Islam & Anarchism

[Nigel]

Can the two be compatible.
Remember someone on Workers Aid To Bosnia/Kosovo who claimed the two could be on the basis that you sumit to nothing but Allah. Who is not a personification but a manifestation of Goodness. Don't know how Koran or Sharia Law fits into this, but I supposed in Shia tradition this can be continually revised. However this is not based solely on customary practice but I should immagine interpretation of 'Holy' scripture!

".....Muslim anarchism is based on the strict interpretation of Islam as "submission to God", and the concept of "no compulsion in religion". Muslim anarchists believe that only God has authority over Muslims and reject rules issued by people in position of authority, relying instead on the concept of Ijtihad for a personal interpretation of Islam. The anti-authoritarian tendencies in Islam and many Muslim anarchists are associated with Sufism and Sufi literature."

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000929493160&ref=nf#!/group.php?gid=14952944340

 

[Citizen66]

No, they're not compatible.

Because when the crunch comes (and it always does) do you want to stand in solidarity or ignore that to be made to look great in front of your fellow religious mates and work with whatever some abstract book dictates what everyone's needs are beyond what they say themselves?

Working class movements are precisely that. How could god understand?

If he gave a fuck he wouldn't have invented the bourgeoisie (only semi-serious at this point btw).

 

[eoin_k]

...
Because when the crunch comes (and it always does) do you want to stand in solidarity or ignore that to be made to look great in front of your fellow religious mates and work with whatever some abstract book dictates what everyone's needs are beyond what they say themselves....

You might be right, but your argument is wrong. Religious people are as capable of class solidarity as atheists. Oscar Romero springs to mind as an obvious example.

 

[eoin_k]

Actually Romero might not be the best example... there are probably plenty of Latin American priests who are more appropriate.

 

[TopCat]

Nigel is a fool and fools no one...

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

It's believed that a lot of sufist ideas have an affinity with anarchism, and certainly there have been many rebellious sufis throughout the history of Islam. If you mean traditional (orthodox sunni/shia) Islam then not really. Qutb's utopia is a kind of state-less one, but I don't think anyone would say he was an anarchist.

E2A: Esoteric religion/mysticism can be fashioned to the service of any politics.

 

[Paul Marsh]

It's believed that a lot of sufist ideas have an affinity with anarchism, and certainly there have been many rebellious sufis throughout the history of Islam. If you mean traditional (orthodox sunni/shia) Islam then not really. Qutb's utopia is a kind of state-less one, but I don't think anyone would say he was an anarchist.

E2A: Esoteric religion/mysticism can be fashioned to the service of any politics.

Surely Qutb et al's 'stateless' approach is actually a caliphate? And that looks rather like a superstate or an empire?

At the Anarchist Studies Network conference in 2008 I saw Mohamed Jean Veneuse, one of the main guys propagating these views speak, and I think his PhD thesis on Islamo-Anarchisms (!) will appear in book form in due course. Some details on him below:

http://www.anarchiststudies.org/node/162#31

Personally I struggled to keep a straight face when he talked of 'queering Islam' but I guess if there is space for academics to wriggle about in, they well.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Surely Qutb et al's 'stateless' approach is actually a caliphate? And that looks rather like a superstate or an empire?

The fact that he calls for a caliphate to free the world from Jahiliya is the most obvious objection to him being considered an anarchist. However, he seems to think that once the world is under the rule of Islam there'll be no need for for man-made rule, as there would be total submission to god.

Of course it's hardly any more 'anarchist' than what Jehovas Witnesses sometimes say - the whole 'sovereignty of God on earth' deal.

At the Anarchist Studies Network conference in 2008 I saw Mohamed Jean Veneuse, one of the main guys propagating these views speak, and I think his PhD thesis on Islamo-Anarchisms (!) will appear in book form in due course. Some details on him below:

http://www.anarchiststudies.org/node/162#31

Personally I struggled to keep a straight face when he talked of 'queering Islam' but I guess if there is space for academics to wriggle about in, they well.

That will be an interesting read.

