Islamism and Revolution Across the Middle East

Transformations of Ideology and Strategy After the Arab Spring

Khalil al-Anani, Khalil al-Anani

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781838606312
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Why did Islamists respond so differently to the Arab Spring? What do these different responses tell us about Islamists' ideological commitment and resilience, or the contexts within which they were functioning? This book is based on fieldwork on Islamists in eight Middle Eastern countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait and Syria. The contributors trace the transformation of the Islamists' ideology, behaviour, and strategy since the beginning of the Arab Spring. The aim of the book is to show that Islamists necessarily have an interactive and dialectical relationship with the environments in which they find themselves, and that their behaviour and political calculations are based on a wide range of local, regional and global factors. They take into account the impact of the different contexts the groups found themselves in from authoritarian to open and reformist, and contexts of armed conflict and civil war. An interdisciplinary project, the book captures the ongoing transformation of Islamist parties to explain the reasons why some movements could adapt and make shifts in their discourse and strategy, maintaining organizational coherence and unity, while others fell short and suffered major splits and schisms. The robust theoretical findings update existing literature on Islamism and advance the state of the field.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Islamists and Revolutions

Khalil al-Anani

A decade ago, the Arab Spring began with a glimpse of hope that democracy has finally reached the shores of the Arab world. The removal of Arab dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen ushered in a new era of freedom, justice, and dignity. However, the Arab Spring has not produced the political change Arab people aspired for, and the hopes for democracy are fading away. Arab people ended up with civil wars in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, a brutal dictatorship in Egypt, and a shaky and fragile democracy in Tunisia. Despite the modest harvest of the Arab Spring, Islamist movements and groups have been significantly impacted by the Arab uprisings. After decades of repression and exclusion, Islamists became a key player in the new political scene after the Arab Spring. In Egypt, as well as in Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, and Libya, Islamists’ discourse, strategy, and behavior have shaped the outcome of the Arab uprisings. However, Islamists’ role and performance varied from one case to another. For example, whereas Islamists succeeded in gaining and maintaining power in Tunisia and Morocco, they failed to do so in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Likewise, while the inclusion of Islamists led to their views and ideology becoming moderated in some cases, it created challenges and problems in others. Therefore, this book attempts to answer two key questions: first, how did the Arab Spring affect Islamists’ ideology, strategy, and organizations? Second, how can we explain Islamists’ different responses to the Arab Spring and what do these responses tell us about Islamists’ diversity and heterogeneity?

This volume aims to provide compelling answers to these questions. It does so by examining the transformation of Islamists’ ideology, behavior, and strategy since the beginning of the Arab Spring. The main argument of this book is that insofar Islamists were key players in the post-Arab Spring era, they have experienced different changes and transformations ideologically, politically, and organizationally. That is evident in the cases that are covered in this volume. Through an in-depth comparative analysis, the volume brings together a group of scholars who have profound knowledge and expertise on Islamism. The cases covered in the volume represent the countries that either witnessed revolts and uprisings in 2010 and 2011—regardless of the outcome of these uprisings, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria—or those that were affected by the ashes of the Arab Spring and had to accommodate Islamists, such as Morocco, Jordan, and Kuwait. These cases were deeply studied over the past four years as part of a research project that was funded by the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies between 2017 and 2019 (MRF0202).

Islamists and Revolution

With a few exceptions, mainstream Islamists tend to avoid revolutions and revolutionary change which can lead to unexpected consequences. Instead, they adopt a gradual reformist approach to realize their goals. They focus mainly on religious preaching (da’wa), education (tarbiyya), and religious commitment (iltizam) as key tools in advancing their agenda. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of modern political Islam, was once asked about staging a revolution against political regimes and his answer was that the Muslim Brotherhood does not believe in revolution because it can lead to chaos and instability. For him, change should happen through reforming individuals and society. Therefore, when the Arab Spring started, Islamists were reluctant, at least in the beginning, to join the uprisings that led to the downfall of autocratic regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. Furthermore, after taking power in the wake of the Arab uprisings, Islamists remained committed to their reformist and gradualist approach, which led, in turn, to the alienation of the revolutionary forces, particularly in these two countries.

