Islamic Socialism a History From Left to Right

7/28/2019 Islamic Socialism a History From Left to Right

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Islamic Socialism:A History From Left To Right

By

Nadeem F. Paracha

Between the 1950s and early 1970s, a powerful ideology in theMuslim world galvanised itself from the minds and fringes of modernIslamic intellectualism and made its way into the mainstream politicalarena.

But this ideology did not have a single originator. Its roots can be

found amongst the works of Muslim thinkers and ideologues in Southand East Asia, Africa and in various Middle Eastern (Arab) countries.

Also, once it began being adopted by mainstream leaders andpolitical outfits, it was expressed through multiple names. But today,each one of these names and terms are slotted under a singledefinitional umbrella: Islamic Socialism.

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Roots and Trees

Though one can struggle to pinpoint the exact starting point (or points) from where the many ideas that became associated withIslamic Socialism emerged, historians and intellectuals, Sami A.Hanna and Hanif Ramay who specialised in critiquing andcompiling a dialectic history of Islamic Socialism are of the view thatone of the very first expressions of Islamic Socialism appeared inRussia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

A movement of Muslim farmers, peasants and petty-bourgeoisie inthe Russian state of Tatartan opposed the Russian monarchy butwas brutally crushed.

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In the early 2oth century, the movement went underground andbegan working with communist, socialist and social democratic forcesoperating in Russia to overthrow the monarchy.

The leaders of the Muslim movement, that became to be known asthe Waisi began explaining themselves as Islamic Socialists when aleftist revolution broke out against the Russian monarchy in 1906.

During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that finally toppled andeliminated the Russian monarchy and imposed communist rule in thecountry, the Waisi fell in with the Bolsheviks and supported Russianrevolutionary leader, Vladimir Lenins widespread socialist programand policies.

However, after Lenins death in 1924, the Waisi began to assert thatthe Muslim community and its socialism in Tatartan were a separateentity from the Bolshevik communism.

The movement that had formed its own communes became a victimof Stalins radical purges of the 1930s and was wiped out.

One is not quite sure how the Waisi defined their socialism in acountry where (after 1917) atheism had become the state-enforcedcreed. It was left to a group of influential thinkers and ideologues inSouth Asia and the Middle East to finally get down to giving a morecoherent and doctrinal shape to Islamic Socialism.

Islamic scholar, Ubaidullah Sindhi, who was born into a Sikh family(in Sialkot but converted to Islam), was also an agitator against theBritish in India.

Chased by the authorities during the First World War, Sindhi escapedto Kabul, and from Kabul he traveled to Russia where he witnessedthe unfolding of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

He stayed in Russia till 1923 and spent most of his time discussingpolitics and ideology with communist revolutionaries and studyingsocialism.

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He suggested that Islam, with its prohibition of the accumulation of wealth, is able to control the class structure through equality of opportunity.

Basically, both Sindhi and Sihwarwl had stumbled upon an Islamicconcept of the social democratic welfare state.

Building upon the initial thoughts of Sindhi and Sihwarwl wereperhaps South Asias two most ardent and articulate supporters andtheoreticians of Islamic Socilaism: Ghulam Ahmed Parvez and Dr.Khalifa Abdul Hakim.

Parvez was a prominent Quranist, or an Islamic scholar who insistedthat for the Muslims to make progress in the modern world, Islamic

thought and laws should be entirely based on the moderninterpretations of the Quran and on the complete rejection of thehadith (sayings of the Prophet and his companions based on hearsayand compiled over a 100 years after the Prophets demise).

After studying traditional Muslim texts, as well as Sufism, Parvezclaimed that almost all hadiths were fabrications by those whowanted Islam to seem like an intolerant faith and by ancient Muslimkings who used these hadiths to give divine legitimacy to their tyrannical rules.

Parvez also insisted that Muslims should spend more time studyingthe modern sciences instead of wasting their energies on fighting outancient sectarian conflicts or ignoring the true egalitarian andenlightening spirit of the Quran by indulging in multiple rituals handeddown to them by ancient ulema, clerics and compilers of the hadith.

Understandably, Parvez was right away attacked by conservativeIslamic scholars and political outfits.

But this didnt stop famous Muslim philosopher and poet, MuhammadIqbal, to befriend the young scholar and then introduce him to thefuture founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Jinnah appointed Parvez to edit a magazine, Talu-e-Islam. It was set-up to propagate the creation of a separate Muslim country and to also

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answer the attacks that Jinnahs All India Muslim League had begunto face from conservative Islamic parties and ulema who accused theLeague of being a pseudo-Muslim organisation and Jinnah for beingtoo westernised and lacking correct Islamic behavior.