There are quite a lot of openly homosexual muslim men [and women, for that matter], and they challenge the heterosexist interpretations of the quran, and reject the anti-homosexual hadiths (I suppose it would be not surprising if many of them are non-d[en]om/Quran-aloners).

 

[Paul Marsh]

On the sexuality question it is my understanding a specific difference exists.

Whilst men have sex with men in the Muslim world, the type of gay relationships we see in the West - guys living together, being partners, civil ceremonies etc etc are far less common.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

I'm not sure what your point is

Obviously it's not socially acceptable in most muslim-dominated countries, but space for 'Islamic homosexuality' (or whatever formulation) is very real. It might be worth noting that traditionally it was more tolerated than it was in Christian Britain, for example - by no means publicly accepted - but to the extent it was kept to oneself. Also, there isn't, Islamically, anything wrong with being a homosexual per se, but men are supposed to marry and have children. Outside of marriage there's no real sexuality.

 

[Citizen66]

You might be right, but your argument is wrong. Religious people are as capable of class solidarity as atheists. Oscar Romero springs to mind as an obvious example.

Of course they are capable of class solidarity. But where do they stand on feminism? Will they show solidarity to their homosexual comrades inn their struggles?

 

[Nigel]

Nigel is a fool and fools no one...

 

[eoin_k]

...where do they stand on feminism? Will they show solidarity to their homosexual comrades inn their struggles?

In my experience lots of people can square religous beliefs with progressive secular values. This might make their views contradictory on some levels but this hardly makes them unique.

 

[kyser_soze]

I'm of the general opinion that anarchism would lead to a sea change in faith practices generally, but in it's current forms Islam certainly isn't compatible with anarchism any more or less than any other faith that demands obedience to a higher being.

 

[Shevek]

Taoism and Anarchism

I don't know much about Islam but I do know a little bit about Taoism. In Ursula K Le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching she refers to Lao Tzu as an anarchist and says Taoists and Anarchists make good friends.

 

[Refused as fuck]

I don't know much about Islam but I do know a little bit about Taoism. In Ursula K Le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching she refers to Lao Tzu as an anarchist and says Taoists and Anarchists make good friends.

Fuck off.

To answer the OP, no Islam and Anarchism (communism) are not compatible. I desperately wanted them to be when I was a teenager but in the end I gave up he fairy stories, homophobia, sexism and racism for logic, science and communism. And now my life is great.

Hakim Bey claims to be a sufi and an individualist (i.e. cuntarchist) but he's a paedo twat who should be buried alive. To be serious for a minute, I did read about Sufi individualist "anarchist" practices which originated in the 14th/15th Century but their resemblence to what we call libertarianism was tenuous. It was akin to likening pigeon messengers is to modern day text messaging on mobile telephones.

 

[Shevek]

Fuck off.

To answer the OP, no Islam and Anarchism (communism) are not compatible. I desperately wanted them to be when I was a teenager but in the end I gave up he fairy stories, homophobia, sexism and racism for logic, science and communism. And now my life is great.

Hakim Bey claims to be a sufi and an individualist (i.e. cuntarchist) but he's a paedo twat who should be buried alive. To be serious for a minute, I did read about Sufi individualist "anarchist" practices which originated in the 14th/15th Century but their resemblence to what we call libertarianism was tenuous. It was akin to likening pigeon messengers is to modern day text messaging on mobile telephones.

I'm only paraphrasing Le Guin. I don't know much about the intricacies of taoism but I've read interviews with her and she is not religious, she is an atheist and she treats taoism as a philosophy. She actually says in the notes to her book that the religion of taoism is full of stuff that leads people away from the philosophy. I know some people have critcized her for creating a Tao Te Ching for the me generation. Le Guin is a writer and a poet (not overtly mystical) and seems to me quite genuine and trustworthy in her fiction. She does say Lao Tzu was a mystic but that he de-mystified political power. In Le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching power is goodness and trust unearned power is usurped.

 

[Refused as fuck]

No-one cares, dickface.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I don't know much about Islam but I do know a little bit about Taoism. In Ursula K Le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching she refers to Lao Tzu as an anarchist and says Taoists and Anarchists make good friends.