However, Islamists were significantly influenced by the Arab Spring. Over the past decade, they have undergone significant changes ideologically, politically, and organizationally. They had to adapt to the new political environment that ensued after the removal of autocratic regimes, which forced them to make political and ideological concessions, develop a new strategy, and adopt different political tactics. As this book shows, Islamists’ response to the Arab Spring was uneven. While some of them succeeded in adopting an open and flexible agenda, such as in Tunisia, Morocco, and Yemen, others failed to genuinely change their position and could not cope with the new changes, such as in Egypt and Jordan. Furthermore, moving from the opposition to power was a challenge for many Islamists who lacked the experience and skills of governance. Islamists who took power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco were faced with the questions of poverty, corruption, and good governance. They had to practice politics from a power vantage point and show the ability to meet people’s expectations. Some of them have succeeded, such as in Morocco and Tunisia, while others have failed miserably, as has happened in Egypt. Turning slogans into practical and viable policies constituted a challenge for Islamists. Raising slogans such as “Islam is the solution,” imposing Sharia law, or establishing an “Islamic state” were tactics akin to a mirage. In some cases, the lack of political readiness and the almost nonexistent governing experience allowed the Old Regime to come back and end the democratic transition, such as in the case of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood’s inability to govern and run the country resulted in a military coup in 2013, which removed the movement from power and reinstalled an unprecedented repressive regime. Furthermore, while some Islamists separated religious and political activities, such as in Tunisia and Morocco, others still mixed them, such as in Egypt and Jordan. Additionally, Islamists had to rethink and clarify their position on critical issues such as citizenship, individual and personal freedoms, national state, and democracy. Whereas some groups changed their views on these issues to become more progressive, others are still figuring out how to deal with them.

The Impact of the Arab Spring on Islamists

The French sociologist Olivier Roy argues that Islamists are shaped by politics rather than vice versa.¹ That was evident after the Arab Spring, which reshaped Islamist politics drastically. However, to understand how Islamists were affected by the experience of the Arab Spring, it is crucial to unpack the contexts in which they have been operating over the past few years. Here, we can talk about three key contexts. The first is t he open and reformist context, in which Islamists enjoyed some degree of integration and acceptance within the political game, as in Morocco and Tunisia. In these cases, the inclusion of Islamists contributed to their ideological and political transformation, particularly with regard to thorny issues such as the relationship between religion and politics; issues of individual freedoms, human rights, and relations; and attitudes toward women and minorities. In this discussion, we should not forget that these contexts are not necessarily fully democratic nor ruled by Islamists in full. The second context is the authoritarian and repressive context in which interactions range from the partial exclusion of Islamists (as in Jordan) to total exclusion and eradication (as in Egypt and Syria). This context led to divisions and schisms within Islamist movements and parties and the rise of conservative voices and wings within these movements. This has led the Islamists to confront contradictory choices between acceptance, coexistence, rejection, and confrontation, both politically (Egypt and Jordan) and militarily (Syria). The only beneficiaries of this context were violent radical movements such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which dominated the Islamic landscape in these countries over the past years in a manner that served repressive authoritarian regimes and contributed to increasing regional and international support for them in their “war on terror.”

