islamic socialism

7/27/2019 Islamic Socialism

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Islamic Socialism: A history fromleft to rightNADEEM F. PARACHA

Between the 1950s and early 1970s, a powerful ideology in the Muslim world

galvanised itself from the minds and fringes of modern Islamic intellectualism

and made its way into the mainstream political arena.

But this ideology did not have a single originator. Its roots can be found

amongst the works of Muslim thinkers and ideologues in South and East Asia,

Africa and in various Middle Eastern (Arab) countries.

Also, once it began being adopted by mainstream leaders and political outfits,

it was expressed through multiple names. But today, each one of these names

and terms are slotted under a single definitional umbrella: Islamic Socialism.

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Roots and Trees

Though one can struggle to pinpoint the exact starting point (or points) from

where the many ideas that became associated with Islamic Socialism

emerged, historians and intellectuals, Sami A. Hanna and Hanif Ramay who

specialised in critiquing and compiling a dialectic history of Islamic Socialism

are of the view that one of the very first expressions of Islamic Socialism

appeared in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

A movement of Muslim farmers, peasants and petty-bourgeoisie in the

Russian state of Tatartan opposed the Russian monarchy but was brutally

crushed.
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In the early 2oth century, the movement went underground and began working

with communist, socialist and social democratic forces operating in Russia to

overthrow the monarchy.

The leaders of the Muslim movement, that became to be known as the Waisi

began explaining themselves as Islamic Socialists when a leftist revolution

broke out against the Russian monarchy in 1906.

During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that finally toppled and eliminated the

Russian monarchy and imposed communist rule in the country, the Waisi fell

in with the Bolsheviks and supported Russian revolutionary leader, Vladimir

Lenins widespread socialist program and policies.

However, after Lenins death in 1924, the Waisi began to assert that the

Muslim community and its socialism in Tatartan were a separate entity from

the Bolshevik communism.

The movement that had formed its own communes became a victim of Stalins

radical purges of the 1930s and was wiped out.

One is not quite sure how the Waisi defined their socialism in a country where

(after 1917) atheism had become the state-enforced creed. It was left to a

group of influential thinkers and ideologues in South Asia and the Middle East

to finally get down to giving a more coherent and doctrinal shape to Islamic

Socialism.

Islamic scholar, Ubaidullah Sindhi, who was born into a Sikh family (in Sialkot

but converted to Islam), was also an agitator against the British in India.


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Chased by the authorities during the First World War, Sindhi escaped to

Kabul, and from Kabul he traveled to Russia where he witnessed the unfolding

of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

He stayed in Russia till 1923 and spent most of his time discussing politics and

ideology with communist revolutionaries and studying socialism.

Impressed by the chants of economic equality and justice during the violent

revolution, Sindhi, who remained being a Deobandi Sunni Muslim, dismissed

communism/Marxisms emphasis on atheism.

From Russia Sindhi traveled to Turkey and it was from Istanbul that he began

to give shape to his ideas of Islamic Socialism through a series of writings

especially aimed at the Muslims of India.

He urged Muslims to evolve for themselves a religious basis to arrive at the

economic justice at which communism aims but which it cannot fully achieve.

The reason he gave for this was that though he saw both Islamic and

Communist economic philosophies similar regarding their emphasis on the fair

distribution of wealth, socialism if imposed with the help of a more theistic and

spiritual dimension would be more beneficial to the peasant and the working

classes than atheistic communism.

Ubaidullah Sindhi.

During the same period (1920s-30s), another (though lesser known) Islamicscholar in undivided India got smitten by the 1917 Russian revolution and

Marxism.

Hafiz Rahman Sihwarwl saw Islam and Marxism sharing five elements in

common: (1) prohibition of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the


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privileged classes (2) organisation of the economic structure of the state to

ensure social welfare (3) equality of opportunity for all human beings (4)

priority of collective social interest over individual privilege and (5) prevention

of the permanentising of class structure through social revolution.

The motivations for many of these themes he drew from the Quran, which he

understood as seeking to create an economic order in which the rich pay

excessive, though voluntary taxes (Zakat) to minimise differences in living

standards.

In the areas that Sihwarwl saw Islam and communism diverge were Islams

sanction of private ownership within certain limits, and in its refusal to

recognise an absolutely classless basis of society.

He suggested that Islam, with its prohibition of the accumulation of wealth, is

able to control the class structure through equality of opportunity.

Basically, both Sindhi and Sihwarwl had stumbled upon an Islamic concept of

the social democratic welfare state.

Building upon the initial thoughts of Sindhi and Sihwarwl were perhaps South

Asias two most ardent and articulate supporters and theoreticians of Islamic

Socilaism: Ghulam Ahmed Parvez and Dr. Khalifa Abdul Hakim.

Parvez was a prominent Quranist, or an Islamic scholar who insisted that for

the Muslims to make progress in the modern world, Islamic thought and laws

should be entirely based on the modern interpretations of the Quran and on

the complete rejection of the hadith (sayings of the Prophet and his

companions based on hearsay and compiled over a 100 years after the

Prophets demise).


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After studying traditional Muslim texts, as well as Sufism, Parvez claimed that

almost all hadiths were fabrications by those who wanted Islam to seem like

an intolerant faith and by ancient Muslim kings who used these hadiths to give

divine legitimacy to their tyrannical rules.

