This paper examines the international relations discourse of a prominent Egyptian, Azharite religious scholar (’alim) and public intellectual: Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra. Despite Abu Zahra’s prominence in the Islamic world – which earned him the appellation: “Imam of His Era” – his writings have received scant attention from Arab and non-Arab academics. The paper seeks to partially rectify this by presenting a close reading of Abu Zahra’s two principal works on international relations: al-‘Alaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam (International Relations in Islam) and al-Wihda al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity). This reading has two aims: First, it seeks to shed light on three principal themes that permeate his works on international relations; the underpinning principles of international relations, the meaning of jihad and its role in the contemporary era, and the road to Islamic unity. The second more ambitious aim is to situate Abu Zahra’s international relations discourse within its proper historic and ideational contexts. The paper thus reads this discourse against the backdrop of two pivotal twentieth century developments: 1) the division of the Muslim world into separate, often rival, independent states and 2) the proliferation of political, economic and cultural ties between Muslim and non-Muslim states. Dissecting Abu Zahra’s responses to these watershed developments, the paper posits that he adopts an embracing stance which advocates for an incremental, long-term and peaceful approach to achieving Islamic unity(whose realization does not hinge on establishing a universal caliphate),while encouraging strengthening ties with non-Muslim states as being in line with the tenets of Islam which, according to Abu Zahra, emphasize peace, collaboration and dialogue among peoples. On the ideational plane, the paper explores the impact of the ideas of the renowned religious reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839-1897) and Muhammad Abdu (1849-1905) on Abu Zahra; and the latter’s influence on the international relations discourses of more recent prominent Islamist scholars, such as Wahba al-Zuhaili (1932-2015) and Yusuf Qaradawi (1926- ). The paper argues that Abu Zahra represents an indispensable link in one unbroken chain of reformist (or modernist) religious thought, which extended for over a century from al-Afghani and Abdu to Zuhaili and Qaradawi. Clearly, international relations constituted a central, albeit understudied, arena in which this reformist current manifested itself. Finally, analyzing Abu Zahra’s discourse provides an opportunity to compare the Islamic reformist international relations’ perspective to that of salafi-jihadist movements.

The conflict between State and Islamism in Morocco has long been over the religious and symbolic public space and the regime’s authoritarian control of the state. The two main Islamist actors in Morocco, al-‘Adl wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity), and al-‘Adala wa at-Tanmiya (the Party of Justice and Development or PJD) have resorted largely to quietist strategies of activism and opposition. But the tsunami of the Arab uprisings in 2011 presented opportunities for Islamists to assert their presence on Morocco’s political scene. In fact, an examination of Moroccan Islamists’ strategies during and after the Arab uprisings reveals both the limits and potential of Islamism in Morocco. Based on interviews with high level Islamist leaders, including PJD’s leader and current head of government in Morocco, this paper examines and analyzes Moroccan Islamism in the post-Arab uprisings. As Moroccans took to the streets under the banner of the February 20 protest movement, Islamists pursued different paths vis-à-vis the state. In particular, each trajectory reflects the “rejectionist versus participation” dilemma facing Islamism in the Muslim world. The al-‘Adl initially joined street protests, but then later retreated to its strategy of rejection of regime institutional and constitutional frameworks. The PJD, in contrast, successfully contested the legislative elections of 2011, and has since led a coalition government on a limited reformist “passive revolution” to mitigate the authoritarian effect of the state, while operating within regime’s constitutional rules of the game. PJD’s strategy illustrates what Asef Bayat terms as a "refo-lution", which involves incremental societal changes through reforms within the regime’s institutions. Each strategy, rejectionist and ‘refolutionary’, reflects an approach toward the monarchy borne out of a self-understanding of the Islamists’ strength and limitations in Morocco. Islamists face a monarchical regime that has managed to pacify the public through cosmetic reforms and an appeal to national religious identity. In the absence of significant changes to the regime’s discretionary powers and al-‘Adl’s weak protest cultural frames, al-'Adl is unable to challenge the legitimacy of, and provide an “alternative sovereignty” to the monarchy in Morocco. Al-‘Adl faces its own alleged internal debates about its long-held strategy of rejectionism, especially after the death of its founder and spiritual leader ‘Abdessalam Yassine in 2012. While the “Moroccan Spring” has stalled, the dual challenge of the February 20th movement and al-‘Adl has nonetheless managed to demystify the monarchy ever so slightly, making the king subject to criticism.

