False Prophets:
Islamic States Efforts at Controlling the Islamic State Through the Cultural Narrative of Religion
The most formidable challenge for a self-identified Islamic republic or state is to be able to effectively maintain hegemony over the nation’s cultural narrative and symbols. For Muslim majority nations, that means controlling the narrative of Islam and injecting Islam in all the institutions of society; governance, education, the economy, social interactions, and yes, religious worship itself. Three countries that have established and identified themselves as an Islamic state or republic, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran had very diverse routes in reaching their destinations as an Islamic state; though the vehicle they used however was the same - Islamization and the control of it to establish hegemony over the societal culture of its people. Along the way each state has experienced unique challenges in maintaining that hegemony and in some way has experienced varying degrees of internal and external criticism, successes, and failures in the manner which the Islamic government has run the country. While some of the external criticism may be due to a perpetual and long-standing narrative to conflict between Islam and Christianity which evolved over time into the present day as well as political ideologies between Westernized states (led by the U.S.) and Muslim majority nations, ruling regimes in Islamic states have discounted the changing and varied perception of Islam as seen by its respective populations which in turn reveals an elusive, all-encompassing narrative for Islam. The problem for these Islamic states is that the narratives that the regimes have established for their own respective Islamic state is not the same narrative that other Islamic and non-Muslim groups in these same states necessarily find as their own unique cultural narratives. The regime’s uncompromising stance on changing any of the cultural narrative of Islam it has established can cause a dual assault on the Islamic state; externally from Western, secularized states and internally from other political opponents and marginalized subgroups that feel excluded or excessively persecuted.
Saudi Arabia and the dominance of Wahhabism
For Saudi Arabia, the journey to an Islamic state began with the 278-year-old alliance between the house of Saud (forebearers of today’s Saudi royal family) and with Wahhabism’s founder Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The mutually beneficial alliance served to legitimize the royal family’s status as the rightful rulers in the Arabian Peninsula while at the same time Wahhab found a supporter of his austere doctrines and interpretation of Islam. The alliance’s perseverance, however, has led Saudis today to look at Wahhabism as an “extension” of the royal family’s reach over cultural institutions of the state (International Crisis Group, 2004). Such protections given to Wahhabism by the alliance with the royal family also allows the doctrine to define the religious narrative of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia has not been without challenges to both the political and ruling legitimacy of the royal family and the religious narrative constructed by the Wahhabists. Dissenting Islamic voices, from social reformers to jihadists, all seek to disrupt the control of the Saud/Wahhab alliance and as a result has affected the image of Saudi Arabia on the international stage. Waging jihad not only against Westernized actors as well as the Saud family for their inherent partnerships with the West, particularly the U.S., has generated terrorist elements within the state that the Saudi government is trying to control. Such efforts may have led other states to believe that Saudi Arabia has created and is unable to control such extremist dissenters leading to strained international relations. These assumptions are difficult to dismiss; regarding the September 11th attacks on U.S. soil, 15 of the 19 terrorists that hijacked the four planes were Saudi. Given these facts, it would be hard to remove such labels that would associate the Saudi government and the fundamentalist Wahhabist doctrine as fostering and supporting elements of terrorism and the nature of the Islamic state Saudi Arabia has established. But while the 9/11 attackers have been the main feature of Islamist discourse within the West, many fail to see the social reformers that also seeks to change the cultural narrative of Islam in Saudi Arabia. These “new Islamists” have sought a position nearer the middle of the political spectrum in Saudi Arabia and sought to find the widest base of support to not only upend the rule of the Saud regime they see as illegitimate but also to define a new cultural narrative through Islam for the support base they have found.
Iran’s Islamic makeover
The Saudi example has flowed along similar currents that had already been realized in Iran through the 1979 revolution that took place there which removed the Shah from power and sought to replace his deemed illegitimate, Western-aligned rule with an Islamic narrative seeking to uplift and propel Iranians who have been the subject of external influences over their lives to one where Islam provides the rule of law and guidance for Iranians to run their affairs domestically. As in Saudi Arabia, the cultural narrative was Islam but was easier to construct. Historically, Iran has been in the middle of other cultural crossroads and throughout its history has had the narrative of a people that have been pushed around, exploited, and has had other narratives imposed on them (Starkey, 1990). Starkey suggests a “perfect storm” of sorts developed at just the right time for the establishment of the Islamic movement that led the creation of the Islamic state. The Shah’s backing of the U.S. government during the Cold War which for U.S. interests was lending itself for Soviet containment allowed the Shah to rule rather carte blanche and failed to address the needs of the Iranian people who resented their ruler’s relationship with the U.S. and its western decadence. At the same time new Islamists like Ali Shariati began to rewrite the Islamic Shi’i narrative of non-confrontation to one of revolutionary ideas to take back their lives and remove the yoke of secular Westernization which first began with the removal of the Shah. In addition, Iranians would also have to find an overarching ideology that in addition to them being Iranian and their dislike of the Shah, would be the principal propellant to initiate change – that ideology, it turned out, was Islam. As the rewritten social movement of Islamization gained momentum culminating with the taking of U.S. hostages at the American embassy in Tehran as a symbolic gesture of the revolution and the eventual ousting of the Shah, the revolutionaries were able to install Islam into their new state and governance to create an Islamic republic with the cleric Ayatollah Khomeini as their spiritual leader of this new Islamic state. The goal of this change Starkey (1990) points out was not a yearning for the past greatness of Islamic culture but to create a new future for Iran with Islam as a common thread and guide. Starkey further adds, “(for Iran)” political action in the name of Islam is no longer explicitly aimed at wiping out the existence of an illegitimate state structure (but) on Islamizing the state and societal structures to make them legitimate” (p. 88) Over time, however, this Islamic narrative has become stale; while it was popular and effective enough to generate the change needed for the new Islamic republic, it has lost its harmonious tone with a new generation of Iranians who are ever more connected beyond Iran’s borders through educational opportunities abroad, Western entertainment and culture, and social media connectivity on a global scale. This portal to the outside world allowed Iranians to compare their lives with those beyond Iran’s borders in both Muslim and non-Muslim states. What they found was that the revolution and the implementation of Islamization didn’t really deliver on promises made over four decades ago. Generally, all it achieved was a new identity for Iran that sought to distance itself from Western rules and order. The Islamic state failed to consider new generations of Iranians who may see things differently than the ruling regime leaders.