Parvez also insisted that Muslims should spend more time studying the

modern sciences instead of wasting their energies on fighting out ancient

sectarian conflicts or ignoring the true egalitarian and enlightening spirit of the

Quran by indulging in multiple rituals handed down to them by ancient ulema,

clerics and compilers of the hadith.

Understandably, Parvez was right away attacked by conservative Islamic

scholars and political outfits.

But this didnt stop famous Muslim philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, to

befriend the young scholar and then introduce him to the future founder of

Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Jinnah appointed Parvez to edit a magazine, Talu-e-Islam. It was set-up to

propagate the creation of a separate Muslim country and to also answer the

attacks that Jinnahs All India Muslim League had begun to face from

conservative Islamic parties and ulema who accused the League of being a

pseudo-Muslim organisation and Jinnah for being too westernised and lacking

correct Islamic behavior.

Apart from continuing to author books and commentaries on the Quran,

Parvez wrote a series of articles in Talu-e-Islam that propagated a more

socialistic view of the holy book.


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In a series of essays for the magazine he used verses from the Quran,

incidents from the faiths history and insights from the writings of Muhammad

Iqbal to claim:

The clergy and conservative ulema have hijacked Islam.

They are agents of the rich people and promoters of uncontrolled Capitalism.

Socialism best enforces Quranic dictums on property, justice and distribution

of wealth.

Islams main mission was the eradication of all injustices and cruelties fromsociety. It was a socio-economic movement, and the Prophet was a leader

seeking to put an end to the capitalist exploitation of the Quraysh merchants

and the corrupt bureaucracy of Byzantium and Persia.

According to the Quran, Muslims have three main responsibilities: seeing,

hearing and sensing through the agency of the mind. Consequently, real

knowledge is based on empirically verifiable observation, or through the role of

science.

Poverty is the punishment of God and deserved by those who ignore science.

In Muslim/Islamic societies, science, as well as agrarian reform should play

leading roles in developing an industrialised economy.

A socialist path is a correction of the medieval distortion of Islam through

Sharia.


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Parvez joined the government after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, but after

Jinnahs death in 1948, he was sidelined until he resigned from his post in

1956.

An issue of Talu-e-Islam featuring Muhammad Iqbal on the cover. Many essays

written by Ghulam Ahmed Parvez for the magazine included arguments for the

propagation of Islamic Socialism and fiery polemics against conservative ulema.

A 1935 illustration of Ghulam Ahmed Parvez.

Another scholar at the time who was using Iqbals writings on Islam and the

Quran to formulate Islamic Socialism in South Asia was Dr. Khalifa Abdul

Hakim.

A philosopher, author and a huge admirer of Muhammad Iqbal, Khalifa

ventured into the ideological territory of Islamic Socialism later than Ghulam

Parvez.

A keen student of Islam (especially Sufism), Khalifa, after getting his PhD from

the Heidelberg University in Germany, authored a number of books on Iqbals

philosophy, Islamic thought, Jallaluddin Rumi (Sufi poet and writer), and alsotranslated the Hindu holy book, the Bhagwat Gita, into Urdu.

It was after the creation of Pakistan that Khalifa began to seriously study

Marxism and what it meant to a young third world country like Pakistan.

In his 1951 books, Islam and Communism and Iqbal Aur Mullah, Khalifa saw

Islamic Socialism as harnessing the freedom of thought, action and enterprise

characteristic of Western democracies by creating opportunities for all.

Like most Islamic Socialists of his era, Khalifa too was basically explaining

Islamic Socialism to be a kind of spiritual and theistic concept of the social

democratic welfare state enacted in various Western countries.


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In Islam and Communism, Khalifa sees land as being the principle source of

economic wealth and thus the moral basis for agrarian reforms in Pakistan.

Dr. Khalifa.

Apart from Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, most other Islamic Socialist thinkers

discussed above, though thoroughly critiquing Marxism/Socialism on the basis

of Quranic teachings and listing similarities and differences between the two,

say little about exactly how much a role should a government and state play in

matters of faith in societies run on the ideology and economic system

prescribed by Islamic Socialism.

Parvez quite clearly suggests that an Islamic Socialist society run on the laws

and economics derived from rational interpretations of the Quran and modern

scientific thought would inherently become responsible, law-abiding,

egalitarian and enlightened and would not require the state to play the role of a

moral guide.

In other words, Islamic Socialist policies guarantee a progressive and non-

theocratic (if not entirely secular) Muslim majority state where the citizens are

enlightened enough to make their own moral choices, and where the state

sticks to looking after the citizens economic interests and needs and

delivering justice.

It is within these two main areas where the state can evoke rational and

modernistic interpretations of the Quran, especially those verses dealing withproperty rights, Zakat, justice and the rights of women.


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In the Middle East, Islamic Socialism evolved into becoming a more

nationalistic and revolutionary idea, mainly due to the creation of Israel (in

1948) and the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from the area.

A Christian Syrian philosopher and Arab nationalist, Michel Aflaq, is

remembered to be the originator of the Middle Eastern strain of Islamic

Socialism that expressed itself as Arab Socialism and Baath Socialism.

Born into an Arab Christian family, Aflaq became a communist at college and

university, but broke away from the communists to formulate a radical and new

Arab nationalist philosophy with another young Syrian, Salah ad-Din al-Bitar.