The third context is characterized by armed conflict and civil wars that left Islamists with no choice but to engage in its interactions and dynamics so as not to be discarded or excluded by other players and conflicting parties, as is happening in Yemen, Libya, and Syria. This context has produced a mix of strategies and tactics among Islamists, depending on the circumstances of each country. In the Yemeni case, for example, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform party was forced to engage in a changing negotiation process, sometimes with the late president Ali Abdullah Saleh, sometimes with the Houthis, and sometimes with a third force against them, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The party was forced to join the ranks of the popular resistance to confront the Houthis and stop their march toward the most important Yemeni cities, especially Aden and Taiz. In the Libyan case, the Islamists engaged in a military confrontation through militias and armed groups to counter the rebellion led by Khalifa Haftar in the eastern cities, especially Benghazi. Despite the openness of the Islamists to the option of an international solution, there is a determination from regional countries such as Egypt and the UAE to eradicate them completely from the Libyan political scene. In Syria, the situation is not very different. There is no single Islamic movement that has not taken up arms in the face of the war crimes and genocide waged by Bashar al-Assad against the Syrians. Past contexts certainly do not mean that they are the sole or main determinants of Islamists’ movements and strategies, as if they were without their own self-will or independent visions. However, the point here is that the Islamists do not work in a vacuum, and that their decisions and movements remain governed by the nature of the context in which they are active. Notably, that the relationship between these contexts and the Islamists’ behavior is not linear or mechanical, but an interactive dialectical relationship, in which many factors overlap and can lead to different outcomes. These contexts, however, do not mean that they are the sole or main determinant of Islamists’ behavior and political calculations. Rather, it means that the Islamists do not operate in a vacuum and that their decisions are governed by the nature of the context in which they are active and function.

Theorizing Islamism

Islamism has been a subject of scholarly inquiry over the past decades. Scholars from various disciplines such as politics, sociology, and history have used different theoretical and methodological approaches to grasp the essence and complexity of Islamism. Some scholars have used social movement approaches—framing, collective actions, mobilization, etc.—to analyze Islamists’ activism,² while others have employed political process and identity approaches to understand the transformation of Islamist movements.³

This volume builds on these efforts from critical and multidisciplinary perspectives where scholars draw their case studies using different theoretical and methodological tools. For example, some scholars in this volume question the very notion of Islamism and attempt to introduce new concepts that can help capture and explain the transformation of Islamists, particularly after the Arab Spring. For example, in his chapter, Tarek Chamkhi introduces the concept of neo-Islamism, which helps understand the transformation of the Ennahda Party in Tunisia after the Arab Spring. According to Chamkhi, the concept of neo-Islamism differs from the classical concept of Islamism in its scope, discourse, and tools. Neo-Islamism believes that Sharia is not an immediate priority for Islamists whose focus shifted from religious proselytization (da’wa) to political, social, and moral reform. It also differs from Bayat’s concept of post-Islamism, which tends to focus on Islamist individuals and their apolitical activities. According to Chamkhi, the neo-Islamists, unlike the post-Islamists, remain active and involved in collective action through their parties and groups.

Furthermore, the volume makes the case for the intricacy and multifaceted nature of Islamism as a sociopolitical and religious phenomenon. It avoids the orientalist and existentialist approaches that treat Islamism as a rigid, static, and immutable phenomenon or mix it with Islam as a religion or system of faith. It rather treats Islamism and Islamist actors as dynamic, evolving, and mutable interlocutors who are affected by the social, political, and cultural environment in which they operate. A key contribution of this volume lies in its ability to show the wide spectrum of Islamists’ strategies, tactics, behaviors, and discourses since the beginning of the Arab Spring. Moreover, it reveals how Islamists, like their ideological counterparts, were immensely affected by the events of the Arab Spring, which reshaped their discourse and strategy.

Methodologically, the volume critically engages with the traditional approaches in studying Islamism and provides new approaches that could help in analyzing and understanding the transformation of Islamists. For instance, it goes beyond the “inclusion-moderation” hypothesis that dominated the study o f Islamism for the past two decades. It provides new ways to examine and explore the transformations of Islamism beyond the prism of moderation or radicalization to focus on the processes, dynamics, and settings that determine and shape these transformations. As Hamzah Almustafa points out in his chapter, the transformation of Islamists should not be attributed to their inclusion or exclusion but rather to the environment in which they operate, their structure and mobilization capabilities, and their framing processes and strategies.

Finally, it is worth noting that some terminologies in this book are used interchangeably. For example, “Islamism” and “political Islam” refer to the same entity of sociopolitical actors with a religious reference. While both terms are conceptually and theoretically contested, scholars use them interchangeably. Further, the “Muslim Brotherhood” is used interchangeably with the “Muslim Brothers” or the “Brotherhood.” All these terms refer to a sociopolitical movement that emerged in Egypt in 1928 and became one of the most influential Islamist movements in the Muslim World.

