speaker-0: Welcome back to Angle, Anchor and Voice. My guest today is the one and only Faisal Devjee, a top historian and a top public intellectual. He's the professor of global and imperial history at Oxford and a fellow of Balliol College. He's the author of some of the most original books written on Muslim political thought in the past two decades. I should also say that he's a friend and one of those rare people I get to call a friend while also looking up to him. As an intellectual, as an academic, as a teacher, Faisal has a depth and an integrity that I have come to treat as a kind of benchmark. And he is also genuinely a kind person, which in our line of work does not always travel together with brilliance. And at Oxford, if you know, you know. His new book is The Waning Crescent, The Rise and Fall of Global Islam, published by Yale University Press. It is a history of an idea, the idea of Islam as a global political force, and its central claim is that this idea is dying. It is a bold thesis and has different layers to it, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to Faisal. Welcome Faisal.
speaker-1: Thank you very much and for that very generous introduction.
speaker-0: Of course. Tell us the main premise of your book and what do you mean by Islam as a as an idea in in history and how is it dying or already dead?
speaker-1: Well, the first thing to note is that while ⁓ readers and commentators ⁓ understandably jump from global Islam to political Islam, the two are not identical. Uh-huh. ⁓ so that I would argue that political Islam is a subset of global Islam, but it is not identical to it. So what I mean by global Islam is exactly what you just said. ⁓ the idea that Islam is a protagonist in history, an agent ⁓ in its own right, that it wants us to do things, that it tells us to do things, it tells us how to behave. It acts in the world, ⁓ as an abstract system. And this way of thinking is not unusual because we can think of civilizations behaving in this way. We can think of ideologies behaving in this way. So for instance, you can say, you know, communism entailed X or ⁓ ⁓ liberalism means why. ⁓ so in that sense it's part of a ⁓ you know a kind of commonplace set of historical ⁓ agents. ⁓ but my argument is that
speaker-0: When you say global is that Islam there is not a t theological Islam. What what is it?
speaker-1: ⁓ so basically what I suggest in in the book is that from around the middle of the nineteenth century, starting then, ⁓ Muslim intellectuals ⁓ but also colonial thinkers ⁓ come together to reimagine Islam as this kind of agent, ⁓ purely abstract, ⁓ you know, that works in the world in the way that imperialism or ⁓ communism or ⁓ you know fascism might work in the world, ⁓ that the way that civilizations work in the world ⁓ from the nineteenth century. and that this way of thinking about Islam characterizes the Muslim modernists or liberals of the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. It characterizes the Islamists of the mid 20th century and late 20th century. And to some degree, it characterizes the 21st century militant forms of Muslim mobilization, ⁓ most notably Al Qaeda and ISIS. But it is destroyed at that moment. And we are moving into a period where Islam does not work in this way any longer. And one of the things I suggest in the book is. the reason why Islam comes to be understood in this way is precisely because in ⁓ a period like the mid to late nineteenth century where you have the ⁓ the expansion of European empires in the Muslim world, you have the diminishing at the same time of Muslim forms of sovereignty and authority, both profane and ⁓ religious. And it's in this context that ⁓ colonized Muslim intellectuals in particular, ⁓ come to think about Islam as acting in its own name and in its own right and allows for, if you will, a democratization of Muslim authority. You no longer have to think about the king or the cleric or the Sufi saint. You can make claims in the name of Islam as new middle class, you know, Muslim intellectuals.
speaker-0: We're talking about ⁓ Pakistani thinker ⁓ Majodi in this sense.
speaker-1: He is certainly one of them. ⁓ he comes later in the story ⁓ as a founding figure of Islamism. Yes. ⁓ so for Mahdoodi, Islam has to be reconceived as an ideology, and he calls it that. Yes. ⁓ on the model of communism as the chief ideology of the period. And indeed he he often invokes the Bolshevik Party as the model for his party, the Jamatha Islami. ⁓
speaker-0: So there needs to be a party to to get the action plan.
speaker-1: For that for that kind of ⁓ Islamism, yes. ⁓ but you know ⁓ before him you have the Muslim liberals so called who also think about Islam in this way. But they think about it not in terms of a systematic ideology with a party attached to it, but they think about it in terms of a civilization. So you look back at the history of Islam and see how it somehow acts ⁓ collectively.
speaker-0: Islam.
speaker-1: in a civilizational way, in the way you can think about Western civilization, for instance. Okay. and you don't require necessarily a party, a system, an ideology. These end up being far more important to these latter terms after the Bolshevik Revolution and after the setting into place of the Soviet Union, when ideas of revolutions and ideologies and ideological states become ⁓ important.
speaker-0: W when you if you want to pinpoint a historical moment where Islam started to become the doer rather than, for example, you know, XYZ conquered, but rather Islam conquered. Was it like the ⁓ for I mean Mug can we ta trace it back to Mughals or like or like d ⁓ end of the caliphate? What when when does it start?
speaker-1: Well it's well before the end of the caliphate, you know. So ⁓ you know, as a South Asian myself and as an expert on South Asian history, one of the places I look to, of course, is colonial India. Yes. And there already, you know, after the so called Indian mutiny of eighteen fifty seven, which marks the final formal end of the Mughal Empire and the establishment formally of the British Raj, ⁓ you have Muslim intellectuals starting to talk about Islam in this new way.
speaker-0: It's the k encounter with with the imperialism. Why does Islam behave I mean, if you do a comparative ⁓ I don't know how to put it in the right way, but ⁓ why doesn't Judaism or Christianity has its crisis in modernity? Why what's with Islam that it reacted this way?
speaker-1: Yes. Yeah. Well, I don't think ⁓ you know, I think both Christianity and Judaism are also ⁓ conceived of by many people in these terms, but not in the same way exactly. ⁓ so ⁓ in part because ⁓ Christianity ⁓ is always located institutionally in the in the figure of a church. You can have as many or as few of them as you would like, ⁓ but that is an institutional form that is ⁓ unsurpassable. ⁓ and with Judaism it's often a question of the law and the people that is already given. It's circumscribed. Whereas for Islam, you have both a kind of universal ⁓ aspiration of conversion and all the rest, which Ju Judaism no longer does. Yeah. ⁓ but you'd no longer you you don't have the institutional basis of Christianity either. ⁓ so the thing about Christianity, it could still be understood in institutional terms because it was not a colonized religion ⁓ in most of the world anyway. ⁓ whereas in Islam, once you actually diminish or get rid of traditional forms of Muslim authority There is no institutional structure any longer. You have to reinvent it. So it becomes quite abstract. This is not true in the Ottoman Empire, which still r maintains an institutional structure, ⁓ with its caliphate and all the rest until the end of the First World War. Yeah. ⁓ but it is true in other parts of the Muslim world.
speaker-0: So if you go back to to what you were saying about ⁓ Mughal and then what happens? ⁓ you know, ⁓ th there is the encounter with the European so it's both the European colonialists and the Muslims started to talk, I mean the Islam started talking on behalf of
speaker-1: Yes. Yeah, it's a shared project, ironically, even though the two sides in this debate ⁓ might be opposed to each other. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not, because a number of the Muslim liberals, of course, thought that colonial rule they may not have liked it necessarily, but they thought they could learn from it. And they thought it was an inevitability in some sense that this was an opportunity for Muslims to modernize them themselves. ⁓ and only in that way might they ⁓ succeed eventually in ⁓ freeing themselves of colonial rule only by learning from it. and so you know the two sides, if you will, don't have exactly the same objectives, but they can't but they can come together. On the other hand, with Islamists and some others, ⁓ you don't have this agreement. ⁓ so you have ⁓ you know, a far more clear sense of opposition, but nevertheless they use the same terminology. So one of the things I'm suggesting is that Islam as it emerges in modern times is inseparable from a colonial category. It is a colonial category.
speaker-0: Interesting. Well I mean if you look at how I mean the emergence of Muslim Brotherhood it is I mean, it emerged actually where the construction of the Swayze Canal was by the so it's kind of but it doesn't it isn't it a bit of an oppositional
speaker-1: ⁓ it can be, yes. It can be. It the it it isn't always the case. So one of the things I w you know want to do is by putting together the modernists or liberals, the Islamists and these twenty first century militants, which is of course not everybody. So, you know, I'm leaving out of my purview for the most part the Sufis. Yes. And the ulama as well. Apart from those ulama who actually ⁓ imbibe and ⁓ appropriate ⁓ Islamism. So that's true in Iran, of course. True. ⁓ after the revolution, during it. And it's true in Afghanistan. But it's not true in most parts of the world. so, you know, in those two countries you have a a really interesting coming together of traditional structures of ulama and modern forms of Islamism which, let us recall, were invented by lay intellectuals. They were not Islamism is not the product of ulama. It's a product for journalists and, if you will, non ⁓ clerical thinkers. ⁓ and in most of the world, ⁓ it remains that way. It's only in these two situations, and to some degree in Somalia at a certain point, that you have the ulama and the Islamists coming together in this manner. So when they do come together, ⁓ I do look at the ulama. But in general I leave the ulama and the Sufis out of this picture and I look at these, you know, three movements ⁓ which do not comprise the totality of all movements of the Muslim world but which are incredibly important yeah nevertheless, intellectually in as much as institutionally and politically.
