The need for an Islamic liberation theology

By Abdennur Prado

The need for an Islamic liberation theology appears to many like a logical conclusion as a reaction to the setbacks suffered by Muslim communities in the last century and the geopolitical situation at the start of the 21st century. To understand this necessity, we need to think back to the Cold War times, when Western powers allied themsel es with the most conser ati e currents of the Islamic world to a oid an encounter between Islamic mo ements and the international left. This alliance still e!erts a stifling power o er Muslim populations. "ll of this takes us to the key issue of corporate globali#ation, and the role that the $%&% plays in it. We are witnessing the collaboration between the reactionary sectors of the Islamic world with corporate globali#ation, to the point that they are now one of its pillars. Tari' (amadan has referred to this alliance as follows) *The whole of the Islamic world is under the tutolage of market economy. Countries apparently Islamic from the iewpoint of laws and go ernment, for

e!ample +audi "rabia or other petrokingdoms, are the most integrated economically with the neoliberal system founded on speculation and immersed in interest transactions ,in reference to usury-.* [1] "lready two decades ago, economist +usan .eorge made manifest the role that the $%&% has played since the /0s in the rise of 1orth2+outh ine'uality. +usan .eorge states) *%etroleum producing countries beha ed like true capitalists, waiting to make a lot of money trusting in professionals brought from 1ew 3ork or 4ondon. Thus, they lost a historic occasion and opened the door to the formidable blow carefully planned by wealthy countries. 5ebt, generated by western countries, banks and their agents, such as the IM6, ha e weakened countries in the +outh further ,including $%&% members-7 it has placed them in an e en more disfa orable situation than before the age of loans, opening the door to a true

recoloni#ation.*[2] +ome countries ha e a significantly high debt, including many self8proclaimed *Islamic +tates* supposedly guided by the +haria such as +audi "rabia ,9+:;/,<=0 millions7 200>-, %akistan ,9+:;2,2?0 million7 200>-, +udan ,:2=,>=07 200>-, or Iran ,1;,?007 200>-. +omebody should remind their ulama, great mufties and other go ernment wise men that usury is forbidden under Islam....Why is +audi "rabia, one of the largest producers of oil, ha e an e!ternal debt, when thousands of members of the +aud family ha e a lifetime monthly allowance assigned to them, @ust for belonging to the familyA "lmost all of this debt has been spent in weapons, purchased from their masters. 4etBs not fool oursel es, these countries are only *Islamic* in those aspects that are in the interest of the state, especially when it comes to social control. The obession o er religion understood as e!treme morality, a soffocating puritanism obsessed with honor and se!uality, is a means to alienate Muslim populations, it acts as a eil that pre ents the analy#ing of the real causes of the social in@ustices they

suffer, and presents those responsible for these in@ustices as guarantors of their identity and national honor. We are witnessing an e!treme form of obscurantism, brought upon by reactionary ulemas, who occupy positions based on their significance in the history of Islam, such as the 9ni ersity of "l8"#har or the Mos'ues of Mecca and Medina. "n obscurantist ision of Islam that intercepts any critical thought among belie ers, condemming their communities to remain in ignorance. If religion were recuced to this, then we would undoubtedly suscribe to Mar!Bs phrase, of religion being the opium of the people. 6ortunately, religion is much more than this, or rather, it is something else, a potential that can be placed in the ser ice of the liberation of us humans, insha "l8lah. "t this point, we ha e to locate anticommunist thought, promoted by certain Muslim institutions, from the "rab world to +outheast "sia. We are placing oursel es in the days of the Cold War, when communism was made to occupy the role of absolute e il, like Islamism occupies it today. " good e!ample of the link between Islam, anticommunism, secular dictatorships and Western interests is the infitah ,opennesspromoted in &gypt by +adat in the /0, in order to liberali#e the economy ,after a period of *"rab socialism* said to ha e been o ercome-. 9nions and leftist

