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@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 1) You are right Quentin to caution such an approach, whoever we cannot also dismiss it because the affinities & interlinkages in theology & political between the more violent purveyors of Islamism and the grandmaster of Islamism itself, the MB, are also present and discernible.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 2) There is also a discernible linkage between Wahhabism/Salafism with the MB, in that both share an underlying theological understanding of vital elements of what constitutes Islam, and this affinity at the theological level (setting aside politics for now) explains much.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 3) Here what I mean is that Salafi groups and MB groups at local and national levels have since the 70s been able to cooperate easily in multifaceted ways not just because of pragmatic reasons but because they shared certain theological view of what Islam constituted essentially.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 4) Some of these vital shared notions are for example: a) interpretation of scripture without recourse to an interpretative tradition (the sola scriptura principle makes Salafism akin to Protestantism); b) rejection of the 4 school of jurisprudence (or accepting only the Hanbali)
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal ... which reduced the wealth of legal resources necessary for ethical rulings based on a long historical and wide geographical accumulated experience from Morocco to China; c) rejection of key sciences of the Islamic civilisation such as Kalam, Philosophy, Sufism, and even Logic.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal These sciences were deemed unIslamic or foreign, even though they were fundamental pillars for the flourishing the Islamic/Muslim civilisation; and d) the rejection of Sufism which was an essential component for spiritual and psychological advancement.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 5) The omission of an interpretative tradition, critical for sound hermeneutics to ensure that Qur'anic interpretation did not turn extreme, along with the disciplines necessary for religious ethics, and for the mind and the heart, made the fusion been Salafism & Islamism easier.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 6) Both Salafism and Islamism share this religious infrastructure and this is why most Islamists, including the more violent ones profess Wahhabi creeds as detailed by Muhammad Abd Al-Wahhab. And this is why if we observe how both of these groups engage so easily at the local
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal levels in Libya, UK, France, Pakistan, Jordan, etc, often intermarrying, sharing similar pedagogical literature, even sharing institutions and projects. This is particularly true in the way Salafi groups together with MB, Jamiat al Islami, & Ahl Hadith have worked with each other
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 7) But this is at the basic level. Islamism developed a political framework upon this shared infrastructure and a particular political perspective and its usage of religious text and symbols by Al Banna, Qutb, Mawdudi, and later thinkers like Turabi, Ghannousi, Qaradawi etc.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 8) It is this perspective that immediately influenced and radicalised groups which already followed Salafi theological assumptions, but which in their encounter with Islamism left their pacifism (which Salafism has been mostly) for a takfiri and violent ethos of political action.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 9) There is a third trend, and that is also one that contributed to the growth of Islamism in Saudi pre-2011, and that is the line theological line of Afghani/Abduh/Rida, all which had ideas that dovetailed with Salafi principles of anti-tradition, etc.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 10) This latter trends was seemingly more intellectual but it quickly merged with Salafism and Islamism of the MB variety in the Saudi of the 80s and 90s. What this trilateral fusion created was a peculiar form of interlinked activities and structures that are hard to unpack.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 11) The rupture between Salafism & Islamism in Saudi, became formal post 2011 and the understanding of how Islamism had influenced key nodes of religious authority. This rupture was essential to distinguish Salafism from the Takfiri trends promoting violence in Saudi & abroad.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 12) That Saudi is developing, critically engaging, and reformulating Salafism is a welcome development and important for modern trajectory of the country. This complete distinction however between Salafism and Islamism/Takfirism and its not always clear cut as we may wish to be.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 13) At least not at the moment. Meanwhile, Islamism continues to be the main ideological driver of religious militancy & takfirism that leads to violence and terrorism. If in any doubt then look at Libya and how the "moderate" MB colludes so easily with violent jihadi groups.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 14) For us working in Libyan affairs this is clear, but we can see how those same patterns of collusion are so symbiotic given the shared theological and political ecosystem and how the pattern repeats also in Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, and even in the UK.
@qdepim @burweila @tmafaisal 15) My apologies to all in this thread for taking so much space to articulate this but we cannot understand modern trends without knowing theological history very well, and neither can we understand the present without understanding how new political mutations fuse with theology.
