Debating Islamic public identity in the contemporary world: the doctrinal and political issue of takfīr in Saudi Arabia

Laura Morreale – Research proposal Debating Islamic public identity in the contemporary world: the doctrinal and political issue of takfīr in Saudi Arabia Abstract. In the contemporary Muslim world, rightfulness of the governments under Islamic law and ethics has been widely debated. This work aims to analyse how this question has developed in Saudi Arabia, particularly focusing on the most recent history of the country. The consent towards the Saudi rulers has historically been enforced by religious scholars belonging to the Wahhābi movement, who generally enjoy wide reverence among the population. However, there have been as well some voices who have contested State legitimacy under a religious perspective. The most relevant episode where the claimed Islamic nature of the Saudi kingdom has been questioned occurred in correspondence of the Gulf War, when a popular protest movement led by young scholars manifested discontent towards State policies and international relations, deemed contrary to religious principles. From those events onwards, much has been written by Saudi scholars about the relationship between power and Islamic law, and on the related issue of contesting a political authority. A consistent portion of this production has involved the doctrinally-disputed concept of takfīr, namely the accusation of misbelief, which has always caused strife among Muslims. Opposing the State on its religious credentials may involve, implicitly or explicitly, a form of takfīr. For this reason, many scholars have focused on this concept to discourage public manifestations of dissent. However, the controversy is far from over; in fact, many doctrinal aspects have remained object of ambiguity, and subsequent political events have continued to keep the issue relevant. The research intends, therefore, to provide a critical analysis of this wide debate, which appears to have been particularly active in the last decades until the present days. The link between political circumstances and the arguments used in the controversy is the main object of consideration of the study. This necessarily implicates further considerations, especially regarding Islamic identity and heritage in the dominant Wahhābi-Salafi religious discourse, on which the takfīr issue has drawn renewed attention. Therefore, the research seeks to investigate, on the one hand, the relationship with other contemporary Muslim traditions, particularly Islamism close to the Muslim Brotherhood, that the debate on takfīr may allow to remark. On the other hand, it will be highlighted how the ongoing controversy on takfīr has involved a dispute over the meaning of Wahhābi-Salafi identity and history, two elements which continue to be object of reelaborations and divergent interpretations. 1 Laura Morreale – Research proposal Research background Since the classical period, a relevant issue debated by Islamic thinkers has been the role of political authority and the right attitude believers should retain towards rulers, if they do not respect Islamic ethics (El Fadl, 2001). Indeed, discussions on this question have not remained limited to the past. In fact, one of the features of contemporary Islamic thought is the renewed attention reserved by Muslim scholars and groups to issues concerning the legitimacy of governments and the subsequent possibility of opposing them. In Saudi Arabia, this debate has been particularly relevant because of the peculiar nature of the State itself. Lacking other sources of legitimacy, the royal dynasty which detains power in the country has historically based its claim to power on the asserted defence of Islamic values, as articulated by the Wahhābi doctrine (Al-Rasheed, 2010). Allowing religious scholars to control public morals and to manage the juridical and educative national systems, the monarchy has presented its authority as rightfully implementing Islamic law (Commins, 2006; Mouline, 2014). However, as Vogel (2000) points out, the presence of a parallel positive juridical system has led to some tension in the country. In addition to this, discontent towards political choices of the government has led to the formation of a religiously-connotated opposition known as Ṣaḥwa (“Awakening”), which emerged as a protest movement against the Saudi alliance with the US-led coalition in the 1990-91 Gulf War. Analysing the process leading to the creation of dissent, the study of Lacroix (2011) has enhanced the ideological influence on the opposition of figures close to the Muslim Brotherhood, who had previously found refuge in Saudi Arabia from persecution in their home countries. According to Hegghammer (2010), the government’s violent reaction to the emergent opposition paved the way for more radical discourses, explicitly questioning