Since 1970, political parties of the Islamist National Outlook Movement have been integrated into political processes of Turkey’s electoral democracy, but, an innovative outspan of it, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has been the most successful of them. Since its first election into the government in 2002, the AKP has established electoral predominance and accumulated enough power to redefine Turkey’s identity. With this track record, the AKP has shown how competent and skilled politicians can Islamist be, and arguably set the new standards of success for other Islamist political parties that engage in electoral processes elsewhere in the Muslim world. The political practice of the AKP, however, gave two almost diametrically opposing messages. Initially, the AKP’s success rested on showing that it is not a reincarnation of its Islamist ancestor, but a new “conservative democratic” political force that embraces the universal principles of rule of law, human rights and pluralism, adopts a pro-Western outlook, supports Turkey’s EU-membership bid, and, if necessary, postpones taking up the problems of Islamic identity so as not to provoke fears of Islamization. As such, the AKP has appeared as an “Islamic liberal” or “post-Islamist” political force, generating optimism for a reconciliation of secularism/Islam with democracy and thereby falsification of the well-established Orientalist paradigm that denies the possibility of a fully-fledged democracy in Muslim majority countries. This optimism however has faded away as the AKP gained a foothold in Turkey’s power structure and started to adopt a dismissive attitude towards democratic opposition, concentrate power in its hands, normalize Islamism instead of liberalizing secularism and deploy the Islamic moralist language of “forbidding evil, commanding good” to legitimize its “instructive” policies. With this political practice the AKP proved the Orientalist essentialism right in claiming that Islamist can never be fully committed to democracy. This paper seeks to understand and explain the reasons for the AKP’s Islamist and authoritarian turn. It discusses the reasons why the flexibility and pragmatism dictated by the imperative of electoral competition did not result in the emergence of a substantive definition of Muslim democracy, and why behavioral moderation did not lead to ideological one. The paper suggests four possible factors accounting for the AKP’s de-moderation: the institutional/political context of the AKP’s behavioral moderation, the AKP’s interaction with the secular actors, the AKP’s internal party structure, and the impact of the changing international context.

This paper explores the ways in which the ayatollahs of Iraq entered the political scene in 2003, after decades of silence under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Through analysis of their writings, fatwas, decrees, bayenat and speeches, from 2003 to 2015, at a time when they became politically active, I catalogue their interaction with the state on important issues such as the role of competing social groups, the quietism vs. activism debate within Shiism, discourses on democracy and the sectarian conflict. My analysis demonstrates that rather than adhering to their religious duties, as they had practiced for decades prior to 2003, they have come to the forefront as rational political actors. Rather than beginning with their religious principles and applying them to the political context, they are keenly aware of the political milieu, shaped by it and are putting forth fatwas and recommendations based on the realities of Iraq. As such, they allow for politics to shape and mold their religious edicts and beliefs, not vice versa. The ayatollahs became the most important social actors in the new public sphere—they offered a collective and sustained voice for democracy, accountability and unity in Iraq. Going against conventional wisdom, the clerical class has been at for forefront of social change, debunking the myth of sectarian fighting and revealing their prominence as important public intellectuals. This study is important for a number of reasons. First, it brings to light religious voices other than that of Ayatollah Sistani, who receives the most attention because he followed by more than half of the world’s Shiites. I show the diversity of opinions within the hawza among ayatollahs Najafi, Fayyad, Hakim and Sistani. on important political matters among. These other voices are understudied. Second, this study helps us to understand the power of informal politics and how social groups gain leverage by operating alongside, rather than within the political system. The ayatollahs, choosing a brand of activism that differed from Khomeinism, allowed them to maintain their legitimacy and power in meaningful ways. Last, the narratives of the ayatollahs, even in moments when their fatwas were not effective, served an important function. They were quasi-public intellectuals. They worked to correct some of the dominant myths that served to increase violence and fractionalization in society. Their narratives offered correctives on the artificiality of Iraq, its ostensible entrenched sectarianism and its incompatibility to democracy.

Cooptation of political opposition is commonly understood as a central strategy of autocrats in Arab states. The literature tends to frame the process as a zero-sum game, with a single winner. Specifically, the incumbent regime’s dominance requires, and results in, a weakened opposition. In the Algerian context, this narrative has been renewed since the 1992 military coup which removed a popular Islamist party. However, the use of local channels for pursuing and achieving various political interests come as evidence of a more complex dynamic among various post-coup Islamists, specifically the Algerian Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP). There is some preliminary evidence that the party’s legal status, indeed its very cooptation ‘pact’ with regime, may help its members achieve locally-defined ends, even if its participation in national politics appears a façade. My paper will use the case of the MSP to explore how coopted parties may be understood as agents, even in systems that appear tightly controlled, even staged. What gains do members in fact see to participation in such a political system? How do party members make sense of this position while also understanding themselves as opposition? To what extent might a party opt for cooptation as a safe strategic choice? I answer these questions using ethnographic methods such as interviews and participatory observations (using the Algerian Arabic dialect). In this process, I have identified and compared competing narratives on the MSP’s political participation in MSPs stronghold towns of Blida, Chlef, and Oued Souf. I will also use textual analysis of primary and media sources to complement the individual subjective (at times retrospective) accounts from the ethnographic process This discussion will contribute to literature on how political parties in the Arab world adapt to authoritarian bargaining, and in particular to cooptation. Building on the works of Asef Bayat and Salwa Ismail, who have written extensively about everyday, mundane means of local party resistance and circumvention, my proposed thesis will explore first, the benefits of the MSP’s participation as they are locally conceived, and second, to what extent the party’s legal status allows its members to achieve these ends. In the former, “benefits” and “costs” to the party are understood through the prism of members’ values, beliefs, and socially produced dynamic preferences (rather than a hierarchy of fixed preferences).