scholarly journals Religion as an Authoritarian Securitization and Violence Legitimation Tool: The Erdoğanist Diyanet’s Framing of a Religious Movement as an Existential Threat

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 574
Author(s):  
Ihsan Yilmaz ◽  
Ismail Albayrak
Keyword(s):  
Religious Community ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Global Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Gulen Movement

The paper shows how a state controlled religious institution used religion, fear, trauma, insecurity, grievances, and conspiracy theories to dehumanise a religious community, and presented it as an existential threat to the nation, the global community of believers and religion, by investigating the case of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs’ (the Diyanet) securitizing role under the authoritarian Islamist Erdoğanist rule. The article provides an empirically rich analysis of the Diyanet’s construction of the Gülen Movement (GM) as a source of sedition (fitne), corruption (fesat), mischief, a social disease, and finally, as a traitor and puppet of the West that constantly conspires against Turkey, Islam, and the Muslim World. By securitising the movement, the Diyanet legitimised the authoritarian and violent actions of the Erdoğanist regime against the alleged movement members.

Religious Freedom in Islam

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority

Is Islam hospitable to religious freedom? The question is at the heart of a public controversy over Islam that has raged in the West over the past decade-and-a-half. Religious freedom is important because it promotes democracy and peace and reduces ills like civil war, terrorism, and violence. Religious freedom also is simply a matter of justice—not an exclusively Western principle but rather a universal human right rooted in human nature. The heart of the book confronts the question of Islam and religious freedom through an empirical examination of Muslim-majority countries. From a satellite view, looking at these countries in the aggregate, the book finds that the Muslim world is far less free than the rest of the world. Zooming in more closely on Muslim-majority countries, though, the picture looks more diverse. Some one-fourth of Muslim-majority countries are in fact religiously free. Among the unfree, 40% are repressive because they are governed by a hostile secularism imported from the West, and the other 60% are Islamist. The emergent picture is both honest and hopeful. Amplifying hope are two chapters that identify “seeds of freedom” in the Islamic tradition and that present the Catholic Church’s long road to religious freedom as a promising model for Islam. Another chapter looks at the Arab Uprisings of 2011, arguing that religious freedom explains much about both their broad failure and their isolated success. The book closes with lessons for expanding religious freedom in the Muslim world and the world at large.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals POPE BENEDICT XVI AND THE REGENSBURG LECTURE: THE REPRESENTATION OF ISLAM AND THE “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS” IN THE ITALIAN MEDIA

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-232
Author(s):  
Martina Ambrosini
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
The West ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Pope Benedict Xvi ◽  
Benedict Xvi ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Relationship

As those of other Western countries, Italian media often employ the term “clash of civilisation” [conflitto di civiltà] to refer to the relationship between “Islam” and the “West”. The Muslim world is simplistically described, and perceived, as a monolithic reality. Its representation by media ranges from that of an irrational to that of an intolerant religion. The expression “clash of civilization” was especially used in September 2006, after the Pope’s lectio magistralis at Regensburg University caused vigorous protests to take place in the Muslim world. Benedict XVI seemed to present the Christian God as the only rational divinity, and Islam as an irrational religion. After international Muslim communities asked for an official apology, the Pope held a meeting with the ambassadors from Islamic States to the Holy See, and the representatives of the Italian Muslim communities, to explain his words. This paper analyzes the way in which this event was presented by the Italian media – including right-wing, mainstream and Catholic media - with the aim of understanding the official reaction of the Vatican (as reported by the Osservatore Romano), the Italian Catholic Church (as reported by Avvenire), and the Italian public opinion

scholarly journals PERDEBATAN PENGGUNAAN HERMENEUTIKA SEBAGAI METODE PENAFSIRAN AL-QUR'AN

ALQALAM ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
MASRUKHIN MUHSIN
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
New Method ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
To Come

The word hermeneutics derives from the Greek verb, hermeneuin. It means to interpret and to translate. Hermeneutics is divided into three kinds: the theory of hermeneutics, the philosophy hermeneutics, and the critical hermenmtics. Hasan Hanfi is known as the first scholar who introduces hermeneutics in the Islamic World through his work dealing with the new method of interpretation. Nashr Hamid Abu-Zaid is another figure who has much studied hermenmtics in the classical interpretation. Ali Harb is a figure who also much involved in discussing the critism of text even though he does not fully concern on literature or art, but on the thoughts. Muslim thinker who has similar view with Ali Harab in seeing that the backwardness of Arab-Islam from the West is caused by the system of thoguht used by Arah-Muslim not able to come out of obstinary and taqlid is Muhammad Syahmr. On the other side, ones who refuse hermeneutics argue that since its heginning, hermeneutics must be studied suspiciously because it is not derived from the Islamic tradition, but from the unbeliever scientific tradition, Jews and Chrtians in which they use it as a method to interpret the Bible. Practically, in interpreting the Qur'an, hermeneutics even strengthens something, namely the hegemony of scularism-liberalism in the Muslim World that Muslims must actually destroy. Keywords: Hermeneutics, Tafsir, al qur'an

