Political Islam in the context of "Islamic country"

An Islamic state has a form of government based on sharia. As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term dawlah islāmiyyah (Arabic: دولة إسلامية) it refers to a modern notion associated with political Islam (Islamism). Notable historical examples include the first Islamic state in Medina, established by the prophet Muhammad, and the Arab caliphates which continued under his successors, such as the Rashidun and Umayyads.

The concept of the modern Islamic state has been articulated and promoted by ideologues such as Rashid Rida, Mullah Omar, Abul A'la Maududi, Ruhollah Khomeini, Israr Ahmed, Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna. Implementation of Islamic law plays an important role in modern theories of the Islamic state, as it did in classical Islamic political theories. However, most of the modern theories also make use of notions that did not exist before the modern era.

Abul A'la al-Maududi (Urdu: ابو الاعلیٰ المودودی, romanized: Abū al-Aʿlā al-Mawdūdī; (1903-09-25)25 September 1903 – (1979-09-22)22 September 1979) was an Islamic scholar, Islamist ideologue, Muslim philosopher, jurist, historian, journalist, activist, and scholar active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred Cantwell Smith as "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam", his numerous works, which "covered a range of disciplines such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, law, philosophy, and history", were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Burmese, Malayalam and many other languages. He sought to revive Islam, and to propagate what he understood to be "true Islam". He believed that Islam was essential for politics and that it was necessary to institute sharia and preserve Islamic culture similarly as to that during the reign of the Rashidun Caliphs and abandon immorality, from what he viewed as the evils of secularism, nationalism and socialism, which he understood to be the influence of Western imperialism.

He founded the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. At the time of the Indian independence movement, Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami actively worked to oppose the partition of India. After it occurred, Maududi and his followers shifted their focus to politicising Islam and generating support for making Pakistan an Islamic state. They are thought to have helped influence General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq to introduce the Islamisation in Pakistan, and to have been greatly strengthened by him after tens of thousands of members and sympathisers were given jobs in the judiciary and civil service during his administration. He was the first recipient of the Saudi Arabian King Faisal International Award for his service to Islam in 1979. Maududi was part of establishing and running of Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia.

Islamic extremism is characterised by extremist beliefs, behaviors and ideologies adhered to by some Muslims within Islam. The term 'Islamic extremism' is contentious, encompassing a spectrum of definitions, ranging from academic interpretations of Islamic supremacy to the notion that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior.

Islamic extremism is different from Islamic fundamentalism or Islamism. Islamic fundamentalism refers to a movement among Muslims advocating a return to the fundamental principles of an Islamic state in Muslim-majority countries. Meanwhile, Islamism constitutes a form of political Islam. However, both Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism can also be classified as subsets of Islamic extremism. Acts of violence committed by Islamic terrorists and jihadists are often associated with these extremist beliefs.

The ideas and practices of the leaders, preachers, and movements of the Islamic revival movement known as Islamism (also referred to as Political Islam) have been criticized by non-Muslims and Muslims (often Islamic modernists and liberals).

Among those authors, scholars and leaders who have criticized Islamism, or some element of it, are Maajid Nawaz, Reza Aslan, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawi, Khaled Abu al-Fadl, Gilles Kepel, Matthias Küntzel, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, Olivier Roy, and Indonesian Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama.

Islamisation (Urdu: اسلامی حکمرانی) or Shariasation—i.e. the implementation of Islamic practices, laws, punishments, legal structures, textbooks, etc. into the governance, social fabric and legal framework of what had originally been a Muslim but primarily secular state—has a long history in Pakistan since the 1950s. It became the primary policy, or "centerpiece" of the government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan from 1977 until his death in 1988.

Zia is often identified as "the person most responsible for turning Pakistan into a global center for political Islam." Zia-ul-Haq committed himself to enforcing his interpretation of Nizam-e-Mustafa ("Rule of the prophet" Muhammad), establishing separate Shariat judicial courts and court benches to judge legal cases using Islamic doctrine.New criminal offenses (of adultery, fornication, and types of blasphemy), and new punishments (of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death), were added to Pakistani law. Interest payments for bank accounts were replaced by "profit and loss" payments. Zakat charitable donations became a 2.5% annual tax. School textbooks and libraries were overhauled to remove un-Islamic material.Offices, schools, and factories were required to provide praying space. Zia bolstered the influence of the ulama (Islamic clergy) and the Islamic parties, and conservative scholars were often on television. Tens of thousands of activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party were appointed to government posts to ensure the continuation of his agenda after his death. Conservative ulama were added to the Council of Islamic Ideology.

In the context of political thought or politics and the religion of Islam, political quietism has been used to refer to the religiously-motivated withdrawal from political affairs. It is in contrast to political Islam, which holds that the Islamic religion and politics are inseparable, and Muslims should be fighting to establish true Islamic government.

Motivations include the belief that it is not for Muslim public to question authorities and that they should instead focus on piety, prayer, religious rituals and personal virtue; skepticism that mere mortals can establish a true Islamic government.Quietism may also be temporary, such as the belief that it is "forbidden to rebel against a [Muslim] ruler", or even become involved in political factions, as this would cause disunity in the community, but that at the right time in the future, when (depending on the sect of Muslim), a consensus of Islamic scholars (in Sunni Islam), or the twelfth imam (in Twelver Shia Islam) call for it, all Muslims should support a true Islamic government. (The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and Salafis are sometimes described as having "quietist" and "radical" wings.)

Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently misunderstood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.

Especially in the late 19th to mid-20th century, some Muslim thinkers advocated secularism as a way to strengthen the Islamic world in the face of Russian, British and French colonialism. Some have advocated secularism in the sense of political order that does not impose any single interpretation of sharia (Ali Abdel Raziq, Mohamed Arkoun, and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha); argued that such a political order would not/does not violate Islam (Abdullah Saeed); and that combined with constitutionalism and human rights, is more consistent with Islamic history than modern visions of an Islamic state (Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im). Orthodox Islamic scholars and proponents of Islamism (political Islam) strongly oppose limiting Islam to matters of personal belief, and also strongly advocate for an Islam that encompasses law, politics, economics, culture and every other aspect of the lives of its citizens. Islamist pioneer Abul A'la Maududi claimed that the goal of secularists was not to ameliorate tensions and divisions in multi-religious societies, but to avoid the "restraints of morality and divine guidance",and thus eliminate "all morality, ethics, or human decency from the controlling mechanisms of society".