Apart from continuing to author books and commentaries on theQuran, Parvez wrote a series of articles in Talu-e-Islam thatpropagated a more socialistic view of the holy book.

In a series of essays for the magazine he used verses from theQuran, incidents from the faiths history and insights from the writingsof Muhammad Iqbal to claim:

The clergy and conservative ulema have hijacked Islam.

They are agents of the rich people and promoters of uncontrolledCapitalism.

Socialism best enforces Quranic dictums on property, justice anddistribution of wealth.

Islams main mission was the eradication of all injustices and crueltiesfrom society. It was a socio-economic movement, and the Prophetwas a leader seeking to put an end to the capitalist exploitation of theQuraysh merchants and the corrupt bureaucracy of Byzantium andPersia.

According to the Quran, Muslims have three main responsibilities:seeing, hearing and sensing through the agency of the mind.Consequently, real knowledge is based on empirically verifiableobservation, or through the role of science.

Poverty is the punishment of God and deserved by those who ignorescience.

In Muslim/Islamic societies, science, as well as agrarian reformshould play leading roles in developing an industrialised economy.

A socialist path is a correction of the medieval distortion of Islamthrough Sharia.

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Parvez joined the government after the creation of Pakistan in 1947,but after Jinnahs death in 1948, he was sidelined until he resignedfrom his post in 1956.

Another scholar at the time who was using Iqbals writings on Islamand the Quran to formulate Islamic Socialism in South Asia was Dr.Khalifa Abdul Hakim.

A philosopher, author and a huge admirer of Muhammad Iqbal,Khalifa ventured into the ideological territory of Islamic Socialism later than Ghulam Parvez.

A keen student of Islam (especially Sufism), Khalifa, after getting his

PhD from the Heidelberg University in Germany, authored a number of books on Iqbals philosophy, Islamic thought, Jallaluddin Rumi(Sufi poet and writer), and also translated the Hindu holy book, theBhagwat Gita, into Urdu.

It was after the creation of Pakistan that Khalifa began to seriouslystudy Marxism and what it meant to a young third world country likePakistan.

In his 1951 books, Islam and Communism and Iqbal Aur Mullah,Khalifa saw Islamic Socialism as harnessing the freedom of thought,action and enterprise characteristic of Western democracies bycreating opportunities for all.

Like most Islamic Socialists of his era, Khalifa too was basicallyexplaining Islamic Socialism to be a kind of spiritual and theisticconcept of the social democratic welfare state enacted in variousWestern countries.

In Islam and Communism, Khalifa sees land as being the principlesource of economic wealth and thus the moral basis for agrarianreforms in Pakistan.

Apart from Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, most other Islamic Socialistthinkers discussed above, though thoroughly critiquingMarxism/Socialism on the basis of Quranic teachings and listing

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similarities and differences between the two, say little about exactlyhow much a role should a government and state play in matters of faith in societies run on the ideology and economic system prescribedby Islamic Socialism.

Parvez quite clearly suggests that an Islamic Socialist society run onthe laws and economics derived from rational interpretations of theQuran and modern scientific thought would inherently becomeresponsible, law-abiding, egalitarian and enlightened and would notrequire the state to play the role of a moral guide.

In other words, Islamic Socialist policies guarantee a progressive andnon-theocratic (if not entirely secular) Muslim majority state where thecitizens are enlightened enough to make their own moral choices,

and where the state sticks to looking after the citizens economicinterests and needs and delivering justice.

It is within these two main areas where the state can evoke rationaland modernistic interpretations of the Quran, especially those versesdealing with property rights, Zakat, justice and the rights of women.

In the Middle East, Islamic Socialism evolved into becoming a morenationalistic and revolutionary idea, mainly due to the creation of Israel (in 1948) and the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians fromthe area.

A Christian Syrian philosopher and Arab nationalist, Michel Aflaq, isremembered to be the originator of the Middle Eastern strain of Islamic Socialism that expressed itself as Arab Socialism and BaathSocialism.

Born into an Arab Christian family, Aflaq became a communist atcollege and university, but broke away from the communists toformulate a radical and new Arab nationalist philosophy with another young Syrian, Salah ad-Din al-Bitar.

After studying the steady economic and political decline of the Arabpeoples around the world, Aflaq and Bitar advocated the creation of aunited Arab state.

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For this they recasted Arab nationalism by infusing into it a heavydose of socialist economic ideas, progressive cultural and socialoutlook, and by reworking the idea of Islam inherent in it by evokingQurans revolutionary spirit to counter injustice and inequality butseparating Islam (as an organised faith) from the matters of the state.