speaker-0: How d how do you inter I mean, how do you unpack what happened in nineteen seventy nine and what was what I mean, that was a so th the the the second sequence of of your of the trajectory of Islam as a as an idea is the Cold War and its ⁓ you know, how it gave birth to Islamism in the sense that we know today. What happened with the Iranian revolution to Islamism, do you think?
speaker-1: Yeah, so there, you know, we often tend to think and commentators ⁓ often tell us, that, you know, Iran and the Islam Islamic revolution stood at the vanguard of Islamism and ⁓ it you know defined it ⁓ for a whole era. Whereas I think in a way the reverse is true, that Iran came very late to this story. and ⁓ you know, the w the if you will, the glory days of Islam is I mean in the nineteen fifties and sixties. ⁓ by the time you get to nineteen seventy nine it's losing steam in ⁓ much of the rest of the world and the Iranian revolution gives it a new kind of character. Different kind. Very different kind of character, not least because it is taken over by the Islam by the ulama. And in a way you can see this as a defeat of Islamism. That it has been appropriated by the ulama, a class of people whom it had traditionally repudiated, you know. It had traditionally ⁓
speaker-0: Verdi.
speaker-1: Condemned for its traditionalism and all the rest. So the ulama, who are of course in the Shia world far more organized institutionally than in the Sunni world, were able to appropriate Islamism and globalize themselves in a way that had not been true before. They could suddenly appeal to non-Shia populations as well through Islamism. and they remade it. But it comes at the end of the story of Islamism globally.
speaker-0: But didn't it is inspire Islamist movements like all around the world? Isn't that what
speaker-1: You know. It transformed it and it brought together ⁓ you know, ⁓ to some degree the ulama and the Islamists. ⁓ but y you know, and in the book I write about how, you know, my two examples are Maududi and Khomeini. Yes. ⁓ n Moldudi comes from that earlier period. You know, he's already writing in the nineteen twenties and you know, nineteen fifties, sixties, those are his glory days. Yes. ⁓ and Khomeini clearly reads him yeah ⁓ as does Sayyid Khot in Egypt. ⁓ but what Khomeini does is engineer a quite different kind of ⁓ vision of what the state Islamic State should look like ⁓ than Modoodi, though he starts from the same kinds of premises. So you can see in the relationship between the two a kind of coming together but a divergence ⁓ as well. Of course the Iran Revolution didn't manage to export itself anywhere else, not even in Iraq with its Shia majority, even after the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime. True. And not indeed even in Lebanon, in part because Hezbollah realized that ⁓ and they have been free in saying this, that they are part of a ⁓ a multi religious society and a multi-religious country, and you cannot expect an Islamic revolution ⁓ of the kind you had in Iran and an Islamic ideology and state to emerge in a place like Lebanon. So ⁓ in a way Iran is a one off. ⁓ it certainly does transform Islamism, but it is unable to export itself or its model of it ⁓ anywhere else ⁓ in the world. W
speaker-0: If if we just go back before ⁓ the ⁓ Cold War, ⁓ do do you think Ottoman Empire had an imprint at all on on the Islam as an idea, an an doer, as a protagonist or
speaker-1: Yes, it it does. And you know, though of course the figure of the Sultan Caliph never really goes away, and that's one thing that differentiates ⁓ both Ottoman but also ⁓ post Ottoman Turkey from other parts of the Muslim world. So in other parts of the Muslim world, ⁓ Muslim movements and Isla both liberal and Islamist emerge against the royal past, against the monarchies of the past. That's not true with Turkey. No. ⁓ where Islamic movements have always referred to that past. Yes. And that's a significant difference. ⁓ something similar may have been true of Iran before the revolution here and there. Because the ulama were linked with the court, even with the Pahalibi monarchy. Sure. ⁓ it took a while for that co-op meant Yes. ⁓ ⁓ you know, with the revolution of course that relationship completely falls apart. Yes. And even even before the revolution, ⁓ but, you know, Iran too, like Turkey, ⁓ you know, there there may have been European depredations upon them, but they were not fully colonized. Afghanistan is the other story like this with its monarchy. ⁓ and it it it takes the collapse of the monarchy and the Soviet invasion and all the rest to really turn that story around. So let's take these three cases. Mm-hmm. ⁓ the Turkish one is the most instructive, I think, because it has really never repudiated the monarchical past. ⁓ so exactly. Yes. ⁓ and of course, that doesn't mean that this idea of Islam is a self regulating ⁓ entity and as an agent didn't have any meaning because already with Abdul Hamid you have the you know, the invocation of Islam ⁓ of course he's a leading figure in that movement. Yes. But nevertheless, it does come to be imagined as an entity in its own right, which is why he can ask for the support of Muslims in other parts of the world. You know, Indian Muslims are the most ⁓ enthusiastic in their support. What the caliphate. Well of the caliphate. Yeah. But when you look at their movement, the Khilafat movement, very famous. Yes. ⁓ you know, they hardly ever mention the name of the caliph. Of course there's more than one because they change. That's true. They don't know who it is, really. ⁓ so it's they do know that. ⁓ so what I'm suggesting is that
speaker-0: I know it's Ottoman.
speaker-1: They're not invested in the person. No. Institution. Sultan. Yeah. ⁓ nor are they particularly interested in the Sultanate, the the Ottoman Sultanate itself. ⁓ and for many of them, actually, what's more important is the role of the Ottomans as constituting a constituting a great power in the Middle East. ⁓ so they are very much set against the fragmentation of the Middle East, which they think will just open it up for European colonization, and that they think that this requires ⁓ a Middle Eastern great power and ⁓ Muslim power. So even people like Mohammed Iqbal, the poet and philosopher, who were never for the caliphate, by the way, he was never part of the caliphat movement. ⁓ he used to make fun of the caliphists by saying if the caliphate needs your help from outside the Ottoman Empire, then there's a problem. There's a problem. It it doesn't, it's not ⁓ worthy of survival. you you cannot try to persuade the British to save the caliphate. ⁓ that is a futile endeavor. Either it possesses its own strength or it doesn't. Though of course he does condemn the Arab nationalists in the nineteen thirties. of having abandoned the Turks and in abandoning the Turks left themselves open to colonization by the British and the French. Yes.
speaker-0: ⁓ that is the Turkish argument. So so ⁓ coming back to you know ⁓ Islamism as an ideology, ⁓ to ⁓ Cold War era, ⁓ so do you consider Islamism in terms of ⁓ Michael Frieden's you know description of what an ideology is where there's a core or an action plan and then there are political concepts that they borrow. So and there are thick centered and thin centered ⁓ ideologies d depending on how ⁓ the more I mean ⁓ these concepts move to each other. But if you consider it ⁓ as a as an ideology, one part of it, it it it doesn't really die. It just changes. It it it has a cycle. For example, nationalism in the last two, three decades just goes up and down, up and down. Why do you think what we're seeing right now is is a death note for Islamism? Whereas I my research shows ⁓ it's at the ⁓ you know zenith of its ⁓ adaptation with market forces.
speaker-1: Yes, you do have that. ⁓ whether you want to call it Islamism or not is another story. ⁓ That is, of course, truer in Turkey than and perhaps in Malaysia ⁓ than it is in other parts of the Islam. So there is a neoliberalization of Islam. Yes. And it's been around. So the old Soviet model is no longer the model. That was a non-market model. Yes. And
speaker-0: It's being diffused to South Asia.
speaker-1: with this you have a totally marketized model of Islam working ⁓ through the private sector. ⁓ with some control and guidance from the state, ⁓ and it's all about ⁓ you know, halal commodification. ⁓ so you have to back it. Yeah. So in a way it's moved from one side of the Cold War, the Soviet side, to the other, the Western or American side. Yes.
speaker-0: Having its own bourgeoisie.