Well Buddhism in it's pure form is not a religion, but a philosophy of life and set of tools to live it better. If Taoism is similar then I don't see why they should be opposed, but maybe its another thread?

 

[Nigel]

Well Buddhism in it's pure form is not a religion, but a philosophy of life and set of tools to live it better. If Taoism is similar then I don't see why they should be opposed, but maybe its another thread?

Buddhism by its very philosophy emplifies a strict caste system, also based on ethnic grounds which exists and has been enforced in almost every society where it has become the predominant religon.

 

[phildwyer]

I'm of the general opinion that anarchism would lead to a sea change in faith practices generally, but in it's current forms Islam certainly isn't compatible with anarchism any more or less than any other faith that demands obedience to a higher being.

Nonsense. The whole point about monotheism is that it forbids unconditional obedience to anything except God. No government, no class, no consumer goods--nothing. Monotheism is the only antidote to idolatry--materialism is certainly no such thing--and therefore I would argue that monotheism is a prerequisite of anarchism.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Ah, Stoic anti-patriotism.

What wrong about humanism?

 

[Nigel]

Many Muslims don't hold to a personified archetype of God either.
Many political actiivists involved in such groups as Dev Sol, PKK, Palestinian Resistence groups who are socialists and communists like counterparts in Sinn Fein and South America; Cahvez as far as Catholicism goes would consider themselves Muslims even if only in a laymens sense.

 

[Nigel]

In Iran although homosexuality is illegal transexuality is legal and has one of the largest populations of transexuals in the world.
There is no reasons why this could not happen for gay & lesbians
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7259057.stm

Richard Burton's journals through the middle east during the 19th Century show that homosexuality show that it accepted in many quarters, if not today. The real problem is the growth of fundamentalism.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a795026674&db=all
http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/RB-INTRO.HTM
http://www.diabolicdigest.net/Middle East/Unspeakable_review.htm
(Found this on Youtube. Thought it would be entertaining)

Much of the views from the west around Muslims & Islam have been distorted by Western & Pro Colonialist/Imperialist interests mainly in the 19th Century through Orientalism.
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/orientalism.html

 

[iROBOT]

I've not read any explicitly anti homosexual Suras in the Qu'ran, it deplores "lust" genrally and homosexuals are condemned for their lust and not "nature" (as it were), but then so are "straights"

However, the Hadith is very anti-gay. And as we all know (instructed by non-other then God himself) a good Muslim should live like the Prophet.

An impasse if ever there was one.

 

[Nigel]

Arguably homosexuality culturally was accepted in Muslim countries/areas to a greater extent than in Western culture before the ascendency of Muslim Brotherhood, Wahabism and religous fundamentalism.
On the basis of gender politics, if you can have christians buddhists rastafarians etc. who are anarchists, socialists communists, why not muslims?

 

[iROBOT]

That's because anti-gay sentiment is explicate in the Bible, unlike the Qu'ran (to put it simply). Naturally, it's a little more constrained now with the rise of the fundies.

On the question of Islam being compatible with Anarchism.

I think it's more a rival, it is more then just religion. Within the Qu'ran and Hadiths are strict guides on everything from finance to personal dress, the accepted behavior between a man and a woman, diet...ect, quite "totallitarian" (as Christopher Hitchin might put it) in many ways.

Whilst Anarchism (fundamentally) is a system without state, I believe the word itself means "without rulers" Can't see where any of that would be compatible with Islam.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You might be right, but your argument is wrong. Religious people are as capable of class solidarity as atheists. Oscar Romero springs to mind as an obvious example.

What does class solidarity have to do with anarchy? Romero is a communist.

 

[Citizen66]

What does class solidarity have to do with anarchy? Romero is a communist.

Because a classless society would naturally benefit the current working class more than it would a member of the bourgeois.

 

[kropotkin]

What does class solidarity have to do with anarchy? Romero is a communist.

Class solidarity is a prerequisite of anarchist politics. "Anarchist" in the sense of the major tradition of anarchist politics for the last 150 years- social anarchism. There is no way you have been on this board for this long and not encountered this before.