Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, or the Ikhwan, who draw their ideological sustenance from leaders like Hassan al-Banna, an Islamic revivalist, and Sayyid Qutb, a trenchant critic of western culture, have participated in elections despite the military blatantly skewing the rules and overturning results. Though its brief stint in office after the Arab Spring ended prematurely as it hastily and clumsily sought to impose its political programme, the brotherhood's MPs have often raised bread and butter issues vigorously even as they remain committed to the goal of establishing a religious state.
The Ikhwan's leaders, including former president Mohammed Morsi, are today subject to a ruthless judicial persecution at the hands of the military. It is not for the first time that their purported extremism has justified harsh measures with Qutb, author of Milestones, a Muslim manifesto of sorts, hanged for alleged conspiracy against Gamal Abdel Nasser. But for all the doctrinaire teachings of their founders, the brotherhood contested elections even if some saw it as a ploy to win power and then ensure the end of all such contests thereafter. The popular reaction against Morsi's government that allowed the military seize power indicates this idea meets a lot of resistance.
While "secularism" is not much in vogue in the Middle East and north Africa, elections in several countries, even if limited and often irregular, do not indicate an overwhelming acceptance of the Islamic State's desire to recreate 7th century Arabia on the basis of the harshest examples to be found in religious and legal texts. Before al-Banna and Qutb, there were pan-Islamists like Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and Mohammed Abduh, who gave British colonialists much grief and led to their living in an almost constant state of exile. Their teachings saw Islam as a unitarian system with a religious-political-personal code that offered solutions that were impenetrable to the material world.
Abduh's Syrian student Rashid Rida was somewhat different though. While he shared al-Afghani and Abduh's desire for a return to the "first principles", he made a strong case for the establishment of caliphate, being concerned at the collapse of Ottoman rule. The IS has adopted the caliphate concept with gusto. There were other advocates of a religious state, including theologians like Abul Ala Mawdudi who settled in Pakistan. While they wielded influence, their rejection of modern democracy did not find the acceptance they sought. The Islamic State, however, has gone more than several steps ahead, outdoing predecessors like al-Qaida in its determination to exterminate all societies not in conformity with its beliefs.
IS marks a departure from traditional Islamic thoughts - Times of India