organi#ations opposed the pri ati#ing policies and the opening to foreing in estment, but these get the support of the ulemas of "l8"#har and of the Muslim Crotherhood. +adat supports the Islamic yamaat ,assemblies- at uni ersities, in order to weaken leftist student associations, one of the main sources of opposition. It is in this conte!t that we need to place the appearance of anticommunism from ulema officials. (eturn to relgiousness and liberalism go hand in hand. The successi e +ei@s at "l8"#har issue anticommunist fatwas. +hei@ Muhammad 6ahham makes a diatribe against students protesting against the go ernment. De calls them heathens and urges them to beha e religiously. +hei@ "bel Dalim Mahmud states *Eionism is the mother of communism.* Imam +haltut states *communism is kufur. The communist in his rosary does not say *"l8lahu "kbar* but *Mar! is great.* Dasanayan Muhammad Ma@luf, mufti of the (epublic, proposes naming communist as Islam renegades, in a time when this could carry gra e harm.[3] In indonesia, the two biggest Islamic organi#ations in the country ,1ahdlatul 9lama and Muhammadiya, with se eral million militants- are deeply entrenched in the anticommunist crusade. 5uring the years 1=>F81=>>, +uharto would unleash a wa e of killings that would end the life of o er one million communists. "ccording to 1oam Comsky, 9+ agents handed them lists of communists of communist sympathi#ers to local authorities, who carried out a merciless hunt, supported by Islamic organi#ation. The Muhammadiya declared a yihad against the .estapu ,Indonesian Communist %arty-. It is sad to confirm the role of the two most important Islamic organi#ations in the country in one of the most tragic e ents of the 20th century, that led to the deaths of o er one million people for the mere fact of being communist. Cut this alliance is not a thing of the past. Currently, some Muslim countries are among the first when it comes to income per capita) Gatar, 9nited "rab &mirates, Huwait, Crunei, $man and +audi "rabia, countries that carry out their economic acti ities under the protection of the 9nited +tates military. Cut this pri ileged position is not made manifest @ust in the form of cooperation towards de elopment in comparison with other Muslim nations. We ha e to remember the numerous situations where Muslims li e in dramatic circumstances. Dundreds of thousands of them are packed in refugee camps) saharauis in the "rgelia desert, +udanese in 5arfur,

(ohingya in Cangadeshand Thailand. $ther situations are no less dramatic) like in Chechnya &thiopia or +omalia. These circumstances of e!treme po erty coe!ist with wastefulness. "s a contrast, we ha e to mention the pharaonic pro@ects ,in the Coranic sense- carried out by the petromillionaire dynasties in the %ersian .ulf, like the construction pro@ects in 5ubai with ultra lu!urious hotels built in land gained from the sea, including e en ski tracks. There is no ,to our awareness- true aid towards de elopment organi#ed by rich Muslim countries towards the third world. There is large scale humanitarian work and hundreds of organi#ations dedicated to alle iating immediate necessities, but not a global pro@ect that would help needy communities generate their own sur i al mechanisms for the future. In this aspect, we ha e to regret the way +audi "rabia spends all of its oil money financing large uni ersities and schools to indoctrinate foreign populations, creating a fracture in the Muslim world between traditional Islam and wahabism. The sole concer of +audi "rabia in all of the tragedies mentioned is to use them to inflitrate and impose their rigorous conception of Islam, killing local traditions, always in the name of religious purity, always at the ser ice of imperialism. +audi "rabia has earned the hatred of an immense ma@ority of Muslims across the globe for its political dissemination of wahabism, its support for 9+ domination and its disregard towards the suffering of fellow Muslims throughout the planet. Wahabism is not an orthodo! interpretation of Islam, but a reformist mo ement born in "rabia in the ?th century. 6urther, this reformism has taken the sense of abandonment of an organic conception of the community, in fa or of the power structures that arose with industriali#ation. " state like +audi "rabia represents the abandonment of tradition in fa or of economic interests, and was chosen by the Critish because it ad@usted to their plans of e!ploitation of natural resources designed for the Middle &ast. Its e!ternal appearance gi es them an Islamic guise, while its modernist essence makes it simple to rule according to the whim of its masters. Through the call of *opening the door of iytihad* ,interpretati e effort in

