About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

524 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (1992)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0524 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Political Islam has been seen by some as the successor to the Communist threat, a creeping mobilization that confronts the Great Satan of Western civilization and modernization. To others, it is nothing to worry about- merely an inherent aspect of religious practice wherever there are Muslims. This study aims to steer a careful path between these two inadequate perceptions. Islam is, indeed, a religious belief that covers all aspects of life and denies the validity of any philosophical separation between church and state. Islam din wa dawla (Islam is religion and state) is a basic precept sub- scribed to by all Muslims as part of their faith. But the fact that this identity contains two distinct elements in its predicate indicates that those elements are actually separate, and the ultimate relation between the two can take many variations. Otherwise, there would be no concern at the present time -as opposed to other periods in history-over the political forms of Islam. On the other hand, some of the ways in which political Islam manifests itself at the end of the twentieth century are specifically anti-Western, consciously revolutionary, avowedly antisecularist and antimodernist, even intentionally violent. Probably the biggest contradiction within this extreme form of political Islam is the fact that it consists not of a single movement but of a plethora of groups and liaisons divided above all by national origins. Within different countries, even the most extreme forms differ widely; more- over, when particular groups have been totally successful in seizing power, none of the governments they have formed resembles any other. Indeed, like any religious movement, the desire to foster unity and orthodoxy proves to be the greatest guarantee of division and heterodoxy. Somewhere in the broad terrain between the normal and the extreme form of religion and politics in Islam lies the reality of the phenomenon under investigation. Its manifestations are varied and contradictory, and no single expression can be taken as evidence of the nature of the whole. There are peaceful Islamic intellectual circles and violent terrorist groups, political parties that have won and lost by pursuing the democratic process and those dedicated to eradicating the democratic regime by which they seek to come to power. Similarly, there are interpreters and adherents who profess to live by the unchanged Word of the seventh century, just as there are those who seek new meanings appropriate to the twentieth. The articles presented in this volume bring that diversity to light; they identify the nuances within its stark threat and the myriad details of its current practices. None of the articles focuses on the everyday beliefs of the millions of Muslims around the world as these relate to their personal perception of themselves and of God. There is no reason to do so, for their God is universally 8

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most