Religious Ideologies and Beliefs

The author and Buddhist leaders from different schools gather at the White House in 2016 for a Vesak Day celebration.

Mediation Perspectives is a periodic blog entry that’s provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors. Each entry is designed to highlight the utility of mediation approaches in dealing with violent political conflicts. To keep up to date with the Mediation Support Team, you can sign up to their newsletter here.

As part of the CSS Mediation Perspectives Blog Mini-Series on the use of religious resources in peace mediation (part one on criteria and part two on Christianity), I look at how, throughout the Buddhist world, peace practitioners have drawn on the religion’s ideas, stories, and practices in order to shape, legitimize, and motivate their efforts to resolve disputes and build peace more broadly. The 2500 year old tradition, born in India and now practiced throughout the world, is ripe with material to support such efforts. Indeed, any attempt to distill such a huge and diverse corpus into key points for the purpose of a blog is a challenge. After all, the Buddhist tradition lacks a core canon that’s considered authoritative for all Buddhists. Rather, thousands of Buddhist scriptures circulate in an ongoing conversation. A vast number of commentaries on these texts are also considered influential, including those written by the 5^th century CE Buddhagosa. Moreover, chronicles such as the 6^th century CE Sri Lankan Mahavamsa, stories surrounding key historical figures like the 3^rd century BCE Emperor Asoka, the jataka tales that recount the Buddha’s myriad previous lives before his incarnation as the historical Buddha, and local stories and teachings that have been incorporated into the Buddhist imagination all constitute wells from which one can draw Buddhist teachings that might apply to mediation. Finally, different teachings, practices, and ideas resonate within different schools of Buddhism – from the Zen of Japan to the Vajrayana of Tibet to the Theravada Forest Tradition of Thailand.

Hasan al-Banna and the Political Ideologisation of Islam in the 20th Century

Poster of Muslim Girls at Prayer, courtesy Adam Jones/flickr

This article was originally published by E-International Relations (E-IR) on 2 February 2016.

The political ideologisation of Islam refers to the interpretation of Islam as a ‘political ideology’: a comprehensive ‘system of ideas for social and political action’ (Safire, 2008: 336) which serve as a functional tool for the ordering of state and society, whilst also outlining how this ideal socio-political order might be attained (Erikson and Tedin, 2003: 64). It is precisely this tendency to interpret Islam as a political ideology which scholars frequently attribute to the twentieth century Egyptian and founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna. This text will therefore assess the extent to which al-Banna’s thought signifies the political ideologisation of Islam in the twentieth century. To do so, it will first combine a contextual appreciation with an explanation of al-Banna’s call for the establishment of an Islamic State, rooted in his understanding of Islam as a perfect, all-embracing political solution. The text will then proceed to explore al-Banna’s political ideologisation of Islam, focusing on his calling for ‘Islamic governance’, his Fifty-Point Manifesto, his portrayal of Islam as an alternative to competing ideologies and his founding of the Muslim Brotherhood. Next, the text will consider other twentieth century thinkers who have also contributed to Islam’s political ideologisation, notably Sayyid Abu’l-A’la al-Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb. Finally, this analysis will conclude by outlining the notion that al-Banna’s thought does indeed signify the political ideologisation of Islam, but must nevertheless be appreciated within a broader ‘neo-revivalist’ tendency to politically ideologise Islam.