Mapping the Book

This volume is divided into ten chapters. After the introduction, I examine in Chapter 2 the transformation of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood since the uprising of January 2011. The chapter explores the response of the Brotherhood to the uprising and how they performed while it was in power in 2012–13. It reveals the ideological, political, and organizational changes the movement had undergone over the past decade, particularly after the coup of 2012. In Chapter 3, Tarek Chamkhi explores the transformation of the Tunisian’s Ennahda movement since the uprising of 2010. He introduces the concept of “neo-Islamism” as a new analytical approach to understand the case of Ennahda. By analyzing Ennahda’s statements and texts, the chapter reveals the ability of the movement to move from a traditional religious movement to a civic political party. In Chapter 4, Mohammed Masbah cogently explains the case of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD). He unpacks the transformation of the PJD since 2011 ideologically, politically, and organizationally, in particular after taking power in 2011. He assesses the political performance of the PJD and how it was affected by the party’s internal dynamics and leadership. Through several interviews with members and leaders of the PJD, Masbah draws a clear picture of the relationship between the party and the monarch over the past decade and how the latter shrewdly attempted to co-opt the former.

Chapter 5 discusses the Syrian case. Hamzah Almustafa provides a comprehensive and profound analysis of the transformation of Islamist groups in Syria, particularly Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, and the Sham Legion. He examines the dynamics of Islamists’ engagement during civil wars. Through several semi-structured interviews with members of these groups in Turkey, Al-Mustafa provides an original account of the internal dynamics, divisions, and transformations of Islamist groups in Syria. He also engages critically with the inclusion-moderation hypothesis and revisits its main assumptions, particularly with regard to the Syrian case. Chapter 6 examines the case of Islamists in Yemen with particular focus on the Yemeni Congregation of Reform (Islah Party). Taha Yaseen explores the changes in Yemeni Islamists since the uprising of 2011. He explains how Islah Party could become a key force in political changes after the removal of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The chapter also highlights the impact of the war in Yemen on Islamists and how they respond to it. Through several interviews with Islamists and experts, Yaseen explains the changes that have happened within Islah Party and situate them within the larger context of the conflict in Yemen. In Chapter 7, Mohammad Abu Rumman explores the ideological, political, and organizational changes that have happened within the Islamist scene in Jordan with special focus on the Muslim Brotherhood. The chapter provides a comprehensive and cogent analysis to the ups and downs of the relationship between the Brotherhood and the monarch, and how this relationship shaped the former’s political behavior and strategy. Chapter 8 discusses the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM) in Kuwait. Through several in-depth interviews with Kuwaiti Islamists, Mubarak Aljeri examines the changes in and transformation of the ICM over the past decade and how the Arab Spring experience affected the movement and shaped its strategy and political behavior.

Finally, in Chapter 9 Abdelwahab El-Affendi wraps up the book with an overview of the dilemma of Islamists under autocratic regimes. He explains how Islamists engaged with the Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia. He draws parallels between the two cases to show how pragmatism can help not only Islamists but the democratic transition in general. The chapter shows how deep mistrust and a sense of insecurity among political actors can hamper transition, and highlights the importance of giving political and ideological concessions in order to avoid political failure in the future.

Chapter 2

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

An Aborted Change?

Khalil al-Anani

The abrupt rise and fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• 2 EGYPT’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
• 3 THE TUNISIAN ENNAHDA PARTY IN THE POST-ARAB SPRING
• 4 MOROCCO’S JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY
• 5 TRANSFORMATION OF ISLAMIST GROUPS IN SYRIA
• 6 ISLAMISTS IN TRANSITION
• 7 ISLAMISTS IN JORDAN
• 8 TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ISLAMIC CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT IN KUWAIT
• 9 ISLAMISM, AUTOCRACY, AND REVOLUTION
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index
• Copyright