After studying the steady economic and political decline of the Arab peoples

around the world, Aflaq and Bitar advocated the creation of a united Arab

state.

For this they recasted Arab nationalism by infusing into it a heavy dose of

socialist economic ideas, progressive cultural and social outlook, and by

reworking the idea of Islam inherent in it by evoking Qurans revolutionary

spirit to counter injustice and inequality but separating Islam (as an organised

faith) from the matters of the state.

Aflaq and Bitar claimed that this would lead to a renaissance in the Arab world,

turning it into an economic and political power.

Michel Aflaq.Their emphasis on the word renaissance (which in Arabic is Al-Baath), gave

birth to the term Baath Socialism, and soon both Aflaq and Bitar set out to

define exactly how this form of socialism works.


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Baath Socialism appealed to the unity of all Arab nations on the basis of

language/culture (Arab) and on the faith most Arabs followed (Islam).

It suggested that the Arab nations were being undermined by five forces:European colonialism (driven by capitalism); Soviet Communism; decadent

monarchies in Arab countries; Islamic conservatism within Arab societies; and

the clergy and the ulema who were keeping these societies in the clutches of

backwardness.

Baath Socialism offered a path between Western capitalism and Soviet

communism by suggesting that all Arab nations come together as one state

under a single vanguard party of Arab nationalists who would impose socialist

economic policies, modernise society through education, science and culture,

separate religion from the state but continue being inspired by the egalitarian

concepts of Islam that would remain to be the faith of a majority of citizens in

the united Arab state.

In spite of being staunchly secular, Baath Socialism celebrated Islam as proof

of Arab genius, and a testament of Arab culture, values and thought.

Song and Dance

The Middle East and A fr ica

Baath Socialism seemed to have arrived at a ripe moment in modern Arab

history because from 1940s onwards a number of anti-colonial movements in

Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Syria were all being lead by outfits declaring

themselves to be adherents of Arab Socialism.


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In 1948, a young military Colonel in Egypt, Gammal Abdel Nasser, formed the

clandestine Free Officers Movement.

The group consisted of Egyptian army officers driven by the ideas of ArabSocialism/Baath Socialism.

In 1952 the movement overthrew Egypts pro-British monarchy in a coup and

declared Egypt to be an independent Arab Socialist Republic.

Leading members of The Free Officers Movement soon after overthrowing the

Egyptian monarchy in 1952. Gammal Abdel Nasser is third from right (sitting).

Egyptian army tanks move in on the roads of Cairo during the 1952 Free Officers

coup.

Interestingly, the Free Officers Movement and coup were initially supported by

the anti-colonial right-wing religious group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

But once Nasser began unfolding his policies to modernise the Egyptian

economy and society, and claimed that Islam was best served when practiced

in private, the Muslim Brotherhood turned against his regime.

In 1954 it tried to assassinate Nasser who responded by unleashing a brutal

crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the conservative clergy.

Inspired by Nasser, a group of young officers in Iraq successfully overthrew

the Iraqi monarchy in 1958. Though the new regime at once declared Iraq to

be a republic, it did not form an Arab Socialist Party like Nasser.

That changed when in a counter coup (in 1963) another group of officers took

over and formed the Iraq Baath Socialist Party. But the situation remained

fluent and by 1966 the Baath Socialists were ousted in a coup only to return

and stabilise their power in 1968.


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Baath Socialism became Iraqs central ideology and the Baath Socialist Party

the countrys ruling outfit. This party and ideology in Iraq would last till 2003

until the fall of its last main man Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Members ofIraqs Baath Socialist Party holding a press conference after taking

over power in 1963.

Ever since its independence in 1949, Syria had been in turmoil and witnessed

a number of coups most of which were backed and planned by the Syrian

Baath Socialist Party.

In 1956, Syria also became one of the first Arab countries to enter the Soviet

camp as opposed to the American camp. Nassers Egypt soon followed

Syrias lead and signed various defense, economic and cultural pacts with the

Soviet Union.

To fully realise Arab/Baath Socialisms main doctrinal thrust of enacting a

united Arab nation, in 1958 Syria and Egypt merged to become the United

Arab Republic (UAR).

The experiment was a disaster as the Syrian side thought Nasser was

undermining Syrian interests. The union was dissolved when the Baath

Socialist Party in Syria engineered another coup in 1961.

Till 1970, Syrian politics was caught in a tense tussle between the radical and

moderate factions of the Baath Socialist Party until the party and government

were taken over by Hafizul Asad, an Army General.

Asad, an Alawite Muslim a breakaway Shia Muslim sect would go on to

stabilize Syria and rule as dictator till his death in 2000.


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Under him the Baath Socialist Party and regime became the most stable, as

well as radical in any Arab country.

Hafizul Asad talks to foreign media in Damascus after becoming Syrias new

head of state and leader of the countrys Baath Socialist Party in 1970.

A 1970 poster of the Young Socialist Alliance, an international group of leftist

student outfits allied to Baath/Arab Socialist parties and regimes in Egypt, Syria

and Iraq and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

In Algeriaduring that countrys nationalist struggle against French colonialism

that began to peak in the 1950s, the movements main outfit the Organisation

Spciale(Special Organisation) began to be drawn towards the liberation

philosophy of Arab/Baath Socialism.

