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Intellectuals’ Politics during Political Crises: The Arab Spring, Asabiyya, and Consequentialist Ethics
Abstract by Muhammad Amasha On Session X-19  (Dissent and Repression)

On Friday, November 15 at 2:30 pm

2024 Annual Meeting

Abstract
Most academic accounts written on the “global mufti” Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s Arab Spring politics focused on his support of most Arab uprisings, explaining this support by his “revolutionary,” “modern,” “democratic,” or “republican” political thought (Al-Azami 2021; Al-Khatib 2014; Fadel 2016; Moosa 2015; Osman 2015). These accounts, however, do not pay enough attention to al-Qaradawi’s positions that do not align with the ideological positions attributed to him. Taking al-Qaradawi as a case study, this article answers the following question: How do “ideologically committed” intellectuals form their political opinions and actions during politically volatile times? I argue that in these situations, intellectuals adopt consequentialist ethical reasoning that is primarily concerned with the interest of their potentially threatened asabiyya (solidarity) groups. In the case of al-Qaradawi, he prioritizes consequentialist Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh al-maʾālāt) over revolutionary Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh al-thawra). Theoretically, this argument builds on Weber’s analysis of political moral dilemmas seen in the competition between “conviction ethics” and “responsibility ethics,” and Ibn Khaldun’s theorization of asabiyya (intense group feeling). Empirically, I chronologically order about a thousand primary sources about al-Qaradawi and his religious and political context, collected from news reports, books and memoirs, TV interviews, Friday sermons, and interviews with people in al-Qaradawi’s circles. Methodologically, my research design utilizes comparative and process tracing methods by leveraging al-Qaradawi’s political stances on different contemporaneous uprisings (the 2011 Egyptian, 2011 Bahraini, and 2013 Sudanese), tracing why his political stance varied over them.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Arab States
Egypt
Gulf
Qatar
Sudan
Sub Area
None