the State’s belonging to Islam. Declaring another Muslim an unbeliever – a practice known as takfīr – has always been a highly controversial concept in Islamic thought (Adang et al., 2016). For this reason, the complex relation between takfīr and the Wahhābi tradition is subject to different interpretations. While some maintain that takfīr of political authorities is the necessary outcome of a strict following of Wahhābi principles (Al-Ibrahim, 2015), many Saudi religious scholars consider takfīr of the rulers as a deviation from Salafi teachings. In this context, the support of renewed scholars, mostly members of religious national institutions, was key in promoting a doctrinal campaign blaming oppositions to the State as abuses of takfīr (Abū Lūz, 1996). It has been argued that the “foreign” origin of ideologies promoting the use of takfīr against governments has been deliberately overrated by the State in order to easily blame the dissent as alien to traditional Salafi values and inherently violent (Al-Rasheed, 2007). As pointed out by academic studies on Salafi groups (Wiktorowicz, 2006; Wagemakers, 2012), this has resulted in the blurring of the distinction between political and jihadist Salafi currents in the mainstream narrative endorsed by Saudi institutions. Nonetheless, the anti-takfīrī positions so 2 Laura Morreale – Research proposal vehemently expressed in defence of political authorities do not usually correspond to a complete rejection of takfīr in the “official” Saudi-Wahhābi doctrine, which has always been characterized by exclusivism in relation to other traditions. Implicating a certain degree of ambiguity, the public religious debate has remained alive, as interpretations are continuously re-elaborated. However, the huge consideration enjoined by former leading Salafi scholars, together with the difficulty to detect transformations while they are happening, has led most contemporary studies on Salafism to overlook later evolutions of the discourse. Knowledge of these developments needs to be updated in relation to changing regional circumstances. While in other Muslim contexts – particularly after the Arab springs – the debate on civil disobedience has developed in multiple directions, in Saudi Arabia it has apparently remained circumscribed within strictly theological terms, focusing on the concept of takfīr and related issues such as ḫurūğ and bidaʿ (Hassan, 2017). Moreover, after a reconciliation with the Ṣaḥwa leadership in the early 2000s (Alshamsi, 2011), it seems that the State and its religious establishment have lately been targeting again Islamism, discrediting its foundations and labelling it as a takfīrī ideology. This happens in a regional context of competition with Brotherhood-influenced regimes (Darwich, 2016). Nevertheless, the relation between present circumstances and the religiouspolitical production of contemporary Salafi scholars has not been systematically treated in a coherent and detailed study. Description of the research The research aims to constitute a monography on the academically underrated subject of takfīr of the authorities elaborated within Salafi circles involved in the contemporary Saudi context. Intending to develop an exhaustive perspective on the issue, the research will try to answer the following questions: - Which different positions have emerged among contemporary Saudi Salafi scholars on the issue of takfīr and government legitimacy? - How has the national and regional political context of the last decades affected the importance and content of this production? - Have there been interactions and/or reciprocal influence between Saudi Salafism and other non-Saudi contemporary Muslim traditions, especially Islamism, in relation to the discourse on the topic? - In what terms has the debate on takfīr drawn renewed attention on the history of the country and of the Salafi-Wahhābi tradition? In order to answer the research questions, it will be necessary to adopt an interdisciplinary methodology, responding to the composite nature of the work itself. Involving such diverse fields as 3 Laura Morreale – Research proposal law, politics and history, the research should not be limited to a specific approach, but must consider the different components in elaborating an original perspective. Firstly, the work implies a heuristic individuation of primary sources dealing with takfīr, the role of Islamic law and ethics in public policies and the nature of governments, particularly the Saudi one. This means primarily written sources such as books, fatāwā (i.e. nonbinding legal responses in Islamic law), articles and pamphlets. A relevant source of this type could be represented by the sections dedicated to Islamic governance and misbelief inside a publication of responses by the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Iftā’, one of the most important religious