Secularizing Islamists?

Jama'at-e-Islami and Jama'at-ud-Da'wa in Urban Pakistan

Humeira Iqtidar

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780226384702
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Secularizing Islamists? provides an in-depth analysis of two Islamist parties in Pakistan, the highly influential Jama'at-e-Islami and the more militant Jama'at-ud-Da'wa, widely blamed for the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Basing her findings on thirteen months of ethnographic work with the two parties in Lahore, Humeira Iqtidar proposes that these Islamists are involuntarily facilitating secularization within Muslim societies, even as they vehemently oppose secularism.

This book offers a fine-grained account of the workings of both parties that challenges received ideas about the relationship between the ideology of secularism and the processes of secularization. Iqtidar particularly illuminates the impact of women on Pakistani Islamism, while arguing that these Islamist groups are inadvertently supporting secularization by forcing a critical engagement with the place of religion in public and private life. She highlights the role that competition among Islamists and the focus on the state as the center of their activity plays in assisting secularization. The result is a significant contribution to our understanding of emerging trends in Muslim politics.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Secularism in Pakistan: A Failed Experiment?
• One: Colonial Secularism and Islamism in North India: A Relationship of Creativity?
• Two: Jama‘at-e-Islami Pakistan: Learning from the Opposition
• Three: Competition among Allies: JD and JI in Urban Lahore
• Four: Harbingers of Change?: Women in Islamist Parties
• Conclusion: Islamists: Secularizing and Liberal?
• Notes
• References
• Index