The Resurgence of Islam

One of the most important trends in recent decades has been the renaissance of faith among Muslims. Often referred to as the “resurgence of Islam,” this development began in the Middle East and North Africa and subsequently spread in all directions, reaching countries such as Indonesia and Nigeria as well as numerous cities in Europe and the Americas. For the past quarter-century or so mosque attendance has been increasing, traditional Islamic dress for women has been in favor, Muslim men have been growing their beards long, and the appeal of Islamic grassroots organizations (including those located at universities) has surged.

Muslims have also made a dramatic impact on political life. In 1979 Shiite clerics in Iran, led by the charismatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, rode to power on a massive wave of popular discontent, replacing the rule of the secularist Pahlavi shahs with a republican regime based on Islamic law. Two years later Muslim extremists in the Egyptian army assassinated Anwar el-Sadat, the Egyptian leader who had earlier normalized relations with Israel. During the 1980s and 1990s in Sudan, the largest country in Africa, a series of authoritarian governments led by Sunni Muslims imposed the shari’a. In 1996 the Taliban, an insurgent army of fundamentalist Muslims seized control of most of Afghanistan and began enforcing an unusually narrow version of Islamic teachings. For Americans, of course, the most shocking examples of Islamic political activism were the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

In many Muslim countries nongovernmental Islamic organizations that sponsor schools and social services have become increasingly popular. Such organizations are descendants of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fraternal order founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna. Banna believed that by establishing Islamic schools, nurseries, summer camps, and low-cost health clinics, the Brotherhood could gradually persuade Muslims to incorporate the shari’a into their daily lives. He thought once people had absorbed Islamic teachings, political change would naturally follow. Banna was assassinated in 1949, probably by the Egyptian secret police, and during the next two decades the secular nationalist government of Gamal Abdel Nasser harshly repressed the Brotherhood. Despite the crackdown, the organization became increasingly influential in Egyptian life. In present-day Egypt, the Brotherhood’s vast network of schools, social service agencies, and professional associations makes it a most serious worry of the government of Hosni Mubarak. Similar organizations, some of them offshoots of the Brotherhood, flourish in Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan, the Palestinian Occupied Territories, and in numerous other Muslim countries.

In the first document I would like you to read (you can read them both by clicking here), Banna explains the thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood during its formative period and enables us to see how the Islamic revival was initially shaped by developments in the 1920s through the 1940s. The second document is a speech given in March of 1980 by Ayatollah Khomeini. His address, which was given on the Iranian New Year, provides insight into the ideas of one of the most important leaders of the Islamic resurgence.

After reading the documents, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: How do the documents help us put recent developments in Islam into historical context? How did Banna explain the resurgence of Islam? What aspects of the West did he oppose? What did he see as the strengths of Islam? What was his view of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism? What are Khomeini’s main themes in his New Year’s address? What are his chief worries? What can you infer about the stability of his regime at the time of the speech? What types of changes—political, economic, social, or religious—did he seem to be advocating? How do the ideas of Banna and Khomeini compare? Do you see any differences? How do the ideas of Banna and Khomeini compare with the thinking of Ziya Gokalp and Mustafa Kemal? How do you explain the differences? What are the advantages and disadvantages of separating political authority from religious authority? What are the similarities and differences between the Iranian revolution and the leftist revolutions in Russia, China, and Cuba? Are any of these revolutions likely to be emulated in the future? Your thoughts…