Aflaq and Bitar claimed that this would lead to a renaissance in the Arab world, turning it into an economic and political power.

Their emphasis on the word renaissance (which in Arabic is Al-Baath), gave birth to the term Baath Socialism, and soon both

Aflaq and Bitar set out to define exactly how this form of socialismworks.

Baath Socialism appealed to the unity of all Arab nations on thebasis of language/culture (Arab) and on the faith most Arabs followed(Islam).

It suggested that the Arab nations were being undermined by fiveforces: European colonialism (driven by capitalism); SovietCommunism; decadent monarchies in Arab countries; Islamicconservatism within Arab societies; and the clergy and the ulema whowere keeping these societies in the clutches of backwardness.

Baath Socialism offered a path between Western capitalism andSoviet communism by suggesting that all Arab nations come together as one state under a single vanguard party of Arab nationalists whowould impose socialist economic policies, modernise society througheducation, science and culture, separate religion from the state butcontinue being inspired by the egalitarian concepts of Islam thatwould remain to be the faith of a majority of citizens in the united Arabstate.

In spite of being staunchly secular, Baath Socialism celebrated Islamas proof of Arab genius, and a testament of Arab culture, values andthought.

Song and Dance: The Middle East and Africa

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Baath Socialism seemed to have arrived at a ripe moment in modern Arab history because from 1940s onwards a number of anti-colonialmovements in Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Syria were all beinglead by outfits declaring themselves to be adherents of ArabSocialism.

In 1948, a young military Colonel in Egypt, Gammal Abdel Nasser,formed the clandestine Free Officers Movement.

The group consisted of Egyptian army officers driven by the ideas of Arab Socialism/Baath Socialism.

In 1952 the movement overthrew Egypts pro-British monarchy in acoup and declared Egypt to be an independent Arab Socialist

Republic.

Interestingly, the Free Officers Movement and coup were initiallysupported by the anti-colonial right-wing religious group, the MuslimBrotherhood.

But once Nasser began unfolding his policies to modernise theEgyptian economy and society, and claimed that Islam was bestserved when practiced in private, the Muslim Brotherhood turnedagainst his regime.

In 1954 it tried to assassinate Nasser who responded by unleashing abrutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the conservativeclergy.

Inspired by Nasser, a group of young officers in Iraq successfullyoverthrew the Iraqi monarchy in 1958. Though the new regime atonce declared Iraq to be a republic, it did not form an Arab SocialistParty like Nasser.

That changed when in a counter coup (in 1963) another group of officers took over and formed the Iraq Baath Socialist Party. But thesituation remained fluent and by 1966 the Baath Socialists wereousted in a coup only to return and stabilise their power in 1968.

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Baath Socialism became Iraqs central ideology and the BaathSocialist Party the countrys ruling outfit. This party and ideology inIraq would last till 2003 until the fall of its last main man SaddamHussein in 2003.

Ever since its independence in 1949, Syria had been in turmoil andwitnessed a number of coups most of which were backed andplanned by the Syrian Baath Socialist Party.

In 1956, Syria also became one of the first Arab countries to enter theSoviet camp as opposed to the American camp. Nassers Egyptsoon followed Syrias lead and signed various defense, economic andcultural pacts with the Soviet Union.

To fully realise Arab/Baath Socialisms main doctrinal thrust of enacting a united Arab nation, in 1958 Syria and Egypt merged tobecome the United Arab Republic (UAR).

The experiment was a disaster as the Syrian side thought Nasser was undermining Syrian interests. The union was dissolved when theBaath Socialist Party in Syria engineered another coup in 1961.

Till 1970, Syrian politics was caught in a tense tussle between theradical and moderate factions of the Baath Socialist Party until theparty and government were taken over by Hafizul Asad, an ArmyGeneral.

Asad, an Alawite Muslim a breakaway Shia Muslim sect would goon to stabilize Syria and rule as dictator till his death in 2000.

Under him the Baath Socialist Party and regime became the moststable, as well as radical in any Arab country.

In Algeria during that countrys nationalist struggle against Frenchcolonialism that began to peak in the 1950s, the movements mainoutfit the Organisation Spciale (Special Organisation) began to bedrawn towards the liberation philosophy of Arab/Baath Socialism.

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In 1954 The Special Organisation merged with various small left-wingnationalist groups and guerilla organisations to form the NationalLiberation Front (or the FLN Front de Libration Nationale) thatbecame the largest nationalist outfit during the Algerian liberationmovement against French colonialists.

Thousands of Algerians and French died between 1954 and 1962 inthe war. When the French finally agreed to leave Algeria in 1962, theFLN became the first ruling party of independent Algeria.