speaker-1: ⁓ whatever its political configuration, in effect, that's what we are seeking. Now, whether you want to call that Islamism is a different story because well i it it's not Islamist in the old fashioned sense of a revolution with a revolutionary state and an ideology, the kind that Iran has, for instance. It's something very different. It can coexist with different forms of liberal or illiberal democracy or authoritarianism. Yes. ⁓ It doesn't specify. ⁓ You can certainly call it ideological, but it doesn't have the same systematic nature ⁓ as the older kind. So I'm not arguing that you have, you know, a kind of dead end and then that's it. ⁓ obviously things will change shape. and you know, we have yet to see where this is true in many parts of the world. It is a middle and upper middle class phenomenon. ⁓ Islamism in its earlier phase was also a middle class or lower middle class phenomenon, which then ended up with more ⁓ support ⁓ from working classes o on occasion, not always. ⁓ here you have a more a kind of upwardly mobile situation and not accidentally or not coincidentally true in economically more successful, let us say, capitalist countries. ⁓ so if you will, it's a post Cold War, post liberalization, economic liberalization model. ⁓ it really is after the Cold War. The rest of the Islamist corpus is very much a Cold War one. Mm-hmm. And Iran is the last or the you know, remaining ⁓ example of that. ⁓ but you know what I find interesting about that old version of Islamism, going back to your question about Michael Frieden, is that you know, unlike the Soviets or ⁓ you know, other forms of ideological politics, this one was though it drew from a Bolshevik model, it was bizarrely anarchist at its core. ⁓ it was. in the sense that it was deeply suspicious of the state. ⁓ Yeah. So ⁓ so it it basically identified the anarchist core within Bolshevism, which in Lenin's words would be the withering away of the state. Yes. and what it wanted was to lay ⁓ g ⁓ limits to the force and the
speaker-0: It wanted to rock the boat.
speaker-1: The reach of the state in Muslim social life. ⁓ Limited. It had to limit it. So it not accidentally, given the colonial background of many of these Islamist thinkers, it saw the modern state as a problem in its own right. ⁓ It was invasive. It was often led by secular or irreligious people. ⁓ Even if it was led by pious Muslims, it was actually a form taken from the West. ⁓ therefore it was an in into inadvertent tool of secularism or secularization. And so what you needed to do is to create a situation in which society could control itself, almost in an anarchistic way. and that is what Islam was meant to do. ⁓ so Islamism was meant to set certain kinds of boundaries and limits to the reach of the state within social life and then redefine that social life as being somehow authentically Islamic ⁓ and keep Islamist authorities as the guardians of that life, often as in Modubi's case, outside the state. So it's not like they were so keen to enter the state and become bureaucrats. They wanted to represent Islamic authority against the state. Yes. What Khomeini does is he puts those two things together. ⁓ so he makes the ulama the guardians of the state itself. But even there. the position of the supreme leader, like Mao as the le you know, during the Cultural Revolution, ⁓ is as much against the state ⁓ as it is an exemplar of the state. So Mao could use his his position ⁓ to criticize and to destroy large segments of state power during the Cultural Revolution in the name of the people. In the day. ⁓ just like the figure of the supreme leader is meant to be able to do, you know. So occupying a very interesting position. so even in the Iranian example, ⁓ the figure of the supreme leader represents, if you will, the echo of that anti-statist ⁓ moment in Islamist political thought. ⁓ and therefore back to this idea of what I am calling an anarchist. understanding of social self management with its deep suspicion of the modern state. Yeah.
speaker-0: And ⁓ the third ⁓ line in in the history is the emergence of jihadists. How how should we interpret the w ⁓ are are these the culmination or like opposite of the Islamists of the Cold War? How do where do we situate Al Qaeda and and ⁓ ISIS in this
speaker-1: Well, in some respects they pick up the same or similar questions. ⁓ and what I focus in focus on in the book ⁓ is the question of sovereignty. ⁓ so for Islamists like Modudi, ⁓ sovereignty, again, this is a typical Islamist statement, can only belong to God. we cannot own it. That's part of the anti statist ideal. Yeah. Right. So what you need to do is expel sovereignty ⁓ by expelling God in some ways. You know, we don't control this. Yes. we can only rely upon the Sharia, which we cannot change apart from here and there. Yes. and you you try to actually make a world without sovereignty, what could be more anarchist than that? You know? So the suspicion of sovereignty. Also marks Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but it has been individualized. It's no longer seen in state and institutional terms. It's now seen in terms of the individual Muslim, him or herself. You know, do you have an inner life that harbors ideals of sovereignty, ⁓ even if it's only for yourself, that you're not fully personally in conformity to the sharia ⁓ and to ⁓ collectivist ideals. ⁓ so for them the task was to dismantle attack and dismantle the Muslim self self. You know, it was highly individualized. Of course, there was in the case of ISIS the attempt you know to remake a caliphate and all it's I'm not saying there's no collective moment there at all. But It's very interesting because it's globalized quite differently. ⁓ you know, with Al Qaeda you don't have any attempt to create a state, but you draw from around the world, ⁓ you know, and people go from here to there and their battlefields all over the world. With ISIS you do have the creation of a state, ⁓ but again, it's ⁓ it's ⁓ personnel ⁓ come from around the world. ⁓ you know, and it has no defined borders, ⁓ and it can have supporters here and there in other parts of the world. So they're both global movements. Mm-hmm. ⁓ and they no longer rely upon the idea of the nation state. True. Which goes back to old Islamist ideals also, which were against the idea of the nation state seen as itself a form of idolatry because it was false sovereignty. Since sovereignty can only belong to God and Islam is universal, the nation state is illegitimate by definition. Yes. ⁓ So you do have these new movements take up some of these problems and some of these questions of Islamism, but they define them or redefine them in very, very new ways.
speaker-0: We we also see a very interesting transformation since 2015 in in Syria. that ⁓ you know Jabbat al-Nusra and then Hayat Tash Tahrir Arsham ⁓ just build this ⁓ localized entity in Idlib and govern it. And first ⁓ you know Al-Qaeda's leader talked to Ahmed al-Shara and say, just focus on Syria, which is Which ca like you said, it's a glob jihad is a global movement. So w what we're seeing in the trajectory of the current president of Syria is jihad being localized, which actually becomes not jihad anymore. So w what's happening to to this segment of the
speaker-1: Well, this is where your your earlier comment about neoliberalism c works. Because what happened in Idlin, you had the construction of shopping malls. Yes. And a new kind of bourgeoisie. And it's the support of this group of people, petty merchants, traders, consumers, ⁓ that was required. ⁓
speaker-0: There is a lot of AKP influence.
speaker-1: Of course. Yeah. So there too you have because that's where that idea of Islam as a kind of consumer movement comes from. ⁓ you know, so it it redefines the, if you will, jihad idea of political democracy that means, you know, people's opinions should be taken into account into a kind of consumer driven idea of what people want. and so, you know ⁓ the jihadist movement is is i in Syria here is totally transformed. Yeah. What's interesting about it, as far as I know, the old ideas have not been reshaped. ⁓ they've just been ⁓ and there's a recent book ⁓ whose title I forget on this. Yeah. ⁓ French scholars. Yeah yes, exactly.
speaker-0: ⁓ Trevens, yes.