Pakistan’s prophet
Pakistan sought an Islamic identity due to it being a part of a larger colonial state of India before the British vacated their influence in the Indian sub-continent. Being the most prolific champion for the Islamist case in Pakistan, President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq also found flaws in prior regimes, especially that of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that were too attached to secularism, indulgence, decadence, and corruption. Zia ul-Haq genuinely believed that he had a divine mission to what Haqqani (2005) described as a purification and cleansing of Pakistan. But he also was charismatic in his approach, declaring that it was not just his vision for an Islamic state but the people’s vision; he sought to claim the cultural narrative of religion by being a champion for Islamization and for the people who had that one common thread after the country’s partition from its neighbor India - the Islamic identity. Zia ul-Haq’s implementation of Islam to create an Islamic state however often did not hit its mark. Imposing Sharia law, many of his mandates stirred discontent and at times created mass protests where Haqqani (2005) noted that if the protests were not quashed by the military, he would have lost power. But Zia ul-Haq also was pragmatic and at times practiced realpolitik in blending the right amount of Islam with governance to maintain legitimate power over Pakistan. Despite complaints that his Islamization initiatives were progressing more slowly than anticipated for the country (Zia was partially to blame for his overreliance on American support and financial backing during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), many Muslim groups found him to be genuine in his endeavors to make Pakistan an Islamic state. But simultaneously, he also had his detractors within and outside Pakistan’s borders. Criticism of such austere sharia laws marginalized groups such as women and non-Muslims which was noted globally. Within the borders, Zia’s implementation of Zakat, the compulsory deduction of one’s income for almsgiving, was contested by the Shiite Muslims that resided in Pakistan who did not adhere to that compulsory duty caused massive protests. Zia ultimately relented and though pragmatic in his approach to retain power he lost a part of his Islamic base. In the end as Haqqani points out “Islamization had less impact on Pakistani society’s observance of Islam, however, than it did on the relationship between the military and the religious political groups” (p. 146). As in Iran, Islamization served the Pakistani ruling regime much more in holding on to the cultural narrative for legitimacy than it improved the lives of both ordinary Iranians and Pakistanis. The same could be argued in Saudi Arabia.
What is striking about all three examples regarding the implementation of the Islamic state through control of the cultural narrative of Islam is the overly simplistic assumption that there is a one-size-fits-all Islamic narrative and perspective from which to control and that there is no need for constant revision of the narrative moving forward. Both Islam (Nasr, 2001) and culture (Starkey, 1990) is not monolithic, but the ruling regimes in the three nations mentioned here have sought to make the Islamic narrative they have written, controlled, and implemented as the overarching narrative for every citizen of that country. Within Islam there exist many different varieties on how to worship and interpret and practice the Qur’an, Sunna, and hadiths. As seen in Pakistan, Shi’i Muslims did not adhere to Zia’s compulsory Zakat; in Saudi Arabia, jihadists were torn whether to include the Saud royal family in its fatwa calling for jihad with the U.S. as the royal family appeared to be more responsive to U.S. relations than with its own people or even other Muslim states. In Iran the recent in-custody death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s “morality police” (Engelbrecht and Fassihi, 2022) has caused massive protests and called into question the legitimacy of such governmental actions over such concerns as headwear in accordance with sharia law.
The reality is that Islamic republics and states do not exist purely in an Islamic vacuum. It exists in a highly globalized, interconnected, and ideologically diverse world where it must maintain a balance of keeping its own identity while also keeping pace with the global concept of humanity, fairness, and acknowledgment of a higher order of rules outside of Islam. These proclaimed Islamic states risk ostracizing themselves for the sake of controlling the cultural narrative of Islam that they have tired to impose on each citizen within their own state. If they merely looked at their fellow companions’ cultural narrative of Islam, they would realize that each narrative is uniquely different and should appreciate the uniqueness in each. By acknowledging the different narratives of other Muslim majority states, constructing more inclusive cultural and varied Islamic narratives within their own state, and governing pragmatically can create that legitimacy that ruling Islamic regimes desire and will permit the populace to be governed more effectively where the state can focus other concerns for the betterment of its people (Nasr, 2001). To maintain an uncompromising stance can cause decay from within where the populace will start the cycle of forging a new identity and seek to overthrow the regime while getting support from the outside (i.e., Western states) seeking to reimpose their influence in these Muslim majority states. To maintain the current status quo is a gamble that will place these states back at square one.
*This post was originally a submission (9/25/22) in the author's Politics of Islamism course taken at the University of Arizona in the Fall 2022 semester facilitated by Dr. Tolga Turker.
References
Engelbrecht, C and Fassihi, F. (2022, September 22). Protests Intensify in Iran Over Woman Who Died in Custody. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/world/middleeast/iran-protests-mahsa-amini.html
Haqqani H. (2005). Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
International Crisis Group. (2004, September 21). Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who are the Islamists? ICG Middle East Report N°31, 1-22.
Nasr, S.V.R. (2001). The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K.
Starkey, B.A. (1990, Jan. 1). Islam, Culture and Revolution: The Case of Iran. Journal of Developing Societies Vol VI, 87-97.