In 1954 The Special Organisation merged with various small left-wing

nationalist groups and guerilla organisations to form the National Liberation

Front (or the FLNFront de Libration Nationale) that became the largest

nationalist outfit during the Algerian liberation movement against French

colonialists.

Thousands of Algerians and French died between 1954 and 1962 in the war.

When the French finally agreed to leave Algeria in 1962, the FLN became the

first ruling party of independent Algeria.

Right away tensions emerged between FLNs radical leader, Ahmed Ben Bella

and the more moderate, Houari Boumedienne. In 1965 Boumedienne, with the

help of the newly formed Algerian army, toppled Ben Bella in a coup and

became Algerias second head of state.

He outlawed all other political parties, made FLN the sole ruling party of

Algeria, initiated a number of socialist economic polices, and cracked down on

Islamist and conservative religious groups.


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But unlike Arab Socialists in Iraq, Syria and Egypt, Boumedienne did not

aggressively push his country into the Soviet sphere of influence. He was,

however, equally vocal in his criticism of pro-US Arab monarchies, Israel,

Islamists and capitalism.

A female fighter of the FLN posing with her gun during the Algerian War of

Independence against the French.

Police surround the body of a French military officer assassinated by FLN

members in the Algerian city of Algiers in 1959.

Houari Boumedienne (right) in 1972. He ruled Algeria and headed the FLN from

1965 till 1978, putting Algeria on the socialist path.

During the height of a civil war (between Egypt-backed nationalists and Saudi-

supported monarchists) and anti-colonial movement (against the British

forces) in the northern part ofYemen, the two main outfits leading the

nationalist movement were the Yemeni National Liberation Front (NLF) and

the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY).

Both the political and guerilla groups were steeped in Arab Socialism and were

being led by Marxists.

When the fighting spilled into the South of the country it intensified, so much

so that the NLF and FLOSY began to attack each another in spite of the fact

that both were inspired by Nassers Arab Socialism and were being operated

by Marxists.

In 1967, NLF and FLOSY defeated the monarchists and drove out the British

from the south. NLF then went on to crush the FLOSY and declared the south

as an independent republic.

In 1970, NLF named South Yemen as the Peoples Democratic Republic of

Yemen and formed the countrys sole ruling party, the Yemeni Socialist Party.


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The party right away signed defense, cultural and economic pacts with

communist regimes in Soviet Union, China and Cuba.

North Yemen fell into the hands of forces being backed and funded by SaudiArabia and the US.

British soldiers pin National Liberation Front (NLF) sympathisers to the wall in

Aden, Yemen, 1967.

Three leading members of Yemens NLF: Salim Rubai Ali (who became

President of South Yemen), Abdul Fattah Ismail, and Ali al-Nasir Muhammad al-

Hasani.

In Libya another admirer of Arab Socialism and Nasser, Colonel Muammar

Qadhafi, replicated Egypts Free Officers Movement and overthrew the Libyan

monarchy in a coup in 1969.

In 1971, he formed the Arab Socialist Union (to be Libyas sole ruling party),

unleashed various radical socialist policies, and signed defense and economic

pacts with the Soviet Union.

Though vehemently opposed to pro-US Arab monarchies (especially Saudi

Arabia), and a close ally of the Soviet Union, Qadhafis Libya, unlike other

Arab Socialist regimes of the time, began tempering Libyas version of Islamic

Socialism by paralleling an anti-Islamist policy with certain puritanical

initiatives that saw the outlawing of the sale and consumption of alcohol,

closure of nightclubs and a crackdown on Marxists in universities and

colleges.

In 1976 he published a book (called the Green Book) in which he described

his understanding of Islamic Socialism. The book became a compulsory read

for school and college students.


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A young Libyan college student blushes after shaking hands with the then 29-

year-old Qadhafi in 1970. Also seen in the picture is Egyptian leader, Abdel

Nasser, who was on a visit to Libya.

Two opponents of the Qaddafi regime hanged in public in 1977.

After engulfing Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Libya, versions of Arab/Baath Socialism

made their way into other Muslim countries like Sudan and Somalia as well.

Sudan gained its independence from Britain in 1956. Between 1957 and 1969,

the country experienced a turbulent period of democratically elected right-wing

coalition governments and one military coup (1958).

In 1969, a military coup shaped on the dynamics of Nassers Free Officers

Movement took power.

The movement and coup were led by Gaafar Nimeiry, a self-professed Arab

Socialist and Nasser enthusiast.

On assuming power, Nimeiry announced his plan to base the countrys

society, politics and economics on independent Sudanese Socialism.

The Nimeiry regimes first cabinet included a number of communists who

helped him devise and implement a series of socialistic economic policies.

He also devised policies to restrict intervention and influence of conservative

Islamic elements in the workings of the mosques and educational institutions,

suggesting that Islam was best served when practiced in private.

Nimeiry struck strong relations with Arab Socialist regimes in Libya, Egypt,

Syria and Iraq and with the Soviet Union.

Perturbed by the Nimeiry regimes strong socialist and secular orientation,

various right-wing Islamist outfits merged to form the Ansar. After failing to


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In 1951, the National Front that was voted in as the leading party in the Iranian

parliament (Iran was a constitutional monarchy), managed to form a

government, nationalise Irans oil industry and eventually ousted the Shah of

Iran and declared the country to be a democratic republic.

A 1973 poster showing Said Barre rallying supporters of the Third World Socialist

movements.

