Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures

by Asef Bayat

Whether Islam is compatible with democracy is an increasingly asked question, but ultimately a misguided one. In this book, Asef Bayat proposes that democratic ideals have less to do with the essence of any religion than with how it is practiced. He offers a new approach to Islam and democracy, outlining how the social struggles of student organizations, youth and women's groups, the intelligentsia, and other social movements can make Islam democratic. Making Islam Democratic examines in detail those social movements that have used religion to unleash social and political change, either to legitimize authoritarian rule or, in contrast, to construct an inclusive faith that embraces a democratic polity. It provides a fresh analysis of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution—how it has evolved into the pervasive, post-Islamist reform movement of the early twenty-first century, and how it differed from Egypt's religious "passive revolution." Focusing on events from the Iranian Revolution to the current day, with a comparative focus on Islamism, post-Islamism, and active religious expression across the region, Bayat explores the highly contested relationship between religion, politics, and the quotidian in the Middle East. His book provides an important understanding of the great anxiety of our time—the global march of "Muslim rage"—and offers a hopeful picture of a democratic Middle East.

Genres: Politics, Islam, Nonfiction, Middle East, Religion

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2007

About the author

Asef Bayat (Ph.D. University of Kent 1984) (Persian: آصف بیات) is Professor of Sociology and Middle Eastern studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was Professor of Sociology and Middle Eastern studies and held the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He was the Academic Director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and ISIM Chair of Islam and the Modern World at Leiden University from 2003 until 2009.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book provides a workable definition of Islam and Muslims, there are definitely flaws with his theory of Post-Islamism. Also, in order to make his point about the Iranian Revolution, he leaves out the role of Khomeini in the pre-revolutionary buildup.

This book would probably be most interesting to someone with a fairly strong knowledge of the region in order to piece together the parts which are less fully explained.

[Khalil]

Thus far Bayat is tracing the trends within Islamic politics that are following their middle-class origins to their middle-class conclusions in terms of strategy and ideology.

The flaw - and a major one at that - is that Bayat denies any movements by the working class.

[Layla Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Required course reading.

This is my second time reading Asef Bayat. In this book, he compares the trajectories of Iran and Egypt to explain the emergence of what he terms “post-Islamism.” Building on his earlier distinction between Iran as a “revolution without a movement” and Egypt as a “movement without a revolution,” Bayat argues that the different experiences of Islamization in the two countries produced contrasting political outcomes.

In Iran, the establishment of the Islamic Republic after the 1979 Revolution led to a state-led process of Islamization. Following the exhaustion of the Iran–Iraq War and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, reformist figures such as Rafsanjani and Khatami sought to loosen political restrictions and promote greater civic participation. At the same time, youths, women, students, and religious intellectuals pushed for broader civil liberties, pluralism, and democratic reform. Although many of these initiatives were constrained by conservative institutions, especially the system of Vilayat-e Faqih, they generated a significant reformist and post-Islamist discourse.

Egypt followed a different trajectory. Rather than experiencing an Islamic revolution, it witnessed the expansion of a broad Islamic social movement centred on the Muslim Brotherhood and a wider culture of piety. Through mosques, charities, professional syndicates, schools, and informal religious networks, Islamic norms became increasingly influential in everyday life. Although forms of social dissent existed—such as youth subcultures, women's activism, and occasional challenges to religious conservatism—they did not fundamentally challenge the political order in the way that reformist movements did in Iran.

Bayat conceptualizes these developments through the notion of “post-Islamism,” which describes an attempt to reconcile religiosity with democracy, individual rights, pluralism, and republican governance after the limitations of Islamist rule or Islamist projects become apparent. While I find this framework highly persuasive in explaining Iran during the 1990s, its applicability to later developments appears more limited. The Arab Spring revealed both the possibilities and the weaknesses of Bayat’s optimism regarding social movements and gradual normative change. Moreover, the persistence and resurgence of jihadist movements raise important questions about how post-Islamism relates to more radical forms of political Islam.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sociologist Asef Bayat is a professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois. He is also part of the Center for South Asian and Middle East Studies at the University of Illinois. Bayat’s 2007 monograph, Making Islam: Social Movements and Post-Islamist Turn “explores the struggles of multiple movements, movements that construe religion to unleash social and political change, to legitimize authoritarian rule, or, in contrast, to construct an inclusive faith that embraces democracy polity” (Bayat xvii). The monograph was published before the Arab Spring of the early 2010s. The monograph focuses on Egypt and Iran. Bayat believes that there is nothing in a religious doctrine that is not inherently democratic or undemocratic, but that believers shape the meaning of a religious doctrine (Bayat 4-5). The meanings of religious doctrine change over time and in different social structures. An example of how religious doctrine can develop different ways of viewing democracy over time is within Protestant tradition (Bayat 5). The Protestant theologian Martin Luther once wrote ““those who sit in the office of magistrate sit in the place of God, and their judgment is as if God judged from heaven”” (Bayat 5). Around 400 years later, almost no one would label the former American President Jimmy Carter, a devoted Protestant as being undemocratic (Kepel 117). Islam, like Protestantism, can allow for democratic norms if a democratic ideology develops within the context of Islam (Bayat 5-6). To define Post-Islamism, a term Bayat coined, one must define Islamism (Bayat 10). Bayat defines Islamism as a political movement that imagines “Islam as a complete divine system with a superior political model, cultural code, legal structure, and economic arrangement” (Bayat 7). Islamism is often associated with popularism, a version of authoritarian political ideology, and with the marginalization of people who are viewed by Islamists as not being part of their political ideology (Bayat 7). Post-Islamism is defined by Bayat as a political movement that “endeavor to fuse religiosity and rights, faith and freedom, Islam and liberty” (Bayat 11). Post-Islamism involves emphasizing human rights and democracy within an Islamic framework (Bayat 11). Bayat’s Making Islam Democracy is an excellent, older study of the relationship between religion, democracy, and social movements in Egypt and Iran.

Work Cited:
Kepel, Gilles. 1994. The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World. Translated by Alan Branley. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.