institutions in the country (al-Lağna, 2005: 367-474). Other primary sources could be writings entirely dedicated to takfīr (al-Qaḥṭānī 1987; al-Saqār, 2005), books on the relationship between governance and šarīʿa (al-Maḥmūd, 2011), or on the concept of ḫurūğ and its political meaning (alʿAğīrī, 2017). However, also audio-visual sources must be considered, given the huge importance speeches and sermons have in Salafi spread of religious knowledge (da‛wa). While transcript of some speeches on the topic by well-known scholars is already available (al-Fawzān, s.d.; Āl al-Šayḫ, s.d.), other sermons may be considered and their transcript provided for the purpose of the research. Besides traditional forms of communication, contents published through social networks and blogs are also widely used by Salafi scholars and preachers. As they constitute such an important instrument in contemporary da‛wa, these sources will be also included in the research. Most of these will certainly be in Arabic, being the main language of Islamic literature, as well as the official idiom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, since there has been an increment of Salafi websites in English during the last years aimed to a broader spread of religious knowledge, pertinent content drawn from these sources may also be considered. Access to all these materials – written and oral, formal and informal – is not deemed to be particularly difficult, because of the huge presence of online archives and websites aimed at the diffusion of the Islamic-Salafi creed throughout the world. This preliminary operation is intended to present a detailed picture of the literature on takfīr of the authorities, by classifying the sources on the basis of various features of the works and their authors. As they are mostly unknown to a Western public, some of these documents which are particularly insightful for the purpose of this study will eventually be selected for translation. In order to facilitate the understanding of the works translated, I intend to complement them with critical notes, especially needed for explaining occurring expressions related to Islamic law and tradition, qur’anic verses and Prophetic traditions (aḥādīṯ). Besides the search of primary sources, it is important as well to have a broader picture of events and processes which the theological question refers to practically, though often indirectly. This inevitably involves the study of national and regional political circumstances. Accounts from secondary sources belonging to the fields of political sciences, historiography and religious studies 4 Laura Morreale – Research proposal will be integrated with the acquired knowledge of the Salafi production. In this way, I aim to develop a complete and comprehensive perspective on issues that have been decisive in shaping the Saudi religious debate. Assuming that concrete socio-political circumstances are highly influential in how scholars have come to deal with apparently merely-theoretical topics such as takfīr, the research rejects the idea that religious interpretations can be evaluated as manifestations of purely theological concerns, independently from the context in which they are produced. Knowledge of the context will therefore constitute the basis for comparing the amount of works on takfīr and legitimacy of governments elaborated in different moments of Saudi history, assessing convergences and differences in their approach, arguments used and style. It is known that some events in the contemporary history of the country – namely the Iḫwānī rebellion in the ’20s, the siege of the Sacred Mosque in 1979 and the Ṣaḥwa social movement in the ’90s – have involved controversies over the Islamic nature of the Saudi government. Consequently, the research will try to assess how these events have impacted contextual doctrinal elaborations on the issue. However, my study will focus particularly on the last two decades, which appear to be the most under-studied of Saudi history, being obviously the most recent. At the same time, these decades have evidently been a moment of particular importance for the development of the debate on takfīr, as the considerable production on related topics published in recent years seems to suggest. Notably, the escalation of violence between the 1990s and the 2000s has been a crucial moment in this sense, boosting the reflections on the legitimacy of the government and polarizing the national public opinion. Popular demonstration against regimes throughout the Arab world in development 2011, perceived as a danger by the Saudi family, are also supposed to have had an impact on the issue, re-opening and possibly re-shaping the debate over the Islamic credentials of governments and the validity of pronouncing takfīr against them. Later developments need as well to be analysed in relation to the question. Attention will