ERDOGAN VS GÜLEN: PREDICAMENT OF INDIAN MUSLIMS and Inherent Danger of Political Islam

by rawemotions Sat Apr 29, 2017 10:01 pm

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/erdogan-vs-glen-predicament-of-indian-muslims.html

Excerpts

The Turkish embassy in India has approached many prominent Muslims, Islamic scholars and institutions to mobilise their opinion in favour of the Erdogan Government and to denounce the Gülen movement — a faith-based world-wide Islamic civic social movement. It seems that a dominant section of Islamic and Muslim intelligentsia in India spread across Islamic institutions, universities and media appears to be supportive of at least the Erdogan regime, if not its brutal crackdown and action over the Gülen movement.

What makes a section of Indian Islamic and Muslim scholars and opinion makers lend their support to the Turkish Government? A couple of observations can be made in this regard. First, the Sunni Hanfi Islamic position, the school of law dominantly prevalent in Turkey and in Indian subcontinent, derides any form of Islamic/Muslim opposition — whether real, constructed or imaginary — to “Muslim” Government and hence suppression of such opposition is considered lawful and legitimate act. Second, in Sunni Islamic tradition, the religious authority (ulema) enjoys subordinate position to political authority. The bureaucratisation of ulema is a facet of political life in most of predominantly Sunni Muslim countries, including Turkey. Fateullah Gülen himself was state appointed salaried imam in various public mosques of Turkey for 30 years before moving to the USA. Hence in the ensuing conflict between Erdogan and Gülen, the dominant Sunni Muslim public opinion would rest with the former

:
Finally, the very possibility of revival of Caliphate under the Erdogan regime, which was abolished by the Kemalist regime in 1924, resonates well with section of formally, literate urbanite Muslims of India as it connects them with legacy of the Khilafat movement in early 1920s.

:
Political Islam of all varieties, including Turkish AKP, survives and thrives in the above context with its inherent anti-democratic moorings, though they may champion the modern idea of democracy and secularism for instrumental purposes. None other than AKP signifies this political trajectory of political Islam. Besides, all traditions of political Islam have inherent tendencies to erode internal catholicity (humanism, spiritualism and pluralism) of Islam and transform it into an “object of an identity” and erect an identity marker discourses of Islam as “essential of faith” (such as jehad, ummah, sharia, dawa, etc) with a consequence of contributing to the process of formation of Islamic radicalism and later its degeneration into terrorism depending upon the political context. With his aspiration of becoming a political leader of Muslim world and in view of his Islamically lashed anti-West polarising discourses, Erdogan is fast becoming a source of Islamic radicalism across the Muslim world, a point noted by former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon in his latest work, Choices: Inside Making of India’s Foreign Policy (2016).

by SomeProfile Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:44 pm

ERDOGAN VS GÜLEN: PREDICAMENT OF INDIAN MUSLIMS and Inherent Danger of Political Islam

ERDOGAN VS GÜLEN: PREDICAMENT OF INDIAN MUSLIMS and Inherent Danger of Political Islam

Re: ERDOGAN VS GÜLEN: PREDICAMENT OF INDIAN MUSLIMS and Inherent Danger of Political Islam