam, he resorted to mysticism as way to mobilize the population. Sa'id Nursi tried to combine spiritual guidance with dedication to social problems. See Serif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 55, 176.
112. On Nursi's influence on al-Buti, see Christmann, "Islamic Scholar," 62.