Right away tensions emerged between FLNs radical leader, AhmedBen Bella and the more moderate, Houari Boumedienne. In 1965Boumedienne, with the help of the newly formed Algerian army,toppled Ben Bella in a coup and became Algerias second head of

state.

He outlawed all other political parties, made FLN the sole ruling partyof Algeria, initiated a number of socialist economic polices, andcracked down on Islamist and conservative religious groups.

But unlike Arab Socialists in Iraq, Syria and Egypt, Boumedienne didnot aggressively push his country into the Soviet sphere of influence.He was, however, equally vocal in his criticism of pro-US Arabmonarchies, Israel, Islamists and capitalism.

During the height of a civil war (between Egypt-backed nationalistsand Saudi-supported monarchists) and anti-colonial movement(against the British forces) in the northern part of Yemen, the twomain outfits leading the nationalist movement were the YemeniNational Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY).

Both the political and guerilla groups were steeped in Arab Socialismand were being led by Marxists.

When the fighting spilled into the South of the country it intensified, somuch so that the NLF and FLOSY began to attack each another inspite of the fact that both were inspired by Nassers Arab Socialismand were being operated by Marxists.

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In 1967, NLF and FLOSY defeated the monarchists and drove out theBritish from the south. NLF then went on to crush the FLOSY anddeclared the south as an independent republic.

In 1970, NLF named South Yemen as the Peoples DemocraticRepublic of Yemen and formed the countrys sole ruling party, theYemeni Socialist Party.

The party right away signed defense, cultural and economic pactswith communist regimes in Soviet Union, China and Cuba.

North Yemen fell into the hands of forces being backed and fundedby Saudi Arabia and the US.

In Libya another admirer of Arab Socialism and Nasser, ColonelMuammar Qadhafi, replicated Egypts Free Officers Movement andoverthrew the Libyan monarchy in a coup in 1969.

In 1971, he formed the Arab Socialist Union (to be Libyas sole rulingparty), unleashed various radical socialist policies, and signeddefense and economic pacts with the Soviet Union.

Though vehemently opposed to pro-US Arab monarchies (especiallySaudi Arabia), and a close ally of the Soviet Union, Qadhafis Libya,unlike other Arab Socialist regimes of the time, began temperingLibyas version of Islamic Socialism by paralleling an anti-Islamistpolicy with certain puritanical initiatives that saw the outlawing of thesale and consumption of alcohol, closure of nightclubs and acrackdown on Marxists in universities and colleges.

In 1976 he published a book (called the Green Book) in which hedescribed his understanding of Islamic Socialism. The book becamea compulsory read for school and college students.

After engulfing Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Libya, versions of Arab/BaathSocialism made their way into other Muslim countries like Sudan andSomalia as well.

Sudan gained its independence from Britain in 1956. Between 1957and 1969, the country experienced a turbulent period of

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democratically elected right-wing coalition governments and onemilitary coup (1958).

In 1969, a military coup shaped on the dynamics of Nassers FreeOfficers Movement took power.

The movement and coup were led by Gaafar Nimeiry, a self-professed Arab Socialist and Nasser enthusiast.

On assuming power, Nimeiry announced his plan to base thecountrys society, politics and economics on independent SudaneseSocialism.

The Nimeiry regimes first cabinet included a number of communists

who helped him devise and implement a series of socialisticeconomic policies.

He also devised policies to restrict intervention and influence of conservative Islamic elements in the workings of the mosques andeducational institutions, suggesting that Islam was best served whenpracticed in private.

Nimeiry struck strong relations with Arab Socialist regimes in Libya,Egypt, Syria and Iraq and with the Soviet Union.

Perturbed by the Nimeiry regimes strong socialist and secular orientation, various right-wing Islamist outfits merged to form the

Ansar. After failing to dislodge the regime, the Ansar (in 1971) tookup arms and went to war with government forces.

In a bloody battle that followed, the Ansar were routed and its leader escaped abroad. In 1971, Nimeiry formed the Sudan Socialist Union(SSU) that became Sudans sole ruling party.

He described Sudan to be a Socialist Democracy in which Islamplayed a central but private role and was not to be mixed with politicsand government.

Somalia gained independence from European colonial rule in 1960.In 1969, the military under Major General Mohamed Siad Barre pulled

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off a military coup and dissolved the parliament and suspended theSupreme Court.

Barre at once rolled out a series of socialist economic policies and aliteracy program that dramatically increased the countrys literacyrate.