speaker-1: ⁓ it's very good. Yeah, it's it's it's ⁓ about precisely this. You how can you transform by the people. Exactly. Yes. ⁓ so you know, how can you maintain w your old whatever it was ⁓ and ⁓ nevertheless act in a quite different way. So whether there will be a reckoning at some point, ⁓ I don't know. ⁓ but at the moment, ⁓ it looks like it's been, you know, dragged into or willingly entered into the world of neoliberal Islam ⁓ as represented in Turkey and places like that. So, you know, it needs to achieve power ⁓ within a nation state. It's had to marginalize its non-Arab non-Syrian ⁓ forces and ⁓ i it needs to become ⁓ respectable as a as a political player in the international order such as it is So it's a fascinating experiment. ⁓ but of course it's not the only one. So Iran for decades now has been trying to re-enter the international order by using the nuclear question as leverage. ⁓ you know, to an odd way of Yes, it didn't work. now it has entered or is re-entering under different circumstances. ⁓ but in the past ⁓ there was this attempt Both by ⁓ you know the JCPOA was of course ⁓ you know, an attempt to use the nuclear issue to re-enter by saying, look, we will give this up if you lift sanctions and all the rest. ⁓ it ended up not being ⁓ workable. So now there's another way in which ⁓ Trump. Exactly. And a ⁓ a massive shift in the region of power. ⁓ but all of which is to say ⁓ that ⁓ whether it's the old Islamist revolutionary tradition or this new liber neo liberal form, ⁓ they both have ⁓ aspirations to re enter an existing world order. to call it existing is perhaps a bit much at the mo at the moment when it's entirely uncertain what it's going to look like. ⁓ but an attempt to engage, basically. And this is true of the Taliban as well. Is it? It has been historically. and ⁓ you know, they made certain decisions that ⁓ disallowed that. or you might argue that, you know, whatever they did, they were never going to really ⁓ be welcomed back in. ⁓ there's always the desire to do it. ⁓ no one wants to be completely outside because that means you're dependent on one or two friends. ⁓ like North Korea and China. You know. ⁓ and all of these groups and states ⁓ would much rather be part of a system. So, you know, the their demonization as being totally alien i is not really correct. You can say the same thing about Russia. And under what conditions it wants readmittance, that's the question. And whether those conditions can be met. But To suggest that Russia and China, for instance, are ⁓ absolutely set on creating an alternative world order, that's the Soviet model. ⁓ True. So w what
speaker-0: ⁓ you know,
speaker-1: If we
speaker-0: We are talking about ⁓ like three lines of waning of Islam. ⁓ at this time of the world. We are also seeing ⁓ Israel as a very strong ⁓ you know, actor claiming again that it is fighting against a civilization and a radical Islamist. They are just I mean They're making a national claim of Palestine ⁓ into an Islamist one and calling Hamasdat and e you know, the Turkey as part of this Islamist resurgence. And y we know that they're really strong in ⁓ framing ⁓ the ⁓ global language ⁓ or vocabulary regarding Muslim politics. What can you say about this? I mean we're having a very interesting, hostile actor there.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean I d I don't know how long that kind of language can survive actually. ⁓ so ⁓ I mean it's Israel, you know, India occasionally does this as well. ⁓ yes. you know, and Israel but also the UAE on occasion. Yes. ⁓ you know, Islamic terrorism, it's war on terror language, basically. It's from the post nine eleven period and it was global once upon a time. So if you look at it in that context, it's actually shrunk.
speaker-0: You mean starting with two thousand and you know, nine eleven?
speaker-1: Yes, exactly. So at that time, post nine eleven, this was a universal language. Mhm. No one could escape it. Today it's here in patches, and Israel is one of those countries
speaker-0: I think you're underestimating its cloud.
speaker-1: Perhaps. I mean I think ⁓ I just don't the scholarship is not there. No. Yes. And even you know, journalistic commentary is not wedded to this any longer in the same way. Of course, you know, this idea can be dredged up when it comes to Hamas ⁓ and Hezbollah, so very specific. But, you know.
speaker-0: Scholarship has moved beyond it.
speaker-1: ⁓ as in as you were saying, with Syria you see the removal of this category altogether. Yes. ⁓ from a group that had been both Al Qaeda and ISIS, you know. Suddenly, you know, you can sh go to the White House and shake hands with the president. ⁓ and that is a big, big story. we haven't really realized ⁓ the transformation that has happened in that particular case. So you can roll it back ⁓ when you need to. ⁓ and if it is ⁓ if it is so ⁓ flexible ⁓ then in a way the old narrative ⁓ can no longer work ⁓ in the way it used to. So what I don't want to underestimate.
speaker-0: What is Modi's ⁓ rhetoric there?
speaker-1: So there of course the whole point was to marginalise Pakistan from the international debate and international institutions as being a state sponsor of terrorism. ⁓ it worked for a while, it worked in the nineties. Mm-hmm. Pakistan is hosting ⁓ negotiations with Iran in you know, it is suddenly back ⁓ as an immediate as well of the United States. ⁓ so the Indian ⁓ attempt has failed, clearly for Pakistan and for India, which is all about Pakistan. You know, how do you post nine eleven sequester this country ⁓ and its problematic politics under this term of s sponsor of terrorism? ⁓ and of course ⁓ it had been a sponsor of terrorism ⁓ so in India. ⁓ But that time is gone. ⁓ so you know, you see these narratives breaking here and there. ⁓ with Abd al Sharai it has broken, with Pakistan it has broken. and I really don't think ⁓ it can be wound you know, humpty dumpty like it can't be put together again. It's there for certain groups like Hamas and to some degree Hezbollah. ⁓ but I I wouldn't see its expansion. That's not the same thing as saying Israel has no ⁓ influence or effect or role to play in the Middle East or the world. but it doesn't necessarily need this language for it. True.
speaker-0: Okay, one last question. So, ⁓ I I think ⁓ Protop ⁓ had written and I I felt the same way ⁓ when I finished the book that we if this is gone, ⁓ I mean what we call as Islam or Islamism f is strong ⁓ you know, ideology or political idea, then there's a vacuum. And vacuums don't stay like as vacuums, empty states and politics are filled with something. If we look is it ⁓ the the ideology of far right, which is like a fundamental nationalism ⁓ w i in by with ⁓ xenophobia, w what is it going to be filled with? I mean, what is what is your foresight for the next
speaker-1: two decades. It's difficult to say. I mean, in a way, the situation you described is ⁓ i can be said as pertaining to the West as much as anything else, where you do have a fragmentation and you do have a vacuum. And in that vacuum you have with the collapse of the old Cold War order, ⁓ what you have is the reemergence of racism and fascism and you know xenophobia and all the rest. You see it all over Western Europe. So maybe
speaker-0: Maybe West as an idea is also waning.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. ⁓ i i in a way it it had to happen because the the old international order was a cold war construction. and ⁓ it was premised upon a balance of power between the Soviet Union and its clients on the one hand and the United States and its allies or clients on the other. When one side has gone, the other side can't just go survive. It can't just go on and on. unchanged. What happened is that suddenly NATO and the West became instead of an alliance, it became one power, the United States, with allies who were quickly degraded into clients, if not worse, ⁓ you know, and you see the way in which the Europeans are being treated by the current American administration, even the Biden administration. So ⁓ this is not a party political thing about Republicans. Yeah and it's true of Democrats as well. ⁓ so something has to give. And you know, we wait to see what will happen. with the Muslim world too, you're seeing the long, long drawn out end of the Cold War. The Cold War didn't just end in 1989. ⁓ you know, its ending we are seeing today. Yeah. ⁓ the nineteen nineties, which we thought was, ⁓ this is the period of globalization, we have we have ⁓ transcended Cold War, attractions, end of history, and this is how it's going to be. But it turned out not to be the case. ⁓ so in this difficult ending of the Cold War, we see both the collapse of the Western led order such as it was, both within the West, changing of ⁓ power relations, ⁓ and in the Muslim world, a totally comparable situation, ⁓ the collapse of old fashioned Islamism and the rise of new kinds of movements. So for me, you know, the Muslim world and its history are not sequestered from global history. They're part of global history. ⁓ totally agree. ⁓ so you know you you can't just look at one without the other or think that one things happen in one without any effect on the other. They're totally intertwined.
speaker-0: Do you see nationalism making a comeback?
speaker-1: It is all over the world, but you know, I don't know if it's it's ⁓ if it's the same kind of nationalism that we saw before. For instance, when you look at Europe and you see ⁓ Scottish nationalism or Welsh nationalism or Catalan nationalism, these are all forms of nationalism which want to give up sovereignty. They don't want to reclaim it. ⁓ because they want they're they are only possible within ⁓ in the within the EU. ⁓ which is a which is a new kind of body with pooled sovereignty. So it's nationalist, but it's not the old fashioned nationalism. So the the UK has more than one kind of national movement. It has these kinds, the Scottish and the Welsh, ⁓ and then it has the, you know, reform, restore, old fashioned kind ethno nationalism. And then it has the more conventional, ⁓ you know, postcolonial UK type multicultural nationalism. So it has at least three different varieties and they are going to duke it out. ⁓ and you know, similar things are true in other parts of the world. Mm-hmm. ⁓ in many parts of the world, nationalism, it's not clear what it might mean. So in in the Gulf states, in the smaller Gulf states, the majority of his populations are not even national. Yes. They're not citizens. Yes. What does it mean? They use the word national to refer to ethnic or tribal groups.
speaker-0: Citizens.
speaker-1: Who happen to be citizens? And then on occasion, a few people from outside groups who are migrants or whatever might be given citizenship, but they're not nationals. They might be citizens. So there's a distinction between citizen and national. Sure. On the one hand. But on the other hand, what kind of country is it where 50 to 90 percent of your its population is made up of non-citizens and foreigners? Is it a nation state? Is it something else? Notionally it's a nation state. ⁓ because everything in the world has to be a nation state to have a seat at the UN. Yes. ⁓ but things are changed. There are a lot, you know, and and the so called return of nationalism signals not something uniform at all. ⁓ exactly. Yeah. ⁓ so l lots of novelty there as well. This is not just the story of return. Yes.
