{"id":769,"date":"2019-12-03T20:46:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T00:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/?p=769"},"modified":"2019-12-04T09:50:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T13:50:05","slug":"islam-and-nationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/2019\/12\/03\/islam-and-nationalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Islam and Nationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

History and culture have always contributed to our understanding of the ever-changing roles religion has had over time. The distance between religion and our daily actions has been shrinking over time with its increased involvement in our daily political and social affairs. The survival of a religion is pegged on it been able to shape itself according to the current power and social dynamics in play. This has seen Islam historically finding its way right in the middle of the modern world problems. (Chidester, 2005)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Islam\u2019s modernity\nhas seen the religion have its voice heard beyond the confines of the minaret\ncalls to prayer. The identity of Islam has been shaped by the significant\ngeopolitical dynamics in the turn of the twentieth century such as the wars and\npolitical alliances. Islam and its leadership were caught up in the middle.\nThis article will show how religious leadership played politically influential\nwars to shape the identity of the Muslims during the war and post-war periods.\nThe Islamic political voice expectedly faced a myriad of challenges because it\nthreatened to tip the scales of power and this kept very powerful forces\nsleepless nights. (Wilson, 2005) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion of\nreligion in colonial contexts shows a pattern of blatant disregard of the\nimportance of its functions and how it identified with the people by colonial\nmasters. The British colonial masters were especially the culprits when it came\nto denying Islam the voice to express itself, from North Africa to the Middle\nEast.  As it will be shown with Islam in\nthe former Ottoman Empire, this inevitably forces the religion to participate\nin this modernity by appealing to its followers to take a certain political or\nmilitary path. Islamic leadership was at the forefront of the geopolitical\nevents that shaped the world during the pre-war, world wars, and cold war\nperiods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power wielded by Ottoman Sheikhs was more than religious, as seen by the global call for Muslims around the world to join in the Holy Jihad against the Allied forces as seen in   here<\/a>  The 1914 declaration by the Ottoman chief cleric gave Islam the nationalism call that it did not have in periods preceding the war. The political power wielded by sheikhs, under the influence of German Nazis coalition, was further boosted by the ouster of the previous temperate regime and the incoming of more radical Young Turks who were more than willing to identify Islam with the War. (Aydin, 2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 The Sheikh Ul-Islam proclaiming the Holy War in Istanbul, after the\nTurkish government formally entered the war. \nAlamy Stock Photo. (2014)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quest for\npan-Islamism was however not really achieved, because Muslims all over the\nworld did not directly identify with the Ottoman jihad. To the disappointment\nof the ottoman cleric, many Muslims such as the ones in India took up arms and\nfought alongside the Allied British forces that they had been called upon to\nfight. In the long run, the Ottomans were defeated alongside their German\ncounterparts by the British team.  The\nIslamic caliphate and its proponents were done away with. The defeated Muslims\neither had to remain loyal to their British masters or continue with\nunderground mobilizations of a nationalist agenda inspired by Islam. During the\ninter-war period, the pan-Islamic movement persisted. (Reogan, 2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religious modernity also saw calls for the replacement of sharia law with another constitution for the caliphate. Secularist factions of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire saw Islam as a hindrance to overall social modernity. Failing to acknowledge the great role Islam played in politically identifying the people in the War, the secularist authorities ended up shutting down sharia schools and abolishing Quran studies. The final blow came when Turkey was officially secularized in 1928. The country was no longer the symbol of Islamic panache, but a symbol of the religion\u2019s failure to defend its people.  (Reza, 2011)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2 Muslim Turkish Soldiers in Ukraine dressed and equipped in German  Military Style  (1915-1916) History.Com Stock Photo (2018)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cold-War Turkey environment brought different dynamics for the role of Islamic leadership in an era of increased secularization and modernization. A national divide between two factions was evident, with one calling for secularization and the other for returning Turkey to an Islamic republic just like in the Ottoman era. This brought to light the role of education as a threat to Islamic identity. This is because the faction calling for full secularization of Turkey was mainly comprised of young university students. On the other hand, the rural uneducated majority in Turkey wanted the traditional sharia laws of Islam to rule Turkey. However, these two factions had a common enemy that they united to face against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3Kemal Ataturk: First Turkish President who Introduced secularist reforms in the formerly Islamic Ottoman State. History.Com Stock Photo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 They were both against the kemalist approach\nto nationalism. Kemalism was coined at the then modernist Turkish President\nKemal Ataturk. This official state ideology was anchored on the six points in\nthe Republican Peoples Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP). The rational\ntheology in the secularization of Turkey made Islam a by-standing religion in\nhis rule. More reading on Kemalism can be done by following this\nlink<\/a>   Therefore, they united under the banner of\nIslam. The Islamization movements gained wide popularity in Turkey in the\n1950s. The spread of political Islam was not a Turkish affair only. Arab and\nMiddle Eastern nations also joined the bandwagon and rose against their secular\nregimes in the 1960s. (Ayturk, 2014)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/strong>Political Islam and Islamization shaped\nthe identity of the religion as a motivational and calls to arm call for\nMuslims during and after the war period. Islam can be termed to have being a\npolitical religion in the Ottoman Empire because it was used as a rallying tool\nfor nationalism during and after the war. It has been established how Islamic\nleadership gave a religion a role to play in the period of modernity. During\nthe war period, Islamic teachings were applied as tools of propaganda in a bid\nto unite all the Muslims in the world into a single fighting force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Islam\u2019s\nrole in achieving unity of all Muslims in the era of modernism was not played\nin a very welcoming field. Islamic religious and political leadership faced\nimmense opposition. First, the slow uptake to the call of jihad by Muslims all\nover the world was demoralizing to the visionaries of the caliphate. Moreover,\ndivide and rule tactics were used as to create different jihad factions that\nconsistently opposed each other ideologically.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cemil Aydin, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History <\/em>(Harvard\nUniversity Press, 2016), Ch. 4, \u201cThe Battle of Geopolitical Illusions\n(1908\u20131924)\u201d and Ch. 5 \u201cMuslim Politics of the Interwar Period (1924\u20131945)\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Chidester, “Colonialism and\nPostcolonialism.” Encyclopedia of Religion<\/em>. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd\ned. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 1853-1860. Gale Virtual\nReference Library<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilker Ayturk \u201cNationalism and Islam in\nCold War Turkey, 1944-69\u201d Middle Eastern\nStudies. <\/em>2014. Vol. 4 No. 5. 693-719. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1080\/00263206.2014.911177<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John F Wilson, “Modernity,” Encyclopedia\nof Religion<\/em>. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 9. Detroit: Macmillan\nReference USA, 2005. 6108-6112. Gale Virtual Reference Library<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kemalism – Oxford Islamic Studies Online. (2019). Retrieved\nDecember 3, 2019, from Oxfordislamicstudies.com website: http:\/\/www.oxfordislamicstudies.com\/print\/opr\/t236\/e0440<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sheikh Ul-Islam proclaiming the Holy\nWar in Istanbul, after the Turkish government formally entered the war.  Alamy Stock Photo. (2014) https:\/\/www.alamy.com\/stock-photo-world-war-1-the-sheikh-ul-islam-proclaiming-the-holy-war-in-istanbul-59777852.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

History and culture have always contributed to our understanding of the ever-changing roles religion has had over time. The distance between religion and our daily actions has been shrinking over time with its increased involvement in our daily political and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5917,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[274396],"tags":[16825,274603,48911,274693,417],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-post","tag-islam","tag-modernity","tag-nationalism","tag-ottoman-empire","tag-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AttX-cp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5917"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/imorgens-rel195a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}