Apart from taking Somalia into the Soviet camp, Barre also forgedstrong links with Arab Socialist states. He then formed the SomaliRevolutionary Socialist Party and based its manifesto on scientificsocialism and the egalitarian tenants of Islam.

Apart from putting large agrarian and industrial interests in the handsof the state, the Barre regime also took control of the mosques and

actively discouraged the mixing of Islam and politics.

An Islamic Socialist tendency in the politics of Iran had also begun todevelop from 1950 onwards. The secular and democratic NationalFront founded by Mohammad Mossadegh consisted of a number of Islamic Socialists.

In 1951, the National Front that was voted in as the leading party inthe Iranian parliament (Iran was a constitutional monarchy), managedto form a government, nationalise Irans oil industry and eventuallyousted the Shah of Iran and declared the country to be a democraticrepublic.

However, in 1953, the Shah, with the help of British and Americanintelligence agencies, the Iranian military and sections of IransIslamic clergy, engineered a coup and toppled the Mossadeghgovernment.

After Mossadeghs fall, Islamic Socialism in Iran took a more radicalturn. In 1965, a group of leftist students at the Tehran Universityformed the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MK).

Taking its inspiration from Iranian intellectual and author, Ali Shariati,MK advocated an ideology that fused Islamic imagery with Marxistconcepts.

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Shariati was a sociologist who had studied in Paris and was jailed for his anti-Shah lectures and writings when he returned to Iran in 1964.

Shariatis writings and talks became popular among university andcollege students when he began to express revolutionary Marxistconcepts with the help of traditional Shia Muslim imagery andlanguage, intensely attacking not only the Iranian monarchy, but theShia clergy and the communists as well.

By 1971, the Shahs regime had begun to denounce him as anIslamic Marxist and a Soviet agent. He was arrested and forced intoexile in 1975 where he died of a heart attack (in 1977) aged just 43.

The MK expressed Shariatis ideas in a violent manner and began an

urban armed guerilla campaign against the Shah.

The organisation also played an active role during the 1979 IranianRevolution that toppled the Shah so much so that forces supportingIranian Islamist leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, relied heavily on thearmed cadres of MK to confront the Shahs soldiers and police.

But after the revolution when the Iranian Islamists and the clergymanaged to seize the government and impose strict Islamic laws,the MK began an urban guerilla movement against the Islamicregime.

Denouncing the regime as being autocratic and reactionary, the MKfought the regimes Islamic guards and the police. Hundreds died inthe battles and dozens of MK members were executed.

East and South Asia

In Indonesia the groundwork for Islamic Socialism was undertaken byformer communist, Tan Malaka.

During the Indonesians movement for independence from Dutchcolonialists (mainly led by Kosno Sukarno), Malaka argued stronglythat communism and Islam were compatible, and that, in Indonesia,revolution should be built upon both.

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Tan Malaka also saw Islam as holding the potential for unifying theworking classes.

At the time of Malakas death in 1949 (the year Indonesia became anindependent country), its first head of state, Kosno Sukarno, adoptedmany of Malakas ideas by granting patronage to Indonesiascommunist party (the PKI) and Islamic Socialists inspired by Malaka.

Sukarno ruled Indonesia till 1967.

Another Asian country where the idea and concept of IslamicSocialism managed to seep into mainstream imagination wasPakistan.

As mentioned earlier, two of the earliest scholars who had theorisedabout this concept (in South Asia) were Ghulam Ahmad Parvez andDr. Khalifa Hakim.

There was also a string of Islamic Socialists in Pakistans founder,Muhammad Ali Jinnahs Muslim League that became Pakistans firstruling party after the creation of the country in 1947.

However, this section in the party remained on the fringes.

In the early 1960s (during the secular and pro-US military dictatorshipof Ayub Khan), a group of intellectuals led by poet, painter andauthor, Hanif Ramay, emerged in Lahore and began working ongiving a more focused look to the Islamic Socialist ideas of Parvezand Khalifa, and to also fuse in elements from Baath Socialism in thecontext of a non-Arab Muslim country like Pakistan.

The project also included the publishing of a monthly Urdu literarymagazine called Nusrat that, apart from publishing Urdu poetry,short stories and literary commentaries on the works of Urdu poetsand writers, also ran pieces on the works of Ghulam Ahmed Parvez,Dr. Khalifa and Michal Aflaq.

After the 1965 Pakistan-India war ended in a stalemate, Ayub Khandismissed his young Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (for showingdissent).

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Bhutto befriended a retired bureaucrat and veteran Marxist ideologue,J A. Rahim, and both decided to form a populist left-wing party tochallenge the Ayub dictatorship.

In 1966, Bhutto also came into contact with Hanif Ramay whopresented him his groups work on Islamic Socialism.