@urisprudence-, the ulemas at the ser ice of the +tate can issue fatwas to @ustify anything that the go ernment is interested in) 9+ bases in "rabia, political killings, drug trafficking. Internationally, Wahabism tries to make Islam a piece of the world

market economy, collaborating thoroughly with the International Monetary 6und. +audi "rabia) a country that is in the business of gun trafficking but which calls itself Islamic because it cuts the hand of a child that steals an apple, where rulers li e surrounded by e!tra agant lu!ury while the e!ternal debt reaches astronomical figures... Cut %rophet Muhammed ,saws.- said) *That who barters what he has, that is who "l8lah pro ides7 that who hoards goodds and accumulates them, that is who "l8 lah curses and casts aside.* "ll that they ha e done in the cities of Mecca and Medina does not lea e room for doubts. Were some years ago were the gra es of the companions of the %rophet ,saws- are now packed with Mercedes or Chrysler dealerships. In places associated with the prophetic mission of Muhammed ,sawsthere are now fi e star hotels managed by foreign companies. The destruction of the heritage, the collecti e memory of Muslims is part of the policy of the Cani +aud from their beginnings. This dissarray is also being reproduced in a large scale, operated from within Islam, from its geographic center. This is the entry of Islam to the world of the spectacle, Wahabism represents the westerni#ation of Islam, the abandonment of tradition to find its likeness in that culture of representation and image. Culture of images) the acceptance of images from different traditions but not their contents. We are in a world where the idea of tradition is tried to be reduced to folklore. This is what Wahabism offers) not Islam, only its appearance. 1ot truth, but a stereotypical image. In this cult of the image all religions, all *representati es of .od on earth* are sucked in, like salesmen, like the economists of the 1ew World $rder, like news manufacturers. +audi "rabia, like the cradle of Islam, plays the perfect role for the policies of Western powers, a policy that cannot end but with the sacrifice of the image they themsel es ha e created. The concise definition by Tari' (amadan reflects a ma@ority opinion) *+audi "rabia) crossroads of all lies and all hypocricy. 6irst, from the West, whose go ernments, although know of the horrors of dictatorship, of

reactionary ensla ing and of corruption, keep 'uiet for economic reasons. "fterwards, from the &ast and too many Muslims, who because of financial mana, respond with silence to the most odious and o ert treason to the principles of Islam.*[4]

We are currently witnessing new episodes of this ne er8re oked collaboration. The agrarian counterreform carried out in 1=== by Mubarak, which implicated the return of agricultural leases to capital, recei ed the support of the Islamic 3ahad and the Muslim Crotherhood, in the name of sharia and the right of property. We can still find on the website of the also &gyptian 3usuf Garadawi a fatwa where he states that it incompatible to be communist and Muslim ,the fatwa is in response to a woman who asked him if she could marry a *communist Muslim*7 his response is negati e, it is haram to marry a communist, because communists are nothing less than diabolical nihilists...e en though in the 'uestion the woman stated clearly that the man was a Muslim-. Garadawi himself is sitting on the right of the &mir of Gatar, while 9+ troops prepare to in ade Ira', from huge bases granted by the &mirate, a country where &gyptian immigrants ,among others- li e in semi8sla ery... "ll of this @ustifies their re@ection of the left when it tries to appreach Islamic mo ements and makes e ident the close ties between religious fundamentalism and neoliberalism. We 'uote +amir "min) *In the field of true social 'uestions, political Islam allies itself with dependent capitalism and dominant imperialism. It defends the sacred principle of property and legitimi#es ine'uality and the re'uisites for capitalist reproduction. The support gi en by the Muslim Crotherhood to the &gyptian parliament to their recent reactionary laws that reinforce property rights to the detriment of rural renters ,the ma@ority of small farmers- is nothing but one e!ample among hundreds. There is no e!ample of e en a single reactionary law promoted by any Muslim state that Islamic mo ements ha e opposed...It is easy to understand then why political Islam has always counted in their ranks with the dominant class in +audi "rabia and %akistan. 4ocal comprador bourgeoisie, new rich, those benefitted by imperialist globali#ation, generously support political Islam. "nd this mo ement has forfeited any anti8imperialist perspecti e and replaced it with an *antiwestern* stance ,almost *antichristian*- that e idently, only leads affected communities to a dead end and does not constitute an obstacle to the spreading of imperialistic control o er the world. The history of the Muslim Crotherhood is well known. The Crotherhood was created by the