speaker-0: Thank you very much, Faisal. It was a wonderful conversation as always.
speaker-1: Thank you very much. Always nice to chat.
speaker-1: Thank you very much and for that very generous introduction.
speaker-0: Of course. Tell us the main premise of your book and what do you mean by Islam as a as an idea in in history and how is it dying or already dead?
speaker-1: Well, the first thing to note is that while ⁓ readers and commentators ⁓ understandably jump from global Islam to political Islam, the two are not identical. Uh-huh. ⁓ so that I would argue that political Islam is a subset of global Islam, but it is not identical to it. So what I mean by global Islam is exactly what you just said. ⁓ the idea that Islam is a protagonist in history, an agent ⁓ in its own right, that it wants us to do things, that it tells us to do things, it tells us how to behave. It acts in the world, ⁓ as an abstract system. And this way of thinking is not unusual because we can think of civilizations behaving in this way. We can think of ideologies behaving in this way. So for instance, you can say, you know, communism entailed X or ⁓ ⁓ liberalism means why. ⁓ so in that sense it's part of a ⁓ you know a kind of commonplace set of historical ⁓ agents. ⁓ but my argument is that
speaker-0: When you say global is that Islam there is not a t theological Islam. What what is it?
speaker-1: ⁓ so basically what I suggest in in the book is that from around the middle of the nineteenth century, starting then, ⁓ Muslim intellectuals ⁓ but also colonial thinkers ⁓ come together to reimagine Islam as this kind of agent, ⁓ purely abstract, ⁓ you know, that works in the world in the way that imperialism or ⁓ communism or ⁓ you know fascism might work in the world, ⁓ that the way that civilizations work in the world ⁓ from the nineteenth century. and that this way of thinking about Islam characterizes the Muslim modernists or liberals of the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. It characterizes the Islamists of the mid 20th century and late 20th century. And to some degree, it characterizes the 21st century militant forms of Muslim mobilization, ⁓ most notably Al Qaeda and ISIS. But it is destroyed at that moment. And we are moving into a period where Islam does not work in this way any longer. And one of the things I suggest in the book is. the reason why Islam comes to be understood in this way is precisely because in ⁓ a period like the mid to late nineteenth century where you have the ⁓ the expansion of European empires in the Muslim world, you have the diminishing at the same time of Muslim forms of sovereignty and authority, both profane and ⁓ religious. And it's in this context that ⁓ colonized Muslim intellectuals in particular, ⁓ come to think about Islam as acting in its own name and in its own right and allows for, if you will, a democratization of Muslim authority. You no longer have to think about the king or the cleric or the Sufi saint. You can make claims in the name of Islam as new middle class, you know, Muslim intellectuals.
speaker-0: We're talking about ⁓ Pakistani thinker ⁓ Majodi in this sense.
speaker-1: He is certainly one of them. ⁓ he comes later in the story ⁓ as a founding figure of Islamism. Yes. ⁓ so for Mahdoodi, Islam has to be reconceived as an ideology, and he calls it that. Yes. ⁓ on the model of communism as the chief ideology of the period. And indeed he he often invokes the Bolshevik Party as the model for his party, the Jamatha Islami. ⁓
speaker-0: So there needs to be a party to to get the action plan.
speaker-1: For that for that kind of ⁓ Islamism, yes. ⁓ but you know ⁓ before him you have the Muslim liberals so called who also think about Islam in this way. But they think about it not in terms of a systematic ideology with a party attached to it, but they think about it in terms of a civilization. So you look back at the history of Islam and see how it somehow acts ⁓ collectively.
speaker-0: Islam.
speaker-1: in a civilizational way, in the way you can think about Western civilization, for instance. Okay. and you don't require necessarily a party, a system, an ideology. These end up being far more important to these latter terms after the Bolshevik Revolution and after the setting into place of the Soviet Union, when ideas of revolutions and ideologies and ideological states become ⁓ important.
speaker-0: W when you if you want to pinpoint a historical moment where Islam started to become the doer rather than, for example, you know, XYZ conquered, but rather Islam conquered. Was it like the ⁓ for I mean Mug can we ta trace it back to Mughals or like or like d ⁓ end of the caliphate? What when when does it start?
speaker-1: Well it's well before the end of the caliphate, you know. So ⁓ you know, as a South Asian myself and as an expert on South Asian history, one of the places I look to, of course, is colonial India. Yes. And there already, you know, after the so called Indian mutiny of eighteen fifty seven, which marks the final formal end of the Mughal Empire and the establishment formally of the British Raj, ⁓ you have Muslim intellectuals starting to talk about Islam in this new way.
speaker-0: It's the k encounter with with the imperialism. Why does Islam behave I mean, if you do a comparative ⁓ I don't know how to put it in the right way, but ⁓ why doesn't Judaism or Christianity has its crisis in modernity? Why what's with Islam that it reacted this way?
speaker-1: Yes. Yeah. Well, I don't think ⁓ you know, I think both Christianity and Judaism are also ⁓ conceived of by many people in these terms, but not in the same way exactly. ⁓ so ⁓ in part because ⁓ Christianity ⁓ is always located institutionally in the in the figure of a church. You can have as many or as few of them as you would like, ⁓ but that is an institutional form that is ⁓ unsurpassable. ⁓ and with Judaism it's often a question of the law and the people that is already given. It's circumscribed. Whereas for Islam, you have both a kind of universal ⁓ aspiration of conversion and all the rest, which Ju Judaism no longer does. Yeah. ⁓ but you'd no longer you you don't have the institutional basis of Christianity either. ⁓ so the thing about Christianity, it could still be understood in institutional terms because it was not a colonized religion ⁓ in most of the world anyway. ⁓ whereas in Islam, once you actually diminish or get rid of traditional forms of Muslim authority There is no institutional structure any longer. You have to reinvent it. So it becomes quite abstract. This is not true in the Ottoman Empire, which still r maintains an institutional structure, ⁓ with its caliphate and all the rest until the end of the First World War. Yeah. ⁓ but it is true in other parts of the Muslim world.
speaker-0: So if you go back to to what you were saying about ⁓ Mughal and then what happens? ⁓ you know, ⁓ th there is the encounter with the European so it's both the European colonialists and the Muslims started to talk, I mean the Islam started talking on behalf of
speaker-1: Yes. Yeah, it's a shared project, ironically, even though the two sides in this debate ⁓ might be opposed to each other. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not, because a number of the Muslim liberals, of course, thought that colonial rule they may not have liked it necessarily, but they thought they could learn from it. And they thought it was an inevitability in some sense that this was an opportunity for Muslims to modernize them themselves. ⁓ and only in that way might they ⁓ succeed eventually in ⁓ freeing themselves of colonial rule only by learning from it. and so you know the two sides, if you will, don't have exactly the same objectives, but they can't but they can come together. On the other hand, with Islamists and some others, ⁓ you don't have this agreement. ⁓ so you have ⁓ you know, a far more clear sense of opposition, but nevertheless they use the same terminology. So one of the things I'm suggesting is that Islam as it emerges in modern times is inseparable from a colonial category. It is a colonial category.
speaker-0: Interesting. Well I mean if you look at how I mean the emergence of Muslim Brotherhood it is I mean, it emerged actually where the construction of the Swayze Canal was by the so it's kind of but it doesn't it isn't it a bit of an oppositional
speaker-1: ⁓ it can be, yes. It can be. It the it it isn't always the case. So one of the things I w you know want to do is by putting together the modernists or liberals, the Islamists and these twenty first century militants, which is of course not everybody. So, you know, I'm leaving out of my purview for the most part the Sufis. Yes. And the ulama as well. Apart from those ulama who actually ⁓ imbibe and ⁓ appropriate ⁓ Islamism. So that's true in Iran, of course. True. ⁓ after the revolution, during it. And it's true in Afghanistan. But it's not true in most parts of the world. so, you know, in those two countries you have a a really interesting coming together of traditional structures of ulama and modern forms of Islamism which, let us recall, were invented by lay intellectuals. They were not Islamism is not the product of ulama. It's a product for journalists and, if you will, non ⁓ clerical thinkers. ⁓ and in most of the world, ⁓ it remains that way. It's only in these two situations, and to some degree in Somalia at a certain point, that you have the ulama and the Islamists coming together in this manner. So when they do come together, ⁓ I do look at the ulama. But in general I leave the ulama and the Sufis out of this picture and I look at these, you know, three movements ⁓ which do not comprise the totality of all movements of the Muslim world but which are incredibly important yeah nevertheless, intellectually in as much as institutionally and politically.