Bhutto and Rahim formed the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967. A number of Marxist and progressive intellectuals, journalists, studentleaders and trade unionists joined the party, but it was RamaysIslamic Socialist group who prevailed when the time came to author the partys manifesto.

In a series of articles (by Ramay and Safdar Mir) in Nusrat, thewriters explained (the PPPs) Islamic Socialism as meaning:

Elimination of feudalism.Elimination of uncontrolled capitalism and the encouragement of a

system based on freedom of opportunity and/or an economic systemclosely monitored by the government and the state.

Nationalisation of major banks, industries and schools.Encouraging the workers to participate in the running of factories.Promoting democracy and the building of democratic institutions.

All this was then explained to be a modern, 20th Century extension of the principals of equality and justice as practiced by the first Muslimregime in Madina and Mecca headed by Islams Prophet, and of themany egalitarian economic and social proclamations found in theHoly Quran.

PPPs Islamic Socialism denounced the conservative religious partiesand the clergy of being representatives of monopolist capitalists,feudal lords, military dictators, the imperialist forces of capitalism,and of being agents of backwardness and social and spiritualstagnation.

In spite of the fact that the right-wing Islamic party, the Jamat-i-Islami,managed to get over a hundred different Islamic ulema and

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clergymen to declare PPPs socialism to be atheistic and anti-Islam,the party managed to sweep the 1970 elections in West Pakistan.

In 1972 (after East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh), thePPP became Pakistans first popularly elected governing party.

Afghanistan was the country where the last hurrah of IslamicSocialism echoed.

In 1978, the communist Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Afghanistan toppled the nationalistic dictatorship of MuhammadDaoud Khan with the help of sympathetic officers in the Afghanmilitary.

The event was named the Saur Revolution; or the SpringRevolution (Saur in Dari means spring).

The PDP was an outright Marxist outfit that began to rapidly unfold anumber of communistic social and economic policies.

But when the PDP regime began facing resistance and resentmentfrom the Afghan clergy and landed elite in the countrys rural andsemi-rural areas, its ally, the Soviet Union, asked the PDP regime toslow down its Marxist reforms.

PDP quickly began to shed off its revolutionary Marxist excesses andreplace them with rhetoric being used at the time by Islamic Socialistsand the Baath Socialists.

For example, apart from constantly quoting Marx and Lenin, the PDPgovernment also began talking about the similarities between theeconomic systems outlined by Marxism/Socialism and Islam.

Nevertheless, in December 1979, severe infighting in PDP saw theSoviet troops walking into Afghanistan and propping up a moremoderate regime led by PDPs Babrak Karmal.Flag of the Khalaq faction of the PDP.

Flag of the Khalaq faction of the PDP.

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Decline and Demise

The outbreak of a range of movements, coups and revolutionsassociated with various versions of Islamic Socialism in Asia, Africaand the Middle East not only attracted grave concern from Arabmonarchies and the US, the economic maneuvers undertaken byregimes fusing socialism with certain aspects of Islam largely failed toachieve the kind of economic equilibrium they had promised.

One of the first examples of the above was played out in Indonesia.On the eve of Indonesias independence (from the Dutch) in 1949,Kusono Sukarno, had become head of state.

He moved Indonesia towards what he called guided democracy that

was largely dominated by his own party, the Indonesian NationalParty (PNI), and the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).

Sukarno and his PNI offered and ran Indonesia on an ideology basedon a threefold blend i.e. nationalism, Islam and communism.

But on his way to translate this ideology into the economic and socialspheres of the Indonesian society, he began to face stiff resistancefrom Islamic outfits and from those segments of the military thatwanted Indonesia to have closer links with the US and the West.

From 1960 onwards, Indonesias economic situation began toworsen. In 1965 Sukarnos communist supporters (the PKI) becamedisillusioned by his slow pace of reform.

The communists mobilised a pro-PKI faction in the military andattempted a coup against Sukarno.

The coup was crushed by the pro-West faction of the military andfollowed by a brutal crackdown against the communists and their sympathisers.

In the ensuing violence, over 50,000 people were slaughtered, mainlyby the military and the Islamic outfits that it used to purge the left.

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In 1967 Major General Suharto disposed Sukarno and took over thereigns of power.

Though PKI was outlawed, and Suhartho navigated Indonesiatowards the US camp, he eventually came down hard on the Islamicoutfits as well that had been mobilised by the military to crush thecommunist uprising.

A communist student at the Jakarta University being roughed up bysoldiers and Islamic student activists during the militarys purgeagainst leftists in Indonesia in 1965.