However, in 1953, the Shah, with the help of British and American intelligence

agencies, the Iranian military and sections of Irans Islamic clergy, engineered

a coup and toppled the Mossadegh government.

After Mossadeghs fall, Islamic Socialism in Iran took a more radical turn. In

1965, a group of leftist students at the Tehran University formed the

Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MK).

Taking its inspiration from Iranian intellectual and author, Ali Shariati, MK

advocated an ideology that fused Islamic imagery with Marxist concepts.

Shariati was a sociologist who had studied in Paris and was jailed for his anti-

Shah lectures and writings when he returned to Iran in 1964.

Shariatis writings and talks became popular among university and college

students when he began to express revolutionary Marxist concepts with the

help of traditional Shia Muslim imagery and language, intensely attacking not

only the Iranian monarchy, but the Shia clergy and the communists as well.

Dr. Ali Shariati delivering a lecture in Tehran in 1972.

By 1971, the Shahs regime had begun to denounce him as an Islamic

Marxist and a Soviet agent. He was arrested and forced into exile in 1975

where he died of a heart attack (in 1977) aged just 43.


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The MK expressed Shariatis ideas in a violent manner and began an urban

armed guerilla campaign against the Shah.

The organisation also played an active role during the 1979 Iranian Revolutionthat toppled the Shah so much so that forces supporting Iranian Islamist

leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, relied heavily on the armed cadres of MK to

confront the Shahs soldiers and police.

But after the revolution when the Iranian Islamists and the clergy managed to

seize the government and impose strict Islamic laws, the MK began an urban

guerilla movement against the Islamic regime.

Denouncing the regime as being autocratic and reactionary, the MK fought the

regimes Islamic guards and the police. Hundreds died in the battles and

dozens of MK members were executed.

Logo of the Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MK) fusing Islamic and revolutionary Marxist

imageries.

MK activists take over a building at the Tehran University as a protest against the

Islamic regime in 1981.

East and South A sia

In Indonesia the groundwork for Islamic Socialism was undertaken by former

communist, Tan Malaka.

During the Indonesians movement for independence from Dutch colonialists

(mainly led by Kosno Sukarno), Malaka argued strongly that communism andIslam were compatible, and that, in Indonesia, revolution should be built upon

both.


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Tan Malaka also saw Islam as holding the potential for unifying the working

classes.

At the time of Malakas death in 1949 (the year Indonesia became anindependent country), its first head of state, Kosno Sukarno, adopted many of

Malakas ideas by granting patronage to Indonesias communist party (the

PKI) and Islamic Socialists inspired by Malaka.

Sukarno ruled Indonesia till 1967.

Former Indonesian communist turned Islamic Socialist, Tan Malaka. His ideas

influenced the countrys first ruler, Kosono Sukarno, who ruled between 1949and 1967.

Another Asian country where the idea and concept of Islamic Socialism

managed to seep into mainstream imagination was Pakistan.

As mentioned earlier, two of the earliest scholars who had theorised about this

concept (in South Asia) were Ghulam Ahmad Parvez and Dr. Khalifa Hakim.

There was also a string of Islamic Socialists in Pakistans founder, Muhammad

Ali JinnahsMuslim League that became Pakistans first ruling party after the

creation of the country in 1947.

However, this section in the party remained on the fringes.

In the early 1960s (during the secular and pro-US military dictatorship of Ayub

Khan), a group of intellectuals led by poet, painter and author, Hanif Ramay,

emerged in Lahore and began working on giving a more focused look to the

Islamic Socialist ideas of Parvez and Khalifa, and to also fuse in elements

from Baath Socialism in the context of a non-Arab Muslim country like

Pakistan.


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The project also included the publishing of a monthly Urdu literary magazine

called Nusrat that, apart from publishing Urdu poetry, short stories and

literary commentaries on the works of Urdu poets and writers, also ran pieces

on the works of Ghulam Ahmed Parvez, Dr. Khalifa and Michal Aflaq.

After the 1965 Pakistan-India war ended in a stalemate, Ayub Khan dismissed

his young Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (for showing dissent).

Bhutto befriended a retired bureaucrat and veteran Marxist ideologue, J A.

Rahim, and both decided to form a populist left-wing party to challenge the

Ayub dictatorship.

In 1966, Bhutto also came into contact with Hanif Ramay who presented him

his groups work on Islamic Socialism.

Bhutto and Rahim formed the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967. A

number of Marxist and progressive intellectuals, journalists, student leaders

and trade unionists joined the party, but it was Ramays Islamic Socialist group

who prevailed when the time came to author the partys manifesto.

In a series of articles (by Ramay and Safdar Mir) in Nusrat, the writers

explained (the PPPs) Islamic Socialism as meaning:

Elimination of feudalism. Elimination of uncontrolled capitalism and the encouragement of a system

based on freedom of opportunity and/or an economic system closelymonitored by the government and the state.

Nationalisation of major banks, industries and schools. Encouraging the workers to participate in the running of factories. Promoting democracy and the building of democratic institutions.

All this was then explained to be a modern, 20th Century extension of the

principals of equality and justice as practiced by the first Muslim regime in


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Madina and Mecca headed by Islams Prophet, and of the many egalitarian

economic and social proclamations found in the Holy Quran.