be reserved, on the one hand, to the recent shift in balance of power inside the Saudi government, that may have had some effects on religious scholars’ attitudes towards the issue. On the other hand, the increased regional rivalry with Islamist regimes and movements will also be particularly considered in relation to the debate on takfīr. This last point leads us to the third research question, namely the way Saudi Salafists have dealt with other thinkers’ positions on takfīr and the legitimacy of contemporary governments. Disputes internal to Salafism have been partly explored: it is well known that Salafi-jihadism has often been categorised by quietist Salafism – but not only – as a neo-Kharijite (ar. Ḫawāriğ) ideology, because of its wide and allegedly illegitimate use of takfīr. The usage of this label in reference to Saḥwa Islamism, insisting on its relation with Sayyid Quṭb’s ideology, is also well-documented (Wiktorowicz, 2006; Wagemakers, 2012). However, to my knowledge, an extensive comparative 5 Laura Morreale – Research proposal study with non-Saudi-related discourse on takfīr has not yet been conducted. Because of the abovementioned contemporary rivalry, a similar comparison will be particularly interesting in relation to Islamist tradition close to the Muslim Brotherhood views. The fact that Saudi institutional figures – both religious and laymen – have often enhanced the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on contesting attitudes towards the regime further suggests that a comparative analysis of this kind could be interesting. Therefore, after having thoroughly described how Saudi scholars have dealt with takfīr in relation to political power, a section of the research will be concentrated on the comparative dimension. This means, in the first place, documenting some contemporary Islamist leading figures’ approach to the issue. For example, well-known thinkers such as al-Qaraḍāwī (1990) and ʿImāra (2007) have dealt with the topic of takfīr. Knowledge of their thought aims to assess, in a second phase, whether and how Saudi Salafism has interacted with it – both in a hostile or conciliating perspective, depending on the position of individual scholars in the Salafi spectrum. This section of the study is deemed to contribute, from an under-explored perspective, to the analysis of one of the major features of contemporary politics of the region, by observing it through the lenses of religious narratives. Should other significant traditions emerge during the research as important interlocutors of Saudi Salafism in the debate on takfīr, the analysis is obviously prepared to explore new directions. Events of the last decades concerning challenges to the Islamic legitimacy of the Saudi government and the use of takfīr have also generated significant reflections on the history of the country, necessarily involving evaluations on the Salafi-Wahhābi tradition as well. Numerous studies and opinions, both from Western and Muslim scholars, have described authors of the Salafi-Wahhābi tradition, especially Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and his disciples, but also the medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyya, as having laid the foundation of modern takfīrī and jihadist ideologies. For this reason, a section of the research will investigate whether and how Saudi scholars have been engaging with re-studying the history of their religious and cultural heritage. Lawfulness under the Islamic law of the concept of takfīr as employed by Salafi pioneers, as well as legitimacy of the nation-building process of the Saudi kingdom, are expected to be the object of mainstream production by Saudi scholars who aim to unburden their country from the accuses of promoting fundamentalism. Examples of works promoting these views could be, respectively, the books of al-Rāšid (2004) and al-‘Aql (2011). Eventual emerging of contesting narratives must also be considered, especially if they insist on the takfīrī nature of the official national ideology. Expected results The research is expected to offer valuable insight into a debated topic, whose implications appear to be particularly significant in the contemporary Muslim world, where balances are continuously changing and controversies on power and its relationship with religion are prominent. As mentioned 6 Laura Morreale – Research proposal above, the importance of the work here proposed relates to several fields of study: history, political sciences, Islamic law and religious studies. In this sense, the research will show how one single question affects multiple dimensions, that contribute to shape the macro-issues of statehood, identity and heritage. An in-depth point of view is much needed to understand Saudi national dynamics and the relationship between religion and power, that seem to be particularly vague to many external observers. By