speaker-0: How d how do you inter I mean, how do you unpack what happened in nineteen seventy nine and what was what I mean, that was a so th the the the second sequence of of your of the trajectory of Islam as a as an idea is the Cold War and its ⁓ you know, how it gave birth to Islamism in the sense that we know today. What happened with the Iranian revolution to Islamism, do you think?
speaker-1: Yeah, so there, you know, we often tend to think and commentators ⁓ often tell us, that, you know, Iran and the Islam Islamic revolution stood at the vanguard of Islamism and ⁓ it you know defined it ⁓ for a whole era. Whereas I think in a way the reverse is true, that Iran came very late to this story. and ⁓ you know, the w the if you will, the glory days of Islam is I mean in the nineteen fifties and sixties. ⁓ by the time you get to nineteen seventy nine it's losing steam in ⁓ much of the rest of the world and the Iranian revolution gives it a new kind of character. Different kind. Very different kind of character, not least because it is taken over by the Islam by the ulama. And in a way you can see this as a defeat of Islamism. That it has been appropriated by the ulama, a class of people whom it had traditionally repudiated, you know. It had traditionally ⁓
speaker-0: Verdi.
speaker-1: Condemned for its traditionalism and all the rest. So the ulama, who are of course in the Shia world far more organized institutionally than in the Sunni world, were able to appropriate Islamism and globalize themselves in a way that had not been true before. They could suddenly appeal to non-Shia populations as well through Islamism. and they remade it. But it comes at the end of the story of Islamism globally.
speaker-0: But didn't it is inspire Islamist movements like all around the world? Isn't that what
speaker-1: You know. It transformed it and it brought together ⁓ you know, ⁓ to some degree the ulama and the Islamists. ⁓ but y you know, and in the book I write about how, you know, my two examples are Maududi and Khomeini. Yes. ⁓ n Moldudi comes from that earlier period. You know, he's already writing in the nineteen twenties and you know, nineteen fifties, sixties, those are his glory days. Yes. ⁓ and Khomeini clearly reads him yeah ⁓ as does Sayyid Khot in Egypt. ⁓ but what Khomeini does is engineer a quite different kind of ⁓ vision of what the state Islamic State should look like ⁓ than Modoodi, though he starts from the same kinds of premises. So you can see in the relationship between the two a kind of coming together but a divergence ⁓ as well. Of course the Iran Revolution didn't manage to export itself anywhere else, not even in Iraq with its Shia majority, even after the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime. True. And not indeed even in Lebanon, in part because Hezbollah realized that ⁓ and they have been free in saying this, that they are part of a ⁓ a multi religious society and a multi-religious country, and you cannot expect an Islamic revolution ⁓ of the kind you had in Iran and an Islamic ideology and state to emerge in a place like Lebanon. So ⁓ in a way Iran is a one off. ⁓ it certainly does transform Islamism, but it is unable to export itself or its model of it ⁓ anywhere else ⁓ in the world. W
speaker-0: If if we just go back before ⁓ the ⁓ Cold War, ⁓ do do you think Ottoman Empire had an imprint at all on on the Islam as an idea, an an doer, as a protagonist or
speaker-1: Yes, it it does. And you know, though of course the figure of the Sultan Caliph never really goes away, and that's one thing that differentiates ⁓ both Ottoman but also ⁓ post Ottoman Turkey from other parts of the Muslim world. So in other parts of the Muslim world, ⁓ Muslim movements and Isla both liberal and Islamist emerge against the royal past, against the monarchies of the past. That's not true with Turkey. No. ⁓ where Islamic movements have always referred to that past. Yes. And that's a significant difference. ⁓ something similar may have been true of Iran before the revolution here and there. Because the ulama were linked with the court, even with the Pahalibi monarchy. Sure. ⁓ it took a while for that co-op meant Yes. ⁓ ⁓ you know, with the revolution of course that relationship completely falls apart. Yes. And even even before the revolution, ⁓ but, you know, Iran too, like Turkey, ⁓ you know, there there may have been European depredations upon them, but they were not fully colonized. Afghanistan is the other story like this with its monarchy. ⁓ and it it it takes the collapse of the monarchy and the Soviet invasion and all the rest to really turn that story around. So let's take these three cases. Mm-hmm. ⁓ the Turkish one is the most instructive, I think, because it has really never repudiated the monarchical past. ⁓ so exactly. Yes. ⁓ and of course, that doesn't mean that this idea of Islam is a self regulating ⁓ entity and as an agent didn't have any meaning because already with Abdul Hamid you have the you know, the invocation of Islam ⁓ of course he's a leading figure in that movement. Yes. But nevertheless, it does come to be imagined as an entity in its own right, which is why he can ask for the support of Muslims in other parts of the world. You know, Indian Muslims are the most ⁓ enthusiastic in their support. What the caliphate. Well of the caliphate. Yeah. But when you look at their movement, the Khilafat movement, very famous. Yes. ⁓ you know, they hardly ever mention the name of the caliph. Of course there's more than one because they change. That's true. They don't know who it is, really. ⁓ so it's they do know that. ⁓ so what I'm suggesting is that
speaker-0: I know it's Ottoman.
speaker-1: They're not invested in the person. No. Institution. Sultan. Yeah. ⁓ nor are they particularly interested in the Sultanate, the the Ottoman Sultanate itself. ⁓ and for many of them, actually, what's more important is the role of the Ottomans as constituting a constituting a great power in the Middle East. ⁓ so they are very much set against the fragmentation of the Middle East, which they think will just open it up for European colonization, and that they think that this requires ⁓ a Middle Eastern great power and ⁓ Muslim power. So even people like Mohammed Iqbal, the poet and philosopher, who were never for the caliphate, by the way, he was never part of the caliphat movement. ⁓ he used to make fun of the caliphists by saying if the caliphate needs your help from outside the Ottoman Empire, then there's a problem. There's a problem. It it doesn't, it's not ⁓ worthy of survival. you you cannot try to persuade the British to save the caliphate. ⁓ that is a futile endeavor. Either it possesses its own strength or it doesn't. Though of course he does condemn the Arab nationalists in the nineteen thirties. of having abandoned the Turks and in abandoning the Turks left themselves open to colonization by the British and the French. Yes.
speaker-0: ⁓ that is the Turkish argument. So so ⁓ coming back to you know ⁓ Islamism as an ideology, ⁓ to ⁓ Cold War era, ⁓ so do you consider Islamism in terms of ⁓ Michael Frieden's you know description of what an ideology is where there's a core or an action plan and then there are political concepts that they borrow. So and there are thick centered and thin centered ⁓ ideologies d depending on how ⁓ the more I mean ⁓ these concepts move to each other. But if you consider it ⁓ as a as an ideology, one part of it, it it it doesn't really die. It just changes. It it it has a cycle. For example, nationalism in the last two, three decades just goes up and down, up and down. Why do you think what we're seeing right now is is a death note for Islamism? Whereas I my research shows ⁓ it's at the ⁓ you know zenith of its ⁓ adaptation with market forces.
speaker-1: Yes, you do have that. ⁓ whether you want to call it Islamism or not is another story. ⁓ That is, of course, truer in Turkey than and perhaps in Malaysia ⁓ than it is in other parts of the Islam. So there is a neoliberalization of Islam. Yes. And it's been around. So the old Soviet model is no longer the model. That was a non-market model. Yes. And
speaker-0: It's being diffused to South Asia.
speaker-1: with this you have a totally marketized model of Islam working ⁓ through the private sector. ⁓ with some control and guidance from the state, ⁓ and it's all about ⁓ you know, halal commodification. ⁓ so you have to back it. Yeah. So in a way it's moved from one side of the Cold War, the Soviet side, to the other, the Western or American side. Yes.
speaker-0: Having its own bourgeoisie.