PPPs Islamic Socialism denounced the conservative religious parties and the

clergy of being representatives of monopolist capitalists, feudal lords, militarydictators, the imperialist forces of capitalism, and of being agents of

backwardness and social and spiritual stagnation.

Poet, painter and author, Hanif Ramay, is claimed to be one of the main

ideologues and theorists of modern Islamic Socialism in Pakistan. He was also

one of the founding members of the PPP.

In spite of the fact that the right-wing Islamic party, the Jamat-i-Islami,

managed to get over a hundred different Islamic ulema and clergymen to

declare PPPs socialism to be atheistic and anti-Islam, the party managed to

sweep the 1970 elections in West Pakistan.

In 1972 (after East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh), the PPP

became Pakistans first popularly elected governing party.

Z A. Bhutto speaking at a leftist students rally in Karachi in 1969. He became the

first popularly elected Prime Minister in Pakistan and his party, the PPP, won amajority in former West Pakistan on a manifesto promising the imposition of

Islamic Socialism.

Afghanistan was the country where the last hurrah of Islamic Socialism

echoed.

In 1978, the communist Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Afghanistan

toppled the nationalistic dictatorship of Muhammad Daoud Khan with the help

of sympathetic officers in the Afghan military.

The event was named the Saur Revolution; or the Spring Revolution (Saur

in Dari means spring).


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The PDP was an outright Marxist outfit that began to rapidly unfold a number

of communistic social and economic policies.

But when the PDP regime began facing resistance and resentment from theAfghan clergy and landed elite in the countrys rural and semi-rural areas, its

ally, the Soviet Union, asked the PDP regime to slow down its Marxist reforms.

PDP quickly began to shed off its revolutionary Marxist excesses and replace

them with rhetoric being used at the time by Islamic Socialists and the Baath

Socialists.

For example, apart from constantly quoting Marx and Lenin, the PDP

government also began talking about the similarities between the economic

systems outlined by Marxism/Socialism and Islam.

Nevertheless, in December 1979, severe infighting in PDP saw the Soviet

troops walking into Afghanistan and propping up a more moderate regime led

by PDPs Babrak Karmal.

Flag of the Khalaq faction of the PDP.

Young women take out a rally in Kabul to welcome the 1978 Saur Revolution.

Decline and Demise

The outbreak of a range of movements, coups and revolutions associated with

various versions of Islamic Socialism in Asia, Africa and the Middle East not

only attracted grave concern from Arab monarchies and the US, the economic

maneuvers undertaken by regimes fusing socialism with certain aspects of

Islam largely failed to achieve the kind of economic equilibrium they had

promised.


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One of the first examples of the above was played out in Indonesia. On the

eve of Indonesias independence (from the Dutch) in 1949, Kusono Sukarno,

had become head of state.

He moved Indonesia towards what he called guided democracy that was

largely dominated by his own party, the Indonesian National Party (PNI), and

the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).

Sukarno and his PNI offered and ran Indonesia on an ideology based on a

threefold blend i.e. nationalism, Islamand communism.

But on his way to translate this ideology into the economic and social spheres

of the Indonesian society, he began to face stiff resistance from Islamic outfits

and from those segments of the military that wanted Indonesia to have closer

links with the US and the West.

From 1960 onwards, Indonesias economic situation began to worsen. In 1965

Sukarnos communist supporters (the PKI) became disillusioned by his slow

pace of reform.

The communists mobilised a pro-PKI faction in the military and attempted a

coup against Sukarno.

The coup was crushed by the pro-West faction of the military and followed by

a brutal crackdown against the communists and their sympathisers.

In the ensuing violence, over 50,000 people were slaughtered, mainly by the

military and the Islamic outfits that it used to purge the left.

In 1967 Major General Suharto disposed Sukarno and took over the reigns of

power.


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Though PKI was outlawed, and Suhartho navigated Indonesia towards the US

camp, he eventually came down hard on the Islamic outfits as well that had

been mobilised by the military to crush the communist uprising.

A communist student at the Jakarta University being roughed up by soldiers and

Islamic student activists during the militarys purge against leftists in Indonesia in

1965.

Major General Suharto (in fatigues) with members of the Indonesian militarys

anti-communist faction. Suhartho toppled Sukarno and went on to rule Indonesia

till the early 1990s until he was himself overthrown by a popular democratic

movement.

The second major setback that Islamic Socialism experienced was in Egypt.

Nasser had ruled supreme as a popular head of state since 1952s Free

Officers Coup and had rung in a number of sweeping socialist reforms.

His regime also became an inspiration and backer of various Arab Socialist

movements in the Middle East, offering a socialist and secular Muslim

alternative to Arab peoples under pro-US but puritanical Arab monarchies.

However, Nasser lost much of his influence and clout when the Egyptian

armed forces were routed by the Israeli army and air force in 1967.

Millions of Egyptians gathered to mourn Nassers death in 1970.

But Nassers regime remained largely popular till his death from a heart attack

in 1970.

His successor (and former comrade), Anwar Sadat, became the head of

Egypts Arab Socialist Union and the countrys new head of state.

Sadat continued Nassers socialist policies and also kept up Egypts financial

and moral support for radical Arab Socialist regimes and movements and the

PLO.


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However, though the 1973 Egypt-Israel War ended in a stalemate, the

countrys economy was found reeling from the wars impact.

Saudi Arabia offered to bail out Egypts economy by offering millions of dollarsworth of aid and oil.