Critish and the monarchy in the 1=20s in order to stop the ad ance of "l8Wafd, secular and democratic. Its return home from their +audi sanctuary after the death of 1asser, organi#ed by the CI" and +adat, is also well known. We are all familiar with the history of the Taliban, formed by the CI" in %akistan to fight against the *communists* that had opened schools for all, boys and girls. It is also common knowledge that Israel supported Damas at first as a way of weakening secular and democratic curents in the %alestinian resistance. %olitical Islam would ha e had much greater difficulties to mo e outside of the borders of +audi "rabia and %akistan were it not for the continuous, decisi e support of the 9nited +tates. +audi "rabia society had not mo ed further than its traditional limits when it found oil beneath its soil. "n alliance was worked out between imperialism and the traditional dominant class, sealed immediately, that ga e Wahabism a new lease on life...It is easy to understand then, the initiati e taken by the 9nited +tates to break the united front formed by "sian and "frican nations established in 1=FF, creating an *Islamic Conference* promoted immediately by %akistan and +audi "rabia. %olitical Islam penetrated the region through these means. The most conser ati e conclusion one can draw is that %olitical Islam is not the spontaneous result of the affirmation of authentic religious con ictions made by the people affected. %olitical Islam was forged by the systematic action of imperialism, supported, of course, by reactionary forces and the subordinate comprador classes.*[5] In conclusion, Islam is being used from power, to in many cases @ustify pri ileges and oppression, and fight the left. This use by the +tate is normally linked to an imposition of a reactionary iew of Islam, focused on form and in herd morality. Corporate

globali#ation and religious fundamentalism feed each other, like two sides of the same phenomenon. The structural measures ad ocated by the International Monetary 6und and the World Cank create the necessary conditions that make the rise of fundamentalism possible ,e en ine itable-7 and in the end, it is this fundamentalism that @ustifies the inter ention of Western states. "ll of this e!plains the support of the most reactionary iews of Islam by the West. Cut we must say that the analysis made by +amir "mir is e!cessi ely broad) while it is

without doubt that the dominant political Islam ,especially the Wahabi2+alafi current promoted from +audi "rabia- is aligned with imperialism, it does not mean that all political Islam should be placed in that category. There is a growing awareness of this issue within Muslim mo ements, an issue whose sol ing implies the construction of a new alliance with the global left and the alter8globali#ation mo ement, such as the one we will propose briefly. There is no other remedy than to work in this direction. It would be a crass mistake by anticapitalist mo ements in Muslim countries to state their ground aside from Islam, since Islam is the a!is around which life is carried out in those societies. Cattling Islam and capitalism at the same time does not seem reasonable, especially if we reali#e that Islam constitutes today one of the few li ing alternati es to neoliberal globali#ation. "t this point we can understand the importance that the Islamic liberation theology ,I4T- can play in the conte!t of peoplesB struggles against corporate globali#ation and new imperialism, as well as against the hegemony of the alienated forms of understand Islam that are linked to them. That is) to counteract the e!isting alliance between corporate globali#ation and religious fundamentalism. We understand I4T as a discourse and social practice that places at the forefront the Coranic mandate of building a @ust and egalitarian society, where the spiritual dimension of human beings are taken into account, in opposition of both reactionary conceptions of Islam and neoliberalism. In opposition of the drifting of Islamic mo ements towards ultraconser ati e positions politically and morally, I4T emerges from the rescuing of the re olutionary message made by %rophet Muhammed ,sawsfourteen centuries ago, against the oligarchies of his time. I4T gains new strength in the post =811 world, with the in asions of Ira' and "fghanistan, the situation of Muslims in Curma and the continuation of the %alestinian genocide. Cut, abo e all, I4T emerges as a growing awareness of the social impact of corporate globali#ation. The dominance of neoliberalism and free market theory poses a threat towards e'uality and social @ustice, since both concei e society as a market that reduces human beings to their dimension as producer8consumer. " liberali#ed market economy, that has no consideration for social affairs or for local culture or en ironmental awareness, cannot promote global economic or social welfare, or