speaker-1: ⁓ whatever its political configuration, in effect, that's what we are seeking. Now, whether you want to call that Islamism is a different story because well i it it's not Islamist in the old fashioned sense of a revolution with a revolutionary state and an ideology, the kind that Iran has, for instance. It's something very different. It can coexist with different forms of liberal or illiberal democracy or authoritarianism. Yes. ⁓ It doesn't specify. ⁓ You can certainly call it ideological, but it doesn't have the same systematic nature ⁓ as the older kind. So I'm not arguing that you have, you know, a kind of dead end and then that's it. ⁓ obviously things will change shape. and you know, we have yet to see where this is true in many parts of the world. It is a middle and upper middle class phenomenon. ⁓ Islamism in its earlier phase was also a middle class or lower middle class phenomenon, which then ended up with more ⁓ support ⁓ from working classes o on occasion, not always. ⁓ here you have a more a kind of upwardly mobile situation and not accidentally or not coincidentally true in economically more successful, let us say, capitalist countries. ⁓ so if you will, it's a post Cold War, post liberalization, economic liberalization model. ⁓ it really is after the Cold War. The rest of the Islamist corpus is very much a Cold War one. Mm-hmm. And Iran is the last or the you know, remaining ⁓ example of that. ⁓ but you know what I find interesting about that old version of Islamism, going back to your question about Michael Frieden, is that you know, unlike the Soviets or ⁓ you know, other forms of ideological politics, this one was though it drew from a Bolshevik model, it was bizarrely anarchist at its core. ⁓ it was. in the sense that it was deeply suspicious of the state. ⁓ Yeah. So ⁓ so it it basically identified the anarchist core within Bolshevism, which in Lenin's words would be the withering away of the state. Yes. and what it wanted was to lay ⁓ g ⁓ limits to the force and the
speaker-0: It wanted to rock the boat.
speaker-1: The reach of the state in Muslim social life. ⁓ Limited. It had to limit it. So it not accidentally, given the colonial background of many of these Islamist thinkers, it saw the modern state as a problem in its own right. ⁓ It was invasive. It was often led by secular or irreligious people. ⁓ Even if it was led by pious Muslims, it was actually a form taken from the West. ⁓ therefore it was an in into inadvertent tool of secularism or secularization. And so what you needed to do is to create a situation in which society could control itself, almost in an anarchistic way. and that is what Islam was meant to do. ⁓ so Islamism was meant to set certain kinds of boundaries and limits to the reach of the state within social life and then redefine that social life as being somehow authentically Islamic ⁓ and keep Islamist authorities as the guardians of that life, often as in Modubi's case, outside the state. So it's not like they were so keen to enter the state and become bureaucrats. They wanted to represent Islamic authority against the state. Yes. What Khomeini does is he puts those two things together. ⁓ so he makes the ulama the guardians of the state itself. But even there. the position of the supreme leader, like Mao as the le you know, during the Cultural Revolution, ⁓ is as much against the state ⁓ as it is an exemplar of the state. So Mao could use his his position ⁓ to criticize and to destroy large segments of state power during the Cultural Revolution in the name of the people. In the day. ⁓ just like the figure of the supreme leader is meant to be able to do, you know. So occupying a very interesting position. so even in the Iranian example, ⁓ the figure of the supreme leader represents, if you will, the echo of that anti-statist ⁓ moment in Islamist political thought. ⁓ and therefore back to this idea of what I am calling an anarchist. understanding of social self management with its deep suspicion of the modern state. Yeah.
speaker-0: And ⁓ the third ⁓ line in in the history is the emergence of jihadists. How how should we interpret the w ⁓ are are these the culmination or like opposite of the Islamists of the Cold War? How do where do we situate Al Qaeda and and ⁓ ISIS in this
speaker-1: Well, in some respects they pick up the same or similar questions. ⁓ and what I focus in focus on in the book ⁓ is the question of sovereignty. ⁓ so for Islamists like Modudi, ⁓ sovereignty, again, this is a typical Islamist statement, can only belong to God. we cannot own it. That's part of the anti statist ideal. Yeah. Right. So what you need to do is expel sovereignty ⁓ by expelling God in some ways. You know, we don't control this. Yes. we can only rely upon the Sharia, which we cannot change apart from here and there. Yes. and you you try to actually make a world without sovereignty, what could be more anarchist than that? You know? So the suspicion of sovereignty. Also marks Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but it has been individualized. It's no longer seen in state and institutional terms. It's now seen in terms of the individual Muslim, him or herself. You know, do you have an inner life that harbors ideals of sovereignty, ⁓ even if it's only for yourself, that you're not fully personally in conformity to the sharia ⁓ and to ⁓ collectivist ideals. ⁓ so for them the task was to dismantle attack and dismantle the Muslim self self. You know, it was highly individualized. Of course, there was in the case of ISIS the attempt you know to remake a caliphate and all it's I'm not saying there's no collective moment there at all. But It's very interesting because it's globalized quite differently. ⁓ you know, with Al Qaeda you don't have any attempt to create a state, but you draw from around the world, ⁓ you know, and people go from here to there and their battlefields all over the world. With ISIS you do have the creation of a state, ⁓ but again, it's ⁓ it's ⁓ personnel ⁓ come from around the world. ⁓ you know, and it has no defined borders, ⁓ and it can have supporters here and there in other parts of the world. So they're both global movements. Mm-hmm. ⁓ and they no longer rely upon the idea of the nation state. True. Which goes back to old Islamist ideals also, which were against the idea of the nation state seen as itself a form of idolatry because it was false sovereignty. Since sovereignty can only belong to God and Islam is universal, the nation state is illegitimate by definition. Yes. ⁓ So you do have these new movements take up some of these problems and some of these questions of Islamism, but they define them or redefine them in very, very new ways.
speaker-0: We we also see a very interesting transformation since 2015 in in Syria. that ⁓ you know Jabbat al-Nusra and then Hayat Tash Tahrir Arsham ⁓ just build this ⁓ localized entity in Idlib and govern it. And first ⁓ you know Al-Qaeda's leader talked to Ahmed al-Shara and say, just focus on Syria, which is Which ca like you said, it's a glob jihad is a global movement. So w what we're seeing in the trajectory of the current president of Syria is jihad being localized, which actually becomes not jihad anymore. So w what's happening to to this segment of the
speaker-1: Well, this is where your your earlier comment about neoliberalism c works. Because what happened in Idlin, you had the construction of shopping malls. Yes. And a new kind of bourgeoisie. And it's the support of this group of people, petty merchants, traders, consumers, ⁓ that was required. ⁓
speaker-0: There is a lot of AKP influence.
speaker-1: Of course. Yeah. So there too you have because that's where that idea of Islam as a kind of consumer movement comes from. ⁓ you know, so it it redefines the, if you will, jihad idea of political democracy that means, you know, people's opinions should be taken into account into a kind of consumer driven idea of what people want. and so, you know ⁓ the jihadist movement is is i in Syria here is totally transformed. Yeah. What's interesting about it, as far as I know, the old ideas have not been reshaped. ⁓ they've just been ⁓ and there's a recent book ⁓ whose title I forget on this. Yeah. ⁓ French scholars. Yeah yes, exactly.
speaker-0: ⁓ Trevens, yes.
speaker-1: ⁓ it's very good. Yeah, it's it's it's ⁓ about precisely this. You how can you transform by the people. Exactly. Yes. ⁓ so you know, how can you maintain w your old whatever it was ⁓ and ⁓ nevertheless act in a quite different way. So whether there will be a reckoning at some point, ⁓ I don't know. ⁓ but at the moment, ⁓ it looks like it's been, you know, dragged into or willingly entered into the world of neoliberal Islam ⁓ as represented in Turkey and places like that. So, you know, it needs to achieve power ⁓ within a nation state. It's had to marginalize its non-Arab non-Syrian ⁓ forces and ⁓ i it needs to become ⁓ respectable as a as a political player in the international order such as it is So it's a fascinating experiment. ⁓ but of course it's not the only one. So Iran for decades now has been trying to re-enter the international order by using the nuclear question as leverage. ⁓ you know, to an odd way of Yes, it didn't work. now it has entered or is re-entering under different circumstances. ⁓ but in the past ⁓ there was this attempt Both by ⁓ you know the JCPOA was of course ⁓ you know, an attempt to use the nuclear issue to re-enter by saying, look, we will give this up if you lift sanctions and all the rest. ⁓ it ended up not being ⁓ workable. So now there's another way in which ⁓ Trump. Exactly. And a ⁓ a massive shift in the region of power. ⁓ but all of which is to say ⁓ that ⁓ whether it's the old Islamist revolutionary tradition or this new liber neo liberal form, ⁓ they both have ⁓ aspirations to re enter an existing world order. to call it existing is perhaps a bit much at the mo at the moment when it's entirely uncertain what it's going to look like. ⁓ but an attempt to engage, basically. And this is true of the Taliban as well. Is it? It has been historically. and ⁓ you know, they made certain decisions that ⁓ disallowed that. or you might argue that, you know, whatever they did, they were never going to really ⁓ be welcomed back in. ⁓ there's always the desire to do it. ⁓ no one wants to be completely outside because that means you're dependent on one or two friends. ⁓ like North Korea and China. You know. ⁓ and all of these groups and states ⁓ would much rather be part of a system. So, you know, the their demonization as being totally alien i is not really correct. You can say the same thing about Russia. And under what conditions it wants readmittance, that's the question. And whether those conditions can be met. But To suggest that Russia and China, for instance, are ⁓ absolutely set on creating an alternative world order, that's the Soviet model. ⁓ True. So w what
speaker-0: ⁓ you know,
speaker-1: If we
speaker-0: We are talking about ⁓ like three lines of waning of Islam. ⁓ at this time of the world. We are also seeing ⁓ Israel as a very strong ⁓ you know, actor claiming again that it is fighting against a civilization and a radical Islamist. They are just I mean They're making a national claim of Palestine ⁓ into an Islamist one and calling Hamasdat and e you know, the Turkey as part of this Islamist resurgence. And y we know that they're really strong in ⁓ framing ⁓ the ⁓ global language ⁓ or vocabulary regarding Muslim politics. What can you say about this? I mean we're having a very interesting, hostile actor there.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean I d I don't know how long that kind of language can survive actually. ⁓ so ⁓ I mean it's Israel, you know, India occasionally does this as well. ⁓ yes. you know, and Israel but also the UAE on occasion. Yes. ⁓ you know, Islamic terrorism, it's war on terror language, basically. It's from the post nine eleven period and it was global once upon a time. So if you look at it in that context, it's actually shrunk.
