Over the past decade, the political ground beneath the Middle East has shifted. Arab nationalism the political orthodoxy for most of this century has lost its grip on the imagination and allegiance of a new generation. At the same time, Islam as an ideology has spread across the region, and "Islamists" bid to capture the center of politics. Most Western scholars and experts once hailed the redemptive power of Arabism. Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival is a critical assessment of the contradictions of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, and the misrepresentation of both in the West.The first part of the book argues that Arab nationalism--the so-called Arab awakening--bore within it the seeds of its own failure. Arabism as an idea drew upon foreign sources and resources. Even as it claimed to liberate the Arabs from imperialism it deepened intellectual dependence upon the West's own romanticism and radicalism. Ultimately, Arab nationalism became a force of oppression rather than liberation, and a mirror image of the imperialism it defied. Kramer's essays together form the only chronological telling and the at fully documented postmortem of Arabism. The second part of the book examines the similar failings of Islamism, whose ideas are Islamic reworkings of Western ideological radicalism. Its effect has been to give new life to old rationales for oppression, authoritarianism, and sectarian division.Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival provides an alternative view of a century of Middle Eastern history. As the region moves fitfully past ideology, Kramer's perspective is more compelling than at any time in the past-in Western academe no less than among many in the Middle. This book will be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, economists, and Middle East specialists.

Over the past decade, the political ground beneath the Middle East has shifted. Arab nationalism the political orthodoxy for most of this century has lost its grip on the imagination and allegiance of a new generation. At the same time, Islam as an ideology has spread across the region, and "Islamists" bid to capture the center of politics. Most Western scholars and experts once hailed the redemptive power of Arabism. Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival is a critical assessment of the contradictions of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, and the misrepresentation of both in the West.The first part of the book argues that Arab nationalism--the so-called Arab awakening--bore within it the seeds of its own failure. Arabism as an idea drew upon foreign sources and resources. Even as it claimed to liberate the Arabs from imperialism it deepened intellectual dependence upon the West's own romanticism and radicalism. Ultimately, Arab nationalism became a force of oppression rather than liberation, and a mirror image of the imperialism it defied. Kramer's essays together form the only chronological telling and the at fully documented postmortem of Arabism. The second part of the book examines the similar failings of Islamism, whose ideas are Islamic reworkings of Western ideological radicalism. Its effect has been to give new life to old rationales for oppression, authoritarianism, and sectarian division.Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival provides an alternative view of a century of Middle Eastern history. As the region moves fitfully past ideology, Kramer's perspective is more compelling than at any time in the past-in Western academe no less than among many in the Middle. This book will be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, economists, and Middle East specialists.

One of the most important developments in the modern history of the Middle East, the so-called Arab Spring began in Tunisia in December 2010, bringing down dictators, sparking a civil war in Libya, and igniting a bloody uprising in Syria. Its long-term repercussions in Egypt and elsewhere remain unclear. Now one of the world's leading Islamic thinkers examines and explains it, in this searching, provocative, and necessary book. Time Magazine named Tariq Ramadan one of the most important innovators of the twenty-first century. A Muslim intellectual and prolific author, he has won global renown for his reflections on Islam and the contemporary challenges in both the Muslim majority societies and the West. In Islam and the Arab Awakening, he explores the uprisings, offering rare insight into their origin, significance, and possible futures. As early as 2003, he writes, there had been talk of democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. The U.S. government and private organizations set up networks and provided training for young leaders, especially in the use of the Internet and social media, and the West abandoned its unconditional support of authoritarian governments. But the West did not create the uprisings. Indeed, one lesson Ramadan presents is that these mass movements and their consequences cannot be totally controlled. Something irreversible has taken place: dictators have been overthrown without weapons. But, he writes, democratic processes are only beginning to emerge, and unanswered questions remain. What role will religion play? How should Islamic principles and goals be rethought? Can a sterile, polarizing debate between Islamism and secularism be avoided? Avoiding both naive confidence and conspiratorial paranoia, Ramadan voices a tentative optimism. If a true civil society can be established, he argues, this moment's fragile hope will live.