ensure sustainable de elopment. 1eoliberalism increasingly threatens ci il rights, particularly the right to education, dignified employment and health. 6acing this situation, I4T proposes a radical reform of the +haria so that it may aid the underpri ileged. It proposes reforming Muslim family laws to achie e the e'uality between men and wimen. It also proposes to incorporate the matter of economic @ustice in contemporary discourse around the +haria and to focus on its hori#ontal aspects, muBamalat or social transactions, before the Bibada or acts of adoration. This reform is based on the notion of +o ereignty of "l8lah, according to which only "l8lah is our 4ord and therefore nobody can be the lord or master of his fellow men. This understanding of Islam leads us to 'uestion the alienating understandings of religion. To apply these principles, it becomes necessary to form unions inspired by I4T, capable of indicating workers rights, in conte!ts where Islam is state religion and where

e erything re ol es around Islam. I4T defends the entry of Islam into politics. If all the ethical ,religous- components of politics, medicine, economy were to be eliminated... what would we ha e leftA The postwestern ci ili#ation) a system of generali#ed depredation of planet earth, that does not respond to any ethical or rational criteria... In Western countries, this system is balaced by ci il society, especially thanks to the efforts made by Mar!ists and anarchists in the 1=th and 20th centuries, and to the ci il rights mo ement that emerged after the +econd World War. Cut this balancing power does not ha e sufficient strength in a worldwide scale, much less in the third world, where large corporations are dedicated to a policy of depredation of natural resources, robbing people and annihilating their cultures, enthroning dictators docile to their interests and financing warsin those places where communities unite against them. I4T presents itself, therefore, as a challenge to the so called *liberal Islam* that seeks a strict separation between religion and politics, also a complacent speech to the new needs of the establishment. There is a policy of infiltration by Western think tanks that promotes an antifundamentalist Islamic discourse and the defence of the compatibility of Islam and democracy, human rights, etc, but which is not critical to the policies promoted by the International Monetary 6und, the World Trade $rgani#ation and the World Cank. This is the so8called *moderate Islam* that is promoted by the 9H and 9+

go ernments as a parallel offensi e to their in asions of Ira' and "fghanistan. I4T has a distinguished figure in +udanese Mahmud Taha, who in his famous work *The second message of Guran* identified the ideal society proposed by %rophet Muhammed with a *democratic socialism* ,although a better term to define his proposals would be communism-. "ccording to Taha, the acti e pursuing of this ideal community is necessary for our fulfillment as human beings. In a society ruled by egotism and the e!sacerbation of passions, human beings cannot fully acti ate their capacities or li e as a creature worthy of "l8lah. "t the same time, he belie es that socialism cannot come about without taking in consideration the spiritual dimension of human beings. This e!plains the failure of historical meterialms and the +o iet regime, whose materialist conception of the human being did not stand fully apart from the proposal by capitalist society. Taha includes in a democratic perspecti e gender e'uality and en ironmental alues. IT4 does not deny its links with Muslim reformism or e en with Islamic mo ement, and can 'uote +ayed Gutb or "li +hariarti to support its positions. It connects with reformism, from before it was swallowed by +audi "rabia and placed at the ser ice of corporate globali#ation and conser ati e policies. This return to the re olutionary origins of Islamic mo ements is the proposal made by +habbir "khtar in IThe 6inal Imperati e) "n Islamic Theology of 4iberation.J This is a Critish intellectual that acknowledges himself as a disciple of +ayed Gutb. IT4 could connect to an Islamism that has acknowledged the totalitarian e!cesses it has committed and is willing to promote openness towards gender e'uality, en ironmental and democratic alues.

