7 Dec, 2015

The Risks and Challenges of Europeanizing Islam

Khalid Hajji | 07 December 2015 | TR

The concept of Euro-Islam is laden with different meanings, depending on who uses it. Some young Muslims in Europe might use the term to underline the fact that they are Europeans in order to avoid being tarred with the discourse of integration. Some European politicians might use it to emphasize the need to strip Islam of its outside influences. Euro-Islam can be a platform for negotiations between Europe and its immigrants from an Islamic background. It can also be an appellation that designates a hue of Islamic religiosity similar to Asian Islam, African Islam, Egyptian Islam, or Moroccan Islam. Euro-Islam is, however, a contested concept when it is used to imply a geographical line of division between an enlightened Islam and an obscurantist one. This division enhances the dichotomy of inside and outside on which the clash of civilizations thesis is predicated. The separation between a European Islam of enlightenment and outside versions of an unenlightened Islam is, to say the least, counterproductive.

The Risks and Challenges of Europeanizing Islam2022-01-27T16:45:16+03:00
12 Nov, 2015

Islamists and Arab Nationalists: A Short history of a Troubled Relationship

Basheer Nafi | 12 November 2015

Understanding the relationship between Islamism and Arab nationalism has always been problematic. The separation between Islamists and Arab nationalists, and political conflict between them is a relatively late development in modern Arab history. From the early 1950s, a series of military coups brought young Arab nationalist military officers to power in many Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Algeria. Arab nationalism, expressed in exclusive, radical and even socialist discourse, became the official ideology of these Arab states. The military background of the ruling forces, their fragile base of legitimacy, and the sweeping programs of modernization and centralization they pursued, turned most of their republican, nationalist countries into authoritarian states. One of the major results of this development was the eruption of a series of confrontations between Arab nationalist regimes and Islamic political forces, in which questions of power, identity and legitimacy were intertwined.

Islamists and Arab Nationalists: A Short history of a Troubled Relationship2022-01-27T13:47:49+03:00
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