Secularizing Islamists?: Jama'at-e-Islami and Jama'at-ud-Da'wa in Urban Pakistan

by Humeira Iqtidar

Secularizing Islamists? provides an in-depth analysis of two Islamist parties in Pakistan, the highly influential Jama‘at-e-Islami and the more militant Jama‘at-ud-Da‘wa, widely blamed for the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Basing her findings on thirteen months of ethnographic work with the two parties in Lahore, Humeira Iqtidar proposes that these Islamists are involuntarily facilitating secularization within Muslim societies, even as they vehemently oppose secularism.

 

This book offers a fine-grained account of the workings of both parties that challenges received ideas about the relationship between the ideology of secularism and the processes of secularization. Iqtidar particularly illuminates the impact of women on Pakistani Islamism, while arguing that these Islamist groups are inadvertently supporting secularization by forcing a critical engagement with the place of religion in public and private life. She highlights the role that competition among Islamists and the focus on the state as the center of their activity plays in assisting secularization. The result is a significant contribution to our understanding of emerging trends in Muslim politics.

 

Genres: Pakistan, Religion, Nonfiction, Politics

232 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2011

Reviews

[Professor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is, at best, an average attempt at drawing parallels between conflicting Islamist ideologies of JD and JI. These parties are separated by chronological context of almost half of a century and more often than not, have ended up---by the agency of their one act or another---politicizing Islam rather than the converse effect of 'Islamization' of politics. I for one, falsely expected this book to be more tilted towards an analytical stance and synthetic discourse rather than a descriptive patchwork of facts and figures. Which is precisely what it isn't,and to make it worse, there is not a single lucid answer to the question place on the cover of the book. Humeira Iqtidar has, in a bid to take no sides in this sociological conflict and has ended up confusing the reader even more.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, and generally readable despite being full of academic asides and lacking a strong coherent organizing structure. Interesting for its discussion of Jamaat-e-Islami's competition with and partial emulation of leftist political organizations in Pakistan, and of the competition and differences between JI and Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Some of the discussion of intersection secularism, liberalism, and Islamism (and of women's role in Islamist organizations) were interesting, although too dense for me to engage much with.