By accepting Saudi help, Sadat officially restored relations with the Saudi

monarchy that had been severed by Nasser.

The Saudi monarchy then asked Sadat to rehabilitate thousands of members

of the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood who had been jailed by Nasser or sent

into exile (mostly to Saudi Arabia).

Sadat lifted the ban on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 1974, Sadat eventually decided to pull Egypt out of the Soviet camp and

ordered Soviet military advisors, technicians and citizens who had been

stationed in Egypt to leave the country.

In 1976, Sadat finally announced the end of Egypts socialist experiment and

in 1977 changed the name of Egypts ruling party from Arab Socialist Union to

National Democratic Party.

He ousted the last remnants of Arab Socialism from the party and ordered a

crackdown on students and members of the intelligentsia who opposed his

move.

Though Egypt remained largely secular, and Sadat managed to gain the

support of the Muslim Brotherhood (whom he used to purge leftist students

and members of the intelligentsia), he ended up offending the Brotherhood as

well when he decided to enact ties with archenemy, Israel.


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Sadat was assassinated in 1981 for this by a militant faction of the

Brotherhood. But his successor, Hosni Mubarak, continued his policies for the

next three decades until he was toppled in 2011 in a widespread democratic

revolution (the Arab Spring).

Sadat (centre) with his family in Cairo -AP Photo

Taking Sadats lead was Pakistans ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)

headed by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The Bhutto regime had been elected (in 1970) on the appeal of the PPPs

socialist platform and chants of Islamic Socialism.

Overtaken by the economic crises that hit the world after the 1973 Egypt-Israel

War, the Bhutto regime toned down its socialist reforms and rhetoric and

entered into a number of agreements and pacts with oil-rich gulf monarchies.

Bhutto began by purging the radical left factions within the PPP and then

dished out a number of constitutional concessions to right-wing Islamic parties

that were close to Saudi Arabia.

He believed that this way he would be able to appease and neutralise these

parties.

Z A. Bhutto (right) hosting a dinner for Saudi king, Faisal, in Karachi (1975). On

the Kings advice, Bhutto toned down his socialist rhetoric and smoothend his

relations with Pakistans Islamic parties.

Just before the 1977 election, the words socialism and Islamic Socialism wereonly minimally used in the PPPs new manifesto.


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However, Bhuttos new-found closeness to Middle Eastern monarchies, his

purges against the left and his concessions to the Islamic parties failed to stem

the emergence of a right-wing movement against his regime in 1977.

He was eventually toppled in a reactionary military coup led by General Ziaul

Haq and then hanged in 1979 through a sham trial.

Men pray and women wail just outside the jail where Z A. Bhutto was hanged in

April 1979. The picture was taken in May 1979.

Algeria traded the socialist path till 1978 or till the death of Houari

Boumdienne who had ruled the country since 1965.

Colonel Chadli Bendjedid became the head of the ruling FLN party and then

the new head of state.

In the early 1980s, Bendjedid began to slowly reverse Boumediennes socialist

reforms and started negotiations with FLNs Islamic opponents who had been

opposed to FLNs Arab Socialism and secularism.

Though Bendjedid managed to rule Algeria till 1991, his economic reforms that

saw Algeria opening up its economy could not curtail the countrys

deteriorating economy and the resultant unrest largely led by Algerias newly

emboldened Islamic parties.

In 1987, Bendjedid almost completely folded FLNs socialist agenda and

ideology and began to warm up to the US, the West and the gulf monarchies.

Wreckage of a government bus that was torched by protesters during the anti-

government riots in Algeria in 1988. The riots confirmed the collapse of Algerian

socialism.

In 1991, the government decided to hold Algerias first multi-party election.


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However, when municipal elections were won by a group of radical Islamist

parties, the military intervened and postponed the general election.

The military blamed Bendjedid for unwittingly strengthening the Islamists andputting the countrys secular foundations in danger. He was ousted in 1991.

Between 1992 and 2002, Algeria witnessed an intense war between Islamists

and the military in which thousands of Algerians were killed.

Brutalities took place on both sides. The military killed hundreds of Islamists

and their sympathisers, whereas the Islamists slaughtered numerous civilians

through suicide attacks, assassinations and beheadings.

The Islamist insurgency was brought under control and subdued (if not entirely

crushed) by the military in 2002.

Algerias Islamist guerilla fighters holding a meeting in 1996. Groups of militant

Islamists went to war with the Algerian military between 1992 and 2002.

Thousands of Algerians were killed in the conflict until the Algerian military finally

managed to subdue the militants.

One of the Muslim countries where socialism did rather well as an economic

and social initiative was Somalia.

The socialist regime there (that came to power in 1969), managed to

guarantee a relatively stable economy and dramatically raised the rate of

literacy.

In 1977, Somalia entered into a territorial conflict with Ethiopia, putting its main

economic and political ally the Soviet Union in a quagmire.


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This was because at the time the regime in Ethiopia too was in the Soviet

camp. After failing to deescalate the conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia,

the Soviets decided to side with the Ethiopians.

Offended by the move, the Somalian president, Siad Barre, broke off ties with

the Soviet Union and accepted American military and economic help.

In 1980, he disbanded the Somalian Revolutionary Socialist Party and

reversed his socialist reforms, also loosening the curbs his government had

imposed on the activities of liberal democratic parties as well as on Islamic

groups.