Amidst the roil of war and instability across the Middle East, the West is still searching for ways to understand the Islamic world. Stéphane Lacroix has now given us a penetrating look at the political dynamics of Saudi Arabia, one of the most opaque of Muslim countries and the place that gave birth to Osama bin Laden. The result is a history that has never been told before. Lacroix shows how thousands of Islamist militants from Egypt, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, starting in the 1950s, escaped persecution and found refuge in Saudi Arabia, where they were integrated into the core of key state institutions and society. The transformative result was the Sahwa, or “Islamic Awakening,” an indigenous social movement that blended political activism with local religious ideas. Awakening Islam offers a pioneering analysis of how the movement became an essential element of Saudi society, and why, in the late 1980s, it turned against the very state that had nurtured it. Though the “Sahwa Insurrection” failed, it has bequeathed the world two very different, and very determined, heirs: the Islamo-liberals, who seek an Islamic constitutional monarchy through peaceful activism, and the neo-jihadis, supporters of bin Laden's violent campaign. Awakening Islam is built upon seldom-seen documents in Arabic, numerous travels through the country, and interviews with an unprecedented number of Saudi Islamists across the ranks of today’s movement. The result affords unique insight into a closed culture and its potent brand of Islam, which has been exported across the world and which remains dangerously misunderstood.

Foreword Acknowledgments 1 The Context: Modern Arab Intellectual History, Themes, and Questions 2 Turath Resurgent? Arab Islamism and the Problematic of Tradition 3 Hasan al-Banna and the foundation fo the Ikhwan: Intellectual Underpinnings 4 Sayyid Qutb: The Pre-Ikhwan Phase 5 Sayyid Qutb’s Thought between 1952 and 1962: A Prelude to His Qur’anic Exegesis 6 Qur’anic Contents of Sayyid Qutb’s Thought 7 Toward an Islamic Liberation Theology: Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah and the Principles of Shi’i Resurgence 8 Islamic Revivalism: The Contemporary Debate Notes Bibliography Index

Rooted in the world historical methodology of John O. Voll, this collection brings together a diverse group of scholars to investigate the ongoing impact of revival and reform movements beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing through to the present. Ranging from the MENA region to Africa, India, and China, and covering a variety of religious interpretations, from scripturalist to Sufism, these essays offer new perspectives on movements including the Wahhabis of Arabia, the Sokoto Caliphate, the neo-Sufism of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi, Sufi scholars and networks on the African continent, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Contributors explore encounters between Islamic revival and reform and modernity with a focus on the ways in which Islamic reforms influence the political sphere. Concluding with contemporary reinterpretations of Islam in the digital arena, this volume examines, but also moves beyond, texts to include embodiments of religious practice, the development of religious culture and education, and attention to women’s contributions to education, cultural production, and community building.

Arguing Islam after the Rebirth of Arab Politics analyzes the politics of religion in the Arab world after the emergence of new public spheres over the past few decades. The book examines those spheres as they really are, not measuring them against any ideal of democratic deliberation, and show how they are lively and increasingly participatory but also polarizing, divisive, and far from egalitarian. And while they have grown in force, they are not efficacious, leading to a widening gap between regimes and the societies they govern. Focusing on arguments aired in new and old media, neighborhood discussions, and parliaments, Arguing Islam After the Revival of Arab Politics probes in special depth debates over constitution, family law, and education. It shows how these various places where arguments take place are increasingly linked, forming not a uniformed citizenry but instead a badly divided one in which a leader's words to followers are overheard and then lampooned by opponents and various groups become aware of how deeply they differ. Arguments are detached from the authority of the person making them. Without a strong political process to forge agreement and reward coalition building, the reborn Arab politics is exciting and vital but also noisy and rough.