Re-Visiting The Umma (Muslim Bloc): Evolution and Narrative

The PDF file of this book is also available on demand at $15.00. Contact the publisher (ir.st.eu.ag@gmail.com) Dr. Hossein Alizadeh (1965), combining deep academic research with firsthand diplomatic experience (22 years), is an academic researcher, independent journalist and political commentator, extensively contributing through his articles (700) and interviews (2100) to a variety of media In Persian, Arabic and English regarding the Middle East and international political affairs. He is the author of ‘Iran-Egypt Historical Relations’ (in Persian and Arabic). The ‘Umma[ (generally perceived as a faithful Muslim society), with 64 references only in the Quran, has been a persistent propelling force in Islamic political philosophy. Notably, it profoundly preoccupies the Muslim intelligentsia, who present Islam as an ideal sociopolitical modern system and, intend to idealise a transnational Islam . As a result, the Umma concept is central to Muslim consciousness, shaping Islamist movements and, secondly, constitutes a dominating discourse of empowerment in pan-Islamist literature to make Muslim collectivity stronger. Synchronously, despite its persistent presence, the Umma is a vague concept. Thus, the outstanding question is: What is the politics of the Umma, and how, as a discourse, does it function in Muslim polity? Through the above question the ultimate goal is to decode ‘the politics of the Umma’ and its counter-hegemonic narrative from a pan-Islamist perspective. In elucidating its concept, this book scrutinises the fact that the Umma notion constitutes an integral part of Islamic political philosophy, presenting Islam, more than faith and piety (minimalist approach), as a political ideology and polity that pursues a political agenda (maximalist approach). The agenda is collective behaviour to institute a new concrete system, i.e., the Islamic state. Additionally, this work navigates that pan-Islamism proposes the worldwide Umma to which every Muslim should adhere. Consequently, the formation of the ‘Umma-state’ as an alternative to the ‘nation-state’ paradigm is the ultimate goal of almost all -if not all- diverse Islamist movements seeking a global presence. In this sense, the Umma-state is presented as an ever-widening authority to transcend all political borders and boundaries. The second contribution revolves around the Sykes-Picot Agreement from a pan-Islamist perspective considers it the notorious cornerstone of a plot that allegedly tore the Umma apart. Also, this book explores the political genesis of pan-Islamist movements in the post-WWI era, in which the abolition of the Caliphate –that of the Ottomans- left behind a lasting ‘trauma’ that led to the proliferation of pan-Islamist groups with the idea for restoration of the institution of the Caliphate in the Sunni denomination and the Imamate doctrine in Shia. The book also explores how the call to the construction of the Umma is a pan-Islamist political agenda to the narrative of the decline of Islamic civilisation. To reverse Muslim decline (Inhitat), the book illuminates the fact that Islamic Occidentalism suggests the replacement of the ‘Middle East of the Sykes-Picot’ with the ‘Middle East of Islam’ as a remedy for the stigma of the decline of Muslim Umma. The remedy is the revival of the ‘Golden Age of Islamic Civilisation,’ in the clash with Western civilisation (Huntington’s alarmist theory) under one worldwide unified political entity (the Umma), which has become shorthand for a transnational community encompassing all Muslims in one Islamic ‘bloc’; a future-dominated global agenda revolving around the notion of the totality of a Muslim superstate transcending borders, races, languages and cultures. That is why the Umma prevails in the pan-Islamist mindset to embrace maximally, at once, Islamic identity, ideology, religion, and statehood in one bloc.