With American aid, Barre was also able to build one of the biggest armies in

Africa.

In the mid-1980s, the Barre regime began to face unrest and charges of

corruption and totalitarianism.

In 1986, Barree got injured in a car accident and on his return could not stop

Somalias slide into anarchy.

In 1991, his regime collapsed and Somalia erupted into a crippling civil war

between various political and tribal factions.

Today Somalia remains to be in total anarchy.

Women members of Somalias paramilitary units march out to battle the

Ethiopian army in 1977.

Residents of Somlian capital, Mogadishu, ride a truck out of the city to escape

the civil war that erupted in Somalia after the collapse of the Siad Barres regime

(1991).


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The Soviet Unions support to Ethiopia in 1977 also offended Sudan that too

had a territorial grudge with Ethiopia.

The socialist Gaafar Nimeiry regime cut off ties with the Soviet Union andmoved towards the Soviets communist rival, China.

Detecting a wobble in the government, and with the countrys economy under

duress, the militant Islamist group, the Ansar that had been routed by Nimeiry

in 1971 returned to trigger another armed insurgency.

Ansar tried to mobilise some anti-Nimeiry factions in the military to mount a

coup but failed.

However, this time Nimeiry agreed to hold negotiations with the Ansar who

demanded that he reverse his socialist policies, denounce Islamic Socialism

as an atheistic concoction and replace secular rule with an Islamic one.

Nimeiry released hundreds of Ansar members, moved Sudan closer to the US

and in 1981 announced a series of Islamic laws.

He was finally ousted in a military coup in 1985 that was backed by Islamic

parties and other anti-Nimeiry outfits.

Famous Sudanese Islamist ideologue, Hasan al-Turabi. Turabi opposed the

Nimeiry regime across the 1970s, but became part of the regime when Nimeiry

broke off ties with the Soviet Union and imposed a number of Islamic laws in

Sudan that were devised by Turabi.

In 1989, when the Soviet Union was bordering on the brink of disintegration

and communism was in retreat, the socialist regime in South Yemen dissolved

itself and joined with North Yemen to remake Yemen into a single country.


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In Afghanistan, the PDP regime fell in the hands of US/Saudi/Pakistan-backed

and funded Islamic forces in 1989.

The Baath Socialist regime in Iraq and Qadhafis Islamic Socialist governmentin Libya began to roll back their socialist polices from the 1990s onwards.

Both fell in the 2000s.

Protesters tie ropes around Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad to pull it down,

2003.

Islamic/Baath/Arab Socialism:

Achievements

- Ideologically mobilised nationalist movements in Muslim countries caught

between European colonialism, monarchial decadence and conservative

ulema. - Offered a third way between Western/American capitalism and

Soviet communism. - Wrestled the initiative to interpret the socio-political

aspects of Islam from the clergy and conservative ulema and radical Islamists.

- Tried to construct an Islamic version (and justification) for secularism. - Co-

opted various Marxist, socialist and progressive strands and entities operating

in Muslim countries and got them all on a single platform. - Adopted modern

social, political and cultural concepts in Muslim societies but discarded these

concepts colonial/western legacies. - Revived the idea of Ijtihad

(independent discussion on Islamic law and faith) that had been repressed in

Muslim lands for centuries. - Highlighted Islam as a progressive, dynamic and

rational faith. - Eschewed differences in Muslim societies on the basis of clans,

sects and tribes. - Showed creativity in designing economic and cultural

policies and then expressed them with the help of progressive interpretations

of Islamic texts and imagery. - Added newer, more progressive dimensions to


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commentaries and the study of Islam and its place in society and politics. -

Encouraged the participation of women in the Muslim world to take a direct

part in economic, cultural and political aspects of life. - Emphasised the

importance of having high literacy rates. - Gave a political identity to middle-

class youth and a sense of economic and ideological participation to the

working classes.

Failures

- Remained autocratic and undemocratic in nature. - Relied heavily on the

military. - Undermined the peoples political sense and rights. - Was intolerant

towards opposing political and economic ideas. - Was too militaristic and yet

failed over and over again in wars against foreign enemies. - Regularly

intervened in matters of other countries. - Its economic maneuvers remained

largely half-baked and carelessly managed. - Though rejected American

hegemony and political influence in the name of independent economic and

political existence, it banked on Soviet expertise, aid and patronage. - Violently

repressed Islamists and Islamic outfits but then turned supportively towards

them when deciding to purge opposing leftists. - Unwittingly recharged Islamist

and radical Islamic forces that eventually emerged to offer the Islamic option

with the collapse of Islamic Socialism.

Research papers and essays used:

-Islamic Socialism: NA Jawad - The Muslim World (1975) -The Sources &

Meaning of Islamic Socialism: F. Rahman Religion & Political Modernization

(1974) -Islamic Economics & Islamic Subeconomy: T. Kuren JSTOR (1995) -


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The Baath Party:Rise & Metamorphosis: JA Devlin- JSTOR (1985) -Withered

socialism or whether socialism? The radical Arab states as

populist?corporatist regimes: NN Ayubi - Third -World Quarterly (1992) -

Critical analysis of capitalism, socialism and Islamic economic order: M. Ismail

(1982) -Arab Socialism: A documentary Survey: SA Hanna (1969)

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper

and Dawn.com

islamic socialism

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