Contemporary Islamism

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Matthew Cleary ◽  
Rebecca Glazier
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social

Islamism proposes a vision of a society united by religion above all else – a vision that the West has difficulty theorizing and even comprehending. This vision and the social movements that have accompanied it are firmly rooted in the Muslim world’s history and traditions. This paper adopts a frame analytic perspective to examine and understand the progression of political Islam from the nationalism of the interwar period and beyond to the radical jihadism of today. In so doing, it contributes to the literature on framing by providing an analytically rich and theoretically valuable example of framing tactics in social movements. It also contributes to the growing literature on political Islam (Islamism) by providing a new and insightful perspective on its emergence and acceptance in the Muslim world.

Studying the Qurʾan in the Context of Indonesian Islamic Higher Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Lien Iffah Nafʾatu Fina
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Normative Study ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Experience Teaching ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract This essay reconsiders some of Majid Daneshgar’s arguments in his Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy. The first part of the essay discusses what counts as the Muslim academy and how it is represented in this book. I examine his arguments that the Muslim academy does not do Islamic studies but rather an apologetic, descriptive, and normative study of Islam, and that the Muslim academy’s reception of Western Qurʾanic scholarship is dismissive, hostile, poor, selective, and apologetic. Its second part examines his argument that the Muslim academy does not engage in a “critical study” of the Qurʾan and Islam. Through a juxtaposition with my experience teaching at UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and the development of Islamic higher education in Indonesia, I argue that Daneshgar’s thesis is an over-generalization of what he regards as the Muslim academy, obscuring its plural nature worldwide. I also question whether it is appropriate to talk about the Muslim academy in universal terms. I further argue that to analyze academic study of Islam and the Qurʾan in the Muslim world, one needs to consider the latter’s context and history and its dynamic in relation to secular epistemologies developed in the West.

Foundations of Islamic Economy, Islamic Scholarship, Mass Media, Linguistic Turn, and Social Mobility

2016 ◽  
pp. 234-249
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Political ◽  
September 11Th ◽  
The West ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Political Religion ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Impact

The world's reaction to the September 11th, 2001, event demonstrated its minimal understanding of Muslim societies from sociological, psychological, economic, and political perspectives.. In this chapter, socio-cultural, political, legal and historical forms of Islamic conditioning are reviewed to manifest how the Shi'ite clerical establishment became lenient towards what Weber called traditional capitalism. The impact of colonialism on Islamic societies and the political-religion bifurcations are discussed. A new and useful explanation of Islamic societies will assist one in looking at the Islamic world from a new perspective by synthesizing sociological and economic viewpoints, especially given the uneven globalization that is affecting Muslim societies. Patterns of intergenerational mobility in industrial nations and Islamic societies are reviewed. Only by developing a fresh perspective on the struggle of Muslim societies can the West understand how best to engage with these countries in order to precipitate reform and vastly improved relations. We concur with Esposito (1999) that our challenge is to better understand the history and realities of the Muslim world and to recognize the diversity and many faces of Islam.

scholarly journals Tackling COVID-19 Disinformation: Internal and External Challenges for the European Union

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-582
Author(s):  
Sophie L. Vériter ◽  
Corneliu Bjola ◽  
Joachim A. Koops
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Toxic Effect ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Public ◽  
External Sources ◽  
European Health

Summary The corona crisis is also a disinformation crisis for the global community in general, and for the European Union (EU) in particular. What is less clear is how adequate the EU’s response to the ‘infodemic’ has been. This essay exposes the dangers of disinformation for the EU, which have intensified in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and reviews relevant EU responses. It then zooms in on two challenges exacerbated by the corona crisis: one internal, revolving around the toxic effect of conspiracy theories, particularly the corona-5G hoax; and one external, relating to the public diplomacy campaigns of competing geopolitical actors, especially China. The essay argues that the future of European stability will rest not only on ensuring societal resilience to disinformation and conspiracy theories but also on designing ethically guided pre-emptive mechanisms and confronting external sources of disinformation which jeopardise European health provisions, economic recovery and geoeconomic strength.

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