Islamism in its own history and definition

Prof. Dr. Hayreddin Karaman Hoca's book "Pioneers of the Islamic Movement," which has for now reached 5 volumes, takes a rather ambitious approach to the historical genealogy of the Islamic movement. On a ground where approaches that define and depict Islamism as a reaction that emerged in the 19th century against Western colonialism or modernization movements determine the boundaries of the literature, Karaman Hoca's approach is one that will be appreciated and understood more by those who will write the history of Islam than by those who write the history of modernization. For, to those who write the history of modernization, everything that has emerged in the last two centuries is a part of the history of modernization and consists of nothing more than that. These are events that have almost no antecedents or other roots. Yet if one listens a little to historical and cultural sociology, one sees that nothing that is happening today can be understood without recourse to history and culture.

In the introduction to the first volume of Karaman's work, the Islamist is defined as, in essence, the "Muslim." And the Muslim is "one who, in all spheres from thought and belief to behavior, from individual life to social life, in relations and actions, heeds God's will and pleasure, and who makes it the aim of his life not to be in any belief, thought or action contrary to this" (Vol. 1, p. 12).

All the features that Karaman Hoca attributes to the Islamist are also features that will be found in a Muslim. In fact it is possible to reach an even more condensed definition than the sum of all these features: "The Islamist is the person who possesses the consciousness and will of his being a Muslim."

Those who think they can separate Islam from politics must first of all confront the fact that every Muslim who recites Surah al-Fatiha addresses God saying "we." If it is thought that the "we" pronounced twice in the noble verse "We worship You alone, and we seek help from You alone" does not directly include the construction of a political subject, then the meaning and awareness of politics is at a very primitive level.

The names that fit this definition of Karaman Hoca form a much broader list-genealogy within Islamic history. Those included in this genealogy consist of names who made an effort-jihad toward reconstructing Muslim consciousness in situations where Islam encountered other peoples, religions or threats.

In this sense, the Islamic movement is a movement that recurs continually, as pioneers of the movement to defend Islam and Muslims, and at the same time in order to return to this essence the Muslims who have become numb and drifted away from the essence, meaning, excitement and consciousness of the religion, to reestablish the meaning of the religion, to awaken excitement in Muslims and to bring them to the consciousness of faith.

Hence modernization or Western colonialism is only one of the threats, attacks or at least encounters that Muslims have faced throughout history. Perhaps its effect has been unparalleled compared with the others, perhaps it seems so to us because we are passing through it. But within history it is merely a repetition. Although Karaman Hoca expresses the basic logic and principle of the genealogy in a way that establishes this historical continuity, the book "Pioneers of the Islamic Movement," with the 32 names it has covered so far, nevertheless deals with the pioneers of the Islamic Movement that emerged from the 19th century onward.

Beginning its first volume with Hayreddin Pasha of Tunisia, whose name hardly appears in any history of Islamism so far, the Hoca in this volume goes on to deal with Said Halim Pasha, Muhammad Iqbal, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi and Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Nadwi. After giving, for each of them, details about the person's life, intellectual life and struggle that cannot be found anywhere else, and then long quotations from the works, he treats their struggle for the renewal, reform and defense of Islamic thought and movement.

In the subsequent volumes there are names such as Usman dan Fodio, Muhammad b. Ali al-Sanusi, Sheikh Shamil, Shihab al-Din al-Marjani, Musa Carullah Bigiyef, Halim Sabit Sibay, Ali Suavi, Namik Kemal, Sheikh al-Islam Musa Kazim Efendi, Sehbenderzade Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi, Sheikh Said, Iskilipli Atif Hoca, Sheikh al-Islam Mustafa Sabri Efendi, Huseyin Kazim Kadri, Babanzade Ahmed Naim, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Zeynelabidin Efendi, Ahmed Ziya Efendi, Emir Abdelkader, Mawlana Shibli Nu'mani, Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, Abd al-Hamid b. Badis, Elmalili M. Hamdi Yazir, Izmirli Ismail Hakki, Muhammad Sultan al-Masumi al-Khujandi, and Mahmud Cevdet Sezer. Some of these names, for example the last one, made an impact in their time but were later consigned to the oblivion of history. That their names are even remembered and mentioned in this book is in itself a meaningful display of loyalty, but the Hoca has also, through meticulous research, brought to light all their publications and activities.

What is common to the struggle of all these names is that, although they were figures who lived and carried out their struggles in the 9th century, they expressed their cause definitely not merely as a reaction to the West but within the continuity of their own history. Each of them has a genealogy (that cannot be reduced to a lineage) going back to our Prophet, indeed even further, to the first prophet.

That these names, motivated by such a historical consciousness, have had their ethnic or national affiliations disregarded in being included in this compilation is also a proper expression of a very important condition concerning the essence of Islamism. Although Islamism in those years was of course directly connected with the idea of the Caliphate and therefore with the Ottomans, it is not a thought or stance reducible to the Ottomans, just as it cannot be reduced to an age.

On the other hand, although almost all of the names in question took a stand against Western imperialism or modernism, they stand out for having carried out their real great struggle as a movement of reform and renewal against the corruption of religion by innovations and superstitions. This reflex shows precisely that the history of tajdid, which the Prophet (pbuh) foretold, is at work.

Karaman Hoca's book, along with works such as Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Nadwi's likewise 5-volume "History of the Leaders of Islam" or Mawdudi's "Revival Movements in Islam," is perhaps a fine example that it is possible, and far more accurate, to look at Islam or Islamism from within its own history.