A communist student at the Jakarta University being roughed up bysoldiers and Islamic student activists during the militarys purgeagainst leftists in Indonesia in 1965.

The second major setback that Islamic Socialism experienced was inEgypt.

Nasser had ruled supreme as a popular head of state since 1952sFree Officers Coup and had rung in a number of sweeping socialistreforms.

His regime also became an inspiration and backer of various ArabSocialist movements in the Middle East, offering a socialist andsecular Muslim alternative to Arab peoples under pro-US butpuritanical Arab monarchies.

However, Nasser lost much of his influence and clout when theEgyptian armed forces were routed by the Israeli army and air forcein 1967.

But Nassers regime remained largely popular till his death from aheart attack in 1970.

His successor (and former comrade), Anwar Sadat, became the headof Egypts Arab Socialist Union and the countrys new head of state.

Sadat continued Nassers socialist policies and also kept up Egyptsfinancial and moral support for radical Arab Socialist regimes andmovements and the PLO.

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However, though the 1973 Egypt-Israel War ended in a stalemate,the countrys economy was found reeling from the wars impact.

Saudi Arabia offered to bail out Egypts economy by offering millionsof dollars worth of aid and oil.

By accepting Saudi help, Sadat officially restored relations with theSaudi monarchy that had been severed by Nasser.

The Saudi monarchy then asked Sadat to rehabilitate thousands of members of the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood who had been jailedby Nasser or sent into exile (mostly to Saudi Arabia).

Sadat lifted the ban on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 1974, Sadat eventually decided to pull Egypt out of the Sovietcamp and ordered Soviet military advisors, technicians and citizenswho had been stationed in Egypt to leave the country.

In 1976, Sadat finally announced the end of Egypts socialistexperiment and in 1977 changed the name of Egypts ruling partyfrom Arab Socialist Union to National Democratic Party.

He ousted the last remnants of Arab Socialism from the party andordered a crackdown on students and members of the intelligentsiawho opposed his move.

Though Egypt remained largely secular, and Sadat managed to gainthe support of the Muslim Brotherhood (whom he used to purge leftiststudents and members of the intelligentsia), he ended up offendingthe Brotherhood as well when he decided to enact ties witharchenemy, Israel.

Sadat was assassinated in 1981 for this by a militant faction of theBrotherhood. But his successor, Hosni Mubarak, continued hispolicies for the next three decades until he was toppled in 2011 in awidespread democratic revolution (the Arab Spring).

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Taking Sadats lead was Pakistans ruling Pakistan Peoples Party(PPP) headed by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The Bhutto regime had been elected (in 1970) on the appeal of thePPPs socialist platform and chants of Islamic Socialism.

Overtaken by the economic crises that hit the world after the 1973Egypt-Israel War, the Bhutto regime toned down its socialist reformsand rhetoric and entered into a number of agreements and pacts withoil-rich gulf monarchies.

Bhutto began by purging the radical left factions within the PPP andthen dished out a number of constitutional concessions to right-wingIslamic parties that were close to Saudi Arabia.

He believed that this way he would be able to appease and neutralisethese parties.

Just before the 1977 election, the words socialism and IslamicSocialism were only minimally used in the PPPs new manifesto.

However, Bhuttos new-found closeness to Middle Easternmonarchies, his purges against the left and his concessions to theIslamic parties failed to stem the emergence of a right-wingmovement against his regime in 1977.

He was eventually toppled in a reactionary military coup led byGeneral Ziaul Haq and then hanged in 1979 through a sham trial.

Algeria traded the socialist path till 1978 or till the death of HouariBoumdienne who had ruled the country since 1965.

Colonel Chadli Bendjedid became the head of the ruling FLN partyand then the new head of state.

In the early 1980s, Bendjedid began to slowly reverseBoumediennes socialist reforms and started negotiations with FLNsIslamic opponents who had been opposed to FLNs Arab Socialismand secularism.

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Though Bendjedid managed to rule Algeria till 1991, his economicreforms that saw Algeria opening up its economy could not curtail thecountrys deteriorating economy and the resultant unrest largely ledby Algerias newly emboldened Islamic parties.

In 1987, Bendjedid almost completely folded FLNs socialist agendaand ideology and began to warm up to the US, the West and the gulf monarchies.

In 1991, the government decided to hold Algerias first multi-partyelection.

However, when municipal elections were won by a group of radicalIslamist parties, the military intervened and postponed the general

election.

The military blamed Bendjedid for unwittingly strengthening theIslamists and putting the countrys secular foundations in danger. Hewas ousted in 1991.

Between 1992 and 2002, Algeria witnessed an intense war betweenIslamists and the military in which thousands of Algerians were killed.