Tari' (amada, a +wiss thinker of &gyptian origin, represents a bridge in this respect, which e!plains the scorn he recei es in Western media. " work that has to be taken into account is IIslamic 4iberation Theology) (esisting the &mpireJ by Iranian Damid 5abashi. The criti'ues to the Islamic (epublic of Islam do not lead him to embrace Western modernity as a panacea7 'uite the contrary. 5abashi contends that Islamic ideology has ceased from being a factor in the resistance against Icolonial modernity.J Islamic militancy emerged from determinate conditions and it remains a prisoner to them. It isnBt capable of responding to present needs or to the challenges of corporate globali#ation. In order to renew Muslim aspirations it is

necessary to re isit the concept of IIslamic ideologyJ in the sense of offering a local, and therefore limited, response of what presents itself as a global challenge. 1o alternati e ideology will awaken the energies and create the synergies necessary to face planetary depredation carried out by the centers of corporate globali#ation. 1either is this globali#ation Ithe WestJ or is Cin 4aden IIslam.J Kery especially, the legalist isions of Islam ha e to be o ercome, since they lead to a multiple fracture

between Islam and the West, Islam and human rights, Islam and feminism...This is a series of fractures that are e!ploited by the empire to undermine and delegitimi#e Muslim resistance. The only way to o ercome these fractures is to think of an Islamic ideology of liberation that con erges with other similar mo ements across the globe. Muslims are not alone in this struggle. They cannot continue to think that their fight is carried out to the back of the rest of the planet, or in terms of an Islamic supremacy. "n ideology that separates the world between Islam and the West, or among belie ers and non8 belie ers does not ha e anything to offer. The contemporary situation leads us towards syncretism and the acceptance of uni ersal alues. It belie es that Islam will ha e to rearticulate itself in relation to globali#ed capitalism. "s a result of the globali#ation process, the mass worker migrations has dismantled the dichotomy Icenter8peripheryJ or IIslam8WestJ that could ha e had their raison dBetre during the colonial period. 5ubashi defends multiculturalism and e!plores the similarities and differences with regards to the Christian liberation theology, to reach an

understanding. The re olutionary potential of Islam has to be put to the ser ice of humanity, and not to the ser ice of the Islamic cause. We ha e to think in terms of di ersity and syncretism, not in terms of supremacy. More than a theology, we should talk of a theodicea, a natural and rational theology of uni ersalist cut that seeks its foundation within human beings. 5abashi defines this theodicy as a form of theology of liberation that does not just account for the existence of its moral and normative shadows, but embraces them. [6]. In 5abashiBs ision, this theodicy will result in the liberation of Islam itself from its ghosts, its ata isms, and the forms of idolatry generated through the centuries. It is not @ust about rethinking Islam in liberation terms, but to think of an Islam itself liberated.

Notas
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Globalisation. Muslim Resistances (ed. Tawhid 2002). Jusquau cou, enqute sur la dette du tiers monde (ed. La Dcouverte, 19 $a%i&a 'e(ha%, Guardianes del islam, !!.140"144 El islam minoritario, ed. )e%%ateraa, !.333 *a+ir ,+i-, El islam poltico, al servicio del imperialismo Islamic liberation theolog ! resisting the empire, !. 1 , !!. 6 "#1)