speaker-0: You mean starting with two thousand and you know, nine eleven?
speaker-1: Yes, exactly. So at that time, post nine eleven, this was a universal language. Mhm. No one could escape it. Today it's here in patches, and Israel is one of those countries
speaker-0: I think you're underestimating its cloud.
speaker-1: Perhaps. I mean I think ⁓ I just don't the scholarship is not there. No. Yes. And even you know, journalistic commentary is not wedded to this any longer in the same way. Of course, you know, this idea can be dredged up when it comes to Hamas ⁓ and Hezbollah, so very specific. But, you know.
speaker-0: Scholarship has moved beyond it.
speaker-1: ⁓ as in as you were saying, with Syria you see the removal of this category altogether. Yes. ⁓ from a group that had been both Al Qaeda and ISIS, you know. Suddenly, you know, you can sh go to the White House and shake hands with the president. ⁓ and that is a big, big story. we haven't really realized ⁓ the transformation that has happened in that particular case. So you can roll it back ⁓ when you need to. ⁓ and if it is ⁓ if it is so ⁓ flexible ⁓ then in a way the old narrative ⁓ can no longer work ⁓ in the way it used to. So what I don't want to underestimate.
speaker-0: What is Modi's ⁓ rhetoric there?
speaker-1: So there of course the whole point was to marginalise Pakistan from the international debate and international institutions as being a state sponsor of terrorism. ⁓ it worked for a while, it worked in the nineties. Mm-hmm. Pakistan is hosting ⁓ negotiations with Iran in you know, it is suddenly back ⁓ as an immediate as well of the United States. ⁓ so the Indian ⁓ attempt has failed, clearly for Pakistan and for India, which is all about Pakistan. You know, how do you post nine eleven sequester this country ⁓ and its problematic politics under this term of s sponsor of terrorism? ⁓ and of course ⁓ it had been a sponsor of terrorism ⁓ so in India. ⁓ But that time is gone. ⁓ so you know, you see these narratives breaking here and there. ⁓ with Abd al Sharai it has broken, with Pakistan it has broken. and I really don't think ⁓ it can be wound you know, humpty dumpty like it can't be put together again. It's there for certain groups like Hamas and to some degree Hezbollah. ⁓ but I I wouldn't see its expansion. That's not the same thing as saying Israel has no ⁓ influence or effect or role to play in the Middle East or the world. but it doesn't necessarily need this language for it. True.
speaker-0: Okay, one last question. So, ⁓ I I think ⁓ Protop ⁓ had written and I I felt the same way ⁓ when I finished the book that we if this is gone, ⁓ I mean what we call as Islam or Islamism f is strong ⁓ you know, ideology or political idea, then there's a vacuum. And vacuums don't stay like as vacuums, empty states and politics are filled with something. If we look is it ⁓ the the ideology of far right, which is like a fundamental nationalism ⁓ w i in by with ⁓ xenophobia, w what is it going to be filled with? I mean, what is what is your foresight for the next
speaker-1: two decades. It's difficult to say. I mean, in a way, the situation you described is ⁓ i can be said as pertaining to the West as much as anything else, where you do have a fragmentation and you do have a vacuum. And in that vacuum you have with the collapse of the old Cold War order, ⁓ what you have is the reemergence of racism and fascism and you know xenophobia and all the rest. You see it all over Western Europe. So maybe
speaker-0: Maybe West as an idea is also waning.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. ⁓ i i in a way it it had to happen because the the old international order was a cold war construction. and ⁓ it was premised upon a balance of power between the Soviet Union and its clients on the one hand and the United States and its allies or clients on the other. When one side has gone, the other side can't just go survive. It can't just go on and on. unchanged. What happened is that suddenly NATO and the West became instead of an alliance, it became one power, the United States, with allies who were quickly degraded into clients, if not worse, ⁓ you know, and you see the way in which the Europeans are being treated by the current American administration, even the Biden administration. So ⁓ this is not a party political thing about Republicans. Yeah and it's true of Democrats as well. ⁓ so something has to give. And you know, we wait to see what will happen. with the Muslim world too, you're seeing the long, long drawn out end of the Cold War. The Cold War didn't just end in 1989. ⁓ you know, its ending we are seeing today. Yeah. ⁓ the nineteen nineties, which we thought was, ⁓ this is the period of globalization, we have we have ⁓ transcended Cold War, attractions, end of history, and this is how it's going to be. But it turned out not to be the case. ⁓ so in this difficult ending of the Cold War, we see both the collapse of the Western led order such as it was, both within the West, changing of ⁓ power relations, ⁓ and in the Muslim world, a totally comparable situation, ⁓ the collapse of old fashioned Islamism and the rise of new kinds of movements. So for me, you know, the Muslim world and its history are not sequestered from global history. They're part of global history. ⁓ totally agree. ⁓ so you know you you can't just look at one without the other or think that one things happen in one without any effect on the other. They're totally intertwined.
speaker-0: Do you see nationalism making a comeback?
speaker-1: It is all over the world, but you know, I don't know if it's it's ⁓ if it's the same kind of nationalism that we saw before. For instance, when you look at Europe and you see ⁓ Scottish nationalism or Welsh nationalism or Catalan nationalism, these are all forms of nationalism which want to give up sovereignty. They don't want to reclaim it. ⁓ because they want they're they are only possible within ⁓ in the within the EU. ⁓ which is a which is a new kind of body with pooled sovereignty. So it's nationalist, but it's not the old fashioned nationalism. So the the UK has more than one kind of national movement. It has these kinds, the Scottish and the Welsh, ⁓ and then it has the, you know, reform, restore, old fashioned kind ethno nationalism. And then it has the more conventional, ⁓ you know, postcolonial UK type multicultural nationalism. So it has at least three different varieties and they are going to duke it out. ⁓ and you know, similar things are true in other parts of the world. Mm-hmm. ⁓ in many parts of the world, nationalism, it's not clear what it might mean. So in in the Gulf states, in the smaller Gulf states, the majority of his populations are not even national. Yes. They're not citizens. Yes. What does it mean? They use the word national to refer to ethnic or tribal groups.
speaker-0: Citizens.
speaker-1: Who happen to be citizens? And then on occasion, a few people from outside groups who are migrants or whatever might be given citizenship, but they're not nationals. They might be citizens. So there's a distinction between citizen and national. Sure. On the one hand. But on the other hand, what kind of country is it where 50 to 90 percent of your its population is made up of non-citizens and foreigners? Is it a nation state? Is it something else? Notionally it's a nation state. ⁓ because everything in the world has to be a nation state to have a seat at the UN. Yes. ⁓ but things are changed. There are a lot, you know, and and the so called return of nationalism signals not something uniform at all. ⁓ exactly. Yeah. ⁓ so l lots of novelty there as well. This is not just the story of return. Yes.
speaker-0: Thank you very much, Faisal. It was a wonderful conversation as always.
speaker-1: Thank you very much. Always nice to chat.