Brutalities took place on both sides. The military killed hundreds of Islamists and their sympathisers, whereas the Islamists slaughterednumerous civilians through suicide attacks, assassinations andbeheadings.

The Islamist insurgency was brought under control and subdued (if not entirely crushed) by the military in 2002.

One of the Muslim countries where socialism did rather well as aneconomic and social initiative was Somalia.

The socialist regime there (that came to power in 1969), managed toguarantee a relatively stable economy and dramatically raised therate of literacy.

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Ansar tried to mobilise some anti-Nimeiry factions in the military tomount a coup but failed.

However, this time Nimeiry agreed to hold negotiations with the Ansar who demanded that he reverse his socialist policies, denounceIslamic Socialism as an atheistic concoction and replace secular rulewith an Islamic one.

Nimeiry released hundreds of Ansar members, moved Sudan closer to the US and in 1981 announced a series of Islamic laws.

He was finally ousted in a military coup in 1985 that was backed byIslamic parties and other anti-Nimeiry outfits.Famous Sudanese Islamist ideologue, Hasan al-Turabi. Turabi

opposed the Nimeiry regime across the 1970s, but became part of the regime when Nimeiry broke off ties with the Soviet Union andimposed a number of Islamic laws in Sudan that were devised byTurabi.

In 1989, when the Soviet Union was bordering on the brink of disintegration and communism was in retreat, the socialist regime inSouth Yemen dissolved itself and joined with North Yemen to remakeYemen into a single country.

In Afghanistan, the PDP regime fell in the hands of US/Saudi/Pakistan-backed and funded Islamic forces in 1989.

The Baath Socialist regime in Iraq and Qadhafis Islamic Socialistgovernment in Libya began to roll back their socialist polices from the1990s onwards.

Achievements

- Ideologically mobilised nationalist movements in Muslim countriescaught between European colonialism, monarchial decadence andconservative ulema.

- Offered a third way between Western/American capitalism andSoviet communism.

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- Wrestled the initiative to interpret the socio-political aspects of Islamfrom the clergy and conservative ulema and radical Islamists.

- Tried to construct an Islamic version (and justification) for secularism.

- Co-opted various Marxist, socialist and progressive strands andentities operating in Muslim countries and got them all on a singleplatform.

- Adopted modern social, political and cultural concepts in Muslimsocieties but discarded these concepts colonial/western legacies.

- Revived the idea of Ijtihad (independent discussion on Islamic law

and faith) that had been repressed in Muslim lands for centuries.

- Highlighted Islam as a progressive, dynamic and rational faith.

- Eschewed differences in Muslim societies on the basis of clans,sects and tribes.

- Showed creativity in designing economic and cultural policies andthen expressed them with the help of progressive interpretations of Islamic texts and imagery.

- Added newer, more progressive dimensions to commentaries andthe study of Islam and its place in society and politics.

- Encouraged the participation of women in the Muslim world to takea direct part in economic, cultural and political aspects of life.

- Emphasised the importance of having high literacy rates.

- Gave a political identity to middle-class youth and a sense of economic and ideological participation to the working classes.

Failures

- Remained autocratic and undemocratic in nature.

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- Relied heavily on the military.

- Undermined the peoples political sense and rights.

- Was intolerant towards opposing political and economic ideas.

- Was too militaristic and yet failed over and over again in warsagainst foreign enemies.

- Regularly intervened in matters of other countries.

- Its economic maneuvers remained largely half-baked and carelesslymanaged.

- Though rejected American hegemony and political influence in thename of independent economic and political existence, it banked onSoviet expertise, aid and patronage.

- Violently repressed Islamists and Islamic outfits but then turnedsupportively towards them when deciding to purge opposing leftists.

- Unwittingly recharged Islamist and radical Islamic forces thateventually emerged to offer the Islamic option with the collapse of Islamic Socialism.

Research papers and essays used:

- Islamic Socialism: NA Jawad The Muslim World (1975)

- The Sources & Meaning of Islamic Socialism: F. Rahman Religion& Political Modernization (1974)

- Islamic Economics & Islamic Subeconomy: T. Kuren JSTOR(1995)- The Baath Party: Rise & Metamorphosis: JA Devlin- JSTOR (1985)

- Withered socialism or whether socialism? The radical Arab states aspopulist-corporatist regimes: NN Ayubi Third -World Quarterly(1992)

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- Critical analysis of capitalism, socialism and Islamic economic order:M. Ismail (1982)

- Arab Socialism: A documentary Survey: SA Hanna (1969)

# Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com

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Islamic Socialism a History From Left to Right