investigating developing trends on a disputed subject in Islamic theology, the work is expected as well to present significant results in relation to the complex Salafist identity and its relationship with other traditions. Moreover, given the twofold nature of the takfīr question (juridical and political), the study will present a further, though partial, insight into the over-debated relationship between Islamic law and political authority in the contemporary world. More specifically, concerning the content itself of the production aimed to be analysed, it is assumed that the conventional partition of Salafism in three major currents – quietists, politicos and jihadis – proposed by Wiktorowicz (2006) continues to be largely indicative of different attitudes towards the issue of takfīr of the government. At the same time, this categorization may not be sufficient to adequately explain the existence of some important ambiguities on interpretations, as well as later transformations occurring in the country, that the knowledge of a large amount of direct and recent sources will allow to remark. Therefore, the contemporary debate on takfīr is deemed to present both continuity of narratives and innovative features related to present circumstances. Finally, by describing how the question has been treated diachronically, the research is deemed to show how the relation between the political class and religious scholars has changed over time, an aspect which is probably destined to be pivotal in defining the future of the country in the near and medium term. Bibliography Abū Lūz, A., 1996. Fitna al-takfīr wa’l ḥukm bi ġayr mā anzala Allāh. Riyadh: Dār al-waṭan li’l-našr Adang, C., Ansari, H., Fierro, M., Schmidtke, S., 2016. Accusations of Unbelief in Islam. A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr. Leiden-Boston: Brill ʿAğīrī, (al-), ʿA., 2017. Al-Munšiqūn: tanqīb ʿan mafhūm al-ḫawāriğ bayn al-tārīḫ wa’l-wāqiʿ. London: Takween Centre Āl al-Šayḫ, S., s.d., Fitna al-ḫawāriğ. Speech at: https://www.youtube.com/watch, transcript at: https://ar.islamway.net/book/480 Al-Ibrahim, B., 2015. ISIS, Wahhabism and Takfir. Contemporary Arab Affairs, 8:3, 408-415 Al-Rasheed, M., 2007. Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation. Cambridge University Press Al-Rasheed, M., 2010. A History of Saudi Arabia. New York: Cambridge University Press Alshamsi, M. J., 2011. Islam and Political Reform in Saudi Arabia. Oxon: Routledge 7 Laura Morreale – Research proposal ʿAql, (al-), N., 2011 (1432H). Islāmiyya lā wahhābiyya. Riyadh: Maktaba al-malik Fahd al-waṭaniyya Commins, D., 2006. The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. London: I.B. Tauris Darwich, M., 2016. The Ontological (In)security of Similarity: Wahhabism Versus Islamism in Saudi Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis, 1-20 El-Fadl, K. A., 2001. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law. New York: Cambridge University Press Fawzān, (al-), S., s.d., Al-takfīr bayn al-ifrāṭ wa’l-tafrīṭ. Speech at: https://www.youtube.com/watch, transcript at: https://ar.islamway.net/book/3087 Hassan, M. H., 2017. Civil Disobedience in Islam: a Contemporary Debate. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan Hegghammer, T., 2010. Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979. Cambrdge University Press ʿImāra, M., 2007. Ṣayḥa naḏīr min fitna al-takfīr. Ismailia: Maktaba al-imām al-Buḫārī li’l-našr wa’ltawzīʿ Lacroix, S., 2011. Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. London: Harvard University Press Lağna, (al-), al-dā’ima li’l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya wa’l-iftā’, 2005. Fatāwā (vol. 1). Riyadh: al-Ri’āsa alʿāmma li’l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya wa’l-iftā’ Maḥmūd, (al-), ʿA., 2011. Al-ḥukm bi ġayr mā anzala Allāh. Riyadh: Dār ṭaiyyba li’l-našr wa’l-tawzīʿ Mouline, N., 2014. The Clerics of Islam. Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia. New Haven-Londra: Yale University Press Qaḥṭānī, (al-), S., 1987. Qaḍiya al-takfīr bayn ahl al-sunna wa firaq al-ḍalāl. Riyadh Qaraḍāwī, (al-), Y., 1990. Ẓāhira al-ġulūw fī al-takfīr. Cairo: Maktaba al-wahiba Rāšid, (al-), A., 2004. Ḍawābiṭ takfīr al-muʿayyin ʿind šayḫay al-islām Ibn Taymiyya wa Ibn ʿAbd alWahhāb wa ʿulamā’ al-daʿwa al-iṣlāḥiyya. Riyadh: Maktaba al-malik Fahd al-waṭaniyya Saqār, (al-), M., 2005. Al-takfīr wa ḍawābītuhu. Rābiṭa al-ʿālam al-islāmī Vogel, F., 2000. Islamic law and legal system: studies of Saudi Arabia. Leiden-Boston: Brill Wagemakers, J., 2012. ‘Seceders’ and ‘Postponers’? An Analysis of the ‘Khawarij’ and ‘Murjiʾa’ Labels in Polemical Debates between Quietists and Jihadi-Salafis. In J. Deol, & Z. Kazmi, Contextualizing Jihadi Thought (p. 145-164). London Wiktorowicz, Q., 2006. Anatomy of the Salafi Movement. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 29.3, 207239 8