Other More 'Modernised' Islamic Political Models Part 1: Resistance Movements (generally led by a 'Mystic')

After a delay caused by a wrist injury, I'm tentatively returning to my topic (though I'm not yet fully recovered). I've briefly discussed the most conservative political theory that survived in Islam into the modern period mainly in what became Saudi Arabia (and which has been recently spreading) and I'll now consider a few of the other models that were attempted (and are still being attempted) partly in response to the ideas brought by Western colonists. These models generally contain elements of either religious or ethnic 'nationalism'.

Resistance Movements (generally led by a 'Mystic')

There were separate movements led by Sufi mystics in at least Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, Iran and Chechnya to revive Islam and oppose occupations by the Ottomans, Egypt or European Powers. The Egyptian group especially was also focussed on nationalism and modernising while the Tunisian and Turkish groups were also modernising forces.

The Libyan group was led by Muhammad Ibn ‘Ali al-Sanusi (1787 – 1859) and opposed the Italian presence in Libya. The group therefore came to be called the Sanusiyya as its leader was called the Great Sanusi. It was also a religious, political and social movement which also had a partly pan-Islamic agenda. It had legal and political clashes with the more conservative religious establishments in both Mecca and al-Azhar over the right of ijtihad (legal reform). It provided for education and social welfare among its supporters and integration of tribes into the community order. It aimed to reform local religious practices by missionary activity and participated in nationalist resistance as jihad against the expansionary and invading 'infidel' Italians. Material luxury was shunned in the puritan and Sufi tradition.

‘Abd al-Qadir (1808 – 1883) opposed the French in Algeria. He controlled an independent state in the Algerian interior from 1832 to 1847 before his exile by the French and opinion is divided as to whether the brief state most resembled a modern nation-state or an Islamic state.

Al-Rifi (‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi) (1882 – 1963) in Morocco also opposed the French as well as Spanish occupation with an armed resistance in the early part of the 1920s. He combined nationalist with Salafiyya inclinations.

Al-Mahdi also known as Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad (1848 – 1885) in Sudan opposed the ineffective, economically disastrous and arbitrary joint rule of the Ottomans, the Egyptians and the English with his followers, the Mahdiyya, eventually killing the English general, Gordon, at Khartoum. His declaration of himself as the Mahdi was meant in the Sunni sense of renovator, saviour and bringer of justice rather than the more apocalyptic Shi’a sense. He was a charismatic leader and claimed religious and political authority for himself as a direct descendent from Muhammad with a definite mission inspired by God. He was able with his Ansar to form a revolutionary state from 1881 in which he sought to reform the distinctly Sufi form of Sudanese Islam to bring about a more orthodox and less complex form of Islam. Aside from requiring new religious practices he also required seclusion of women and bans on tobacco, alcohol, music and the visiting of tombs. His group understood itself to be performing jihad against infidels (understood to be all non-Sudanese). Nevertheless the movement had pan-Islamic appeal as it sought to conform to a ‘true’ Islam and oppose non-Muslim and Western colonial expansion and rule.

Muhammad Shamil (1797 – 1871), who was a Sufi master politically active from 1834 to 1859 in Chechnya, opposed Russian occupation and rule of the Caucasus. His resistance was nationalist and supported especially by the local free peasant landowners who opposed foreign control.

Nilotic Sudan

This region, south of Egypt and watered by the Nile to the south of the Aswan cataract and the Nile’s tributaries, is also divided ethnically into northern Hamitic and southern Negroid regions. The northern region was called Nubia. The percentage Hamitic/Kushitic in both regions also tends to fall, the farther from the Nile and its tributaries one travels. Further south was the Nilote and Negro zone. Apologies for the use of Negro if it offends anyone (I do not intend it to be in any way offensive).

Before Islam, Nubia was a Christian kingdom. It was conquered by Arabs from Egypt in the 7^th Century. The southern kingdom held out for a treaty in 651 CE and began a trading relationship with the Muslim Egyptian Arabs. Around 1250 CE, the Mamluks finally conquered the southern region. The capital of Nubia, Dongala, declined as Nubia became an Arabic state.

The conversion of the population was not extensive until the 14^th to 16^th Centuries and Arabic was still not spoken widely. The southern Christian ‘Alawa State was replaced by the Muslim Funj State by the 16^th Century. The Arab vassals settled their whole tribes in this region and their indigenous fellow countrymen and women spoke Arabic earlier than the northern populations. The slave trade continued there.

Islamic lawyers and mystics were the two major sources of conversions to Islam in Sudan. The Sufis were especially influential early on. While in West Africa the Sufi mystic was called a marabout, in East Africa including in Sudan the term used was fakir (incidentally, a lawyer was and is called a faqih in Arabic). The Sufi orders were well established from around the 12^th Century.

These two styles of Islam, the styles of the mainly Maliki faqih and the, often Qadiri (from the 14^th Century) fakir, became blended in East Africa including in the Sudan.

Briefly, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, also lorded over Sudan in the 19th Century for a time. This was supported militarily by the British general, Gordon, until the mahdiyya movement (led by a radical Sufi who rather apocalyptically called himself the Mahdi, the Mahdi being the much prophesied Muslim end-times figure) brought about Sudanese independence.

Today, virtually all in both the North and South of Sudan speak Arabic, look alike and are Muslim. The only cause of the fighting there appears to be tribal and ethnic identity. There are now three major relevant ethno-tribal identities: Arab, Kushitic/Hamitic and African.