Constructing a global umma

Fred Halliday has a fascinating essay skeptically assessing claims about the existence of a global Islamic umma:

The Muslim world is not, nor ever has been, defined wholly or mainly in terms of the umma or transnational linkages and identities. To be sure, forms of solidarity over Muslim-related political conflicts and issues – such as Palestine, Kashmir and now Iraq – do exert a hold on many people, and inspire some to radical activism. But just as the international communist movement after 1917 masked sharp internal differences of culture, politics and interest, so today’s global jihadi movement contains such fissures. The umma may not be as stateless, fluid or international as it appears.

I would phrase it slightly differently:  al-Qaeda, and other Islamists - moderate or radical - have been trying to create a global Islamic identity, but as Halliday notes, there are a lot of competing identity claims out there.  Just because Islamists declare the existence of a global Islamic umma - in which Islamic identity is the central and dominant aspect of every Muslim's identity - does not make it so.  But that it is not empirically so does not make their identity claims irrelevant:   the construction of a global Islamic identity is a core component of al-Qaeda's political strategy, but one which is hardly guaranteed success and which in fact faces fairly steep odds. 

It is here, by the way, that moderate Islamists and radical Islamists do in fact share a common agenda.   Moderates and radicals disagree intensely about political issues, about the value of democracy, about the legitimacy of violence, about the legitimacy of takfir, about the meaning of jihad, and so on and on.   But where they agree is on the common project of constructing an Islamic identity which transcends all other aspects of personal and political identity.    That, in a very real sense, is what makes them "Islamist."  (Olivier Roy's recent book, Globalized Islam, is one of the best guides I've seen to the complexity of these identity debates, and the various levels at which they're waged. I'd also recommend Robert Hefner's edited volume Remaking Muslim Politics.)

There's a second step, as any constructivist IR theorist could tell you (or at least as this constructivist IR theorist will be arguing in a forthcoming article):  the construction of interests.  Even if you get consensus around a common identity (something which Islamists haven't come close to achieving), that in no way guarantees that the members of that identity group will agree on their collective interests.   In other words, the Islamists could succeed at constructing a global umma, but al-Qaeda could fail to establish leadership over it.  That's already the core of the intra-Islamist arguments to which I've paid so much attention here over the last couple of years - even among the sub-set of Muslims who accept the Islamist identity claim, there are intense struggles over how to define the interests of this global umma.   Should narrowly political interests take precedence, or wider cultural and religious interests?   Should local political concerns or global concerns have priority?  Once again, there is wide disagreement here, and al-Qaeda's conception of interests is only one among many.

And then - and only then - comes the third step:   defining appropriate strategies. Even among Muslims who accept the Islamist identity claims and the al-Qaeda definition of interests, there are intense arguments over the most effective strategy for achieving them.  This is where the arguments about Zarqawi's brutality fit - with Maqdessi and Zawahiri arguing with Zarqawi over whether the beheadings and the sectarian atrocities help or hurt them.   

Halliday very usefully helps to sketch out the competitors to the al-Qaeda vision of a global umma, as well as the historical roots of Islamist transnationalism.  The next step is to be able to analyze these Islamist arguments over identity, interests, and strategies and show how they matter for real world politics.  By golly, I've got my work cut out for me if I'm going to meet my deadline....

Comments

[Nur al-Cubicle]

A basket of identities!

[Leila]

I have no idea where she fits into your schema, but the comparative lit. professor, poet, feminist, veiled Muslima and sex columnist Muhja Kahf writes a column on Muslim Wakeup! called Sex and the Umma. You may be interested in her critical essays on such topics as The Sweetness of (Written) Intercourse: MWU’s ‘Sex and the Umma’ Column and the Search for Modern Muslim Erotic Expression, or you may just want to buy her book Emails from Scheherezade so you can read all the sex poems. There's alot more to her work than that, of course. I just wrote a paper about her titled "Eros and Exile in the Information Age." She's a firebrand feminist, too - one of my favorite poems is called "Thawra des Odalisques at the Matisse Exhibition", in which the painted nudes rise up, walk out of their canvasses, and go on strike. Kahf has plenty to say about Arab and Muslim women, gender relationships, sex, post-colonialism and power - but when you read her poetry and fiction, you'll have fun with these topics.

Again, don't know how this fits into the political science, constructionist discussion of the Umma and its interests, but I think you ought to know about Kahf and HER interests. Especially since you're always posting pictures of busty, scantily clad ARab girl singers. Go read Wedad's Cavalry.

[Leila]

Here's how Mohja Kahf and the Muslim Wakeup! people are on topic to the interests of the Aardvark: Kahf is an Arab Muslim feminist weighing in with a different take on the Nancy-Haifa culture wars you've been following. Kahf says she's promoting a "gynocentric, sex-positive Muslim discourse", she uses examples from Quran, hadith, and classical Arabic literature to back up her mission, and she's directly challenging the Wahhabis and all the other reactionaries who want to squelch women - and pleasure! - in the Umma.

Now Kahf hasn't written about Nancy or Haifa - she likes American pop culture and calls herself an amateur occidentalist. Most of what she's written in fiction and poetry about women in the Arab world has been from the point of view of Islamist, often hijab-wearing women. Wedad's Cavalry, for instance, is about a pious Saudi woman living in Mecca who is dissatisfied with her 3d husband's lovemaking - in the opening scene, she finishes prayers at the Kaaba and tells her sister that she prayed for an orgasm. "Again?" the sister responds, and starts giving her sex tips. Read further for descriptions of the 2d husband's pious, Quranic sex practices, which are described in language that is religious, allusive, arch, and sexual.

Kahf, her sex column, and the progressive Muslim web zine Muslime Wakeup! deserve a place in your study of the culture wars, IMHO.

[the aardvark]

Sounds very cool - I'll check it out!