Anarca Islam

Mohamed Jean Veneuse
Anarca-Islam
zccv
Tni Ax~icnis1 lini~iv
Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1 Panegyric Desert of the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
On lslam, Anardism and the Newest Social Movements . . . . . . . . . . . .
z. With an Alibi Who is Speaking` . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
!. Everything Divided Te Argument Condensed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1z
2 Who Says What With Respect to Islamic anarismCan Anyone Speak to
What it Is? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1. Chapter lntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1e
z. A Review of the Academic literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . zc
!. Review of the Movement literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !c
.. Conclusions Drawn from Reviewing both literatures . . . . . . . . . . . . !.
3 Methodology and eories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1. Chapter lntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !s
z. Tus Spoke God Te Method of Anardic-ljtihad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !v
!. Tus Speaks Academia Te Teoretical lramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4 Anarca-Islams Space and Political Consciousness in Relation to anarism,
Islam and the capitalist-State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1. Chapter lntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c
z. lslam is Dead. Anardism is Dead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . z
!. Daddy-Mommy-Me Deleuze & Guauaris Oedipal Triad . . . . . . . . .
5 e Birth of the Clinic Seeing and Knowing the Clinics Commitments in
Resistance to Daddy-Mommy-Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
1. Chapter lntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ez
z. Castrating Daddy Anarca-lslams Anti-Authoritarian Concepts & Practices e
!. Shit-Talkin Mommy Anarca-lslams Anti-Capitalist Concepts & Practices
.. Te Patient comes to their own Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . s!
6 e Beginning is the End is the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
1. A Summary of the Tesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . s
z
z. Connecting M.A. to Ph.D. Where Anarca-lslam proceeds to from here . . vc
Bibliography (or References) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
!
Abstract
As an anardist and a Muslim, l have witnessed troubled times as a result of extreme divi-
sions that exist between these two identities and communities. To minimize these divisions,
l argue for an anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian lslam, an anarca-lslam, that disrupts
two commonly held beliefs one, that lslam is necessarily authoritarian and capitalist, two,
that anardism is necessarily anti-religious. lrom this position l oer anarca-lslam whid
l believe can help open-minded (non-essentialist/non-dogmatic) Muslims and anardists to
beuer understand ead other, and therefore to more eectively collaborate in the context of
what Ridard Jl Day has called the newest social movements.
.
Chapter 1
Panegyric Desert of the Present
On Islam, Anarism and the Newest Social Movements
ln Open Sky (1vvc), Paul Virilio argues that the ban on representation in certain cultural
practices and the refusal to see women, for example, in the case of lslam is being super-
seded at this very moment by the [Western] cultural obligation to see, with the overexposure
of the visible image taking over from the underexposure of the age of the wriuen word (vc).
Tat is, lslam and Muslims' are now not only facing the perils of invisibility, but also the
impossibility of not being seen (1vv vc, emphasis added). Tis Western obligation to gin-
gerly sneak a sidelong look (Virilio, 1vvc vc) at lslam and Muslims, l contend, is generally
based on two intents lirst, an intent to unmask an inexhaustible supply of hidden terrorists.
And, second, to set up lslam as an oppressive regime, as is the case with the clidd view of
veiled Muslim women undergoing the horrors of Non-Western patriardy, or of lraqis and
'Conscious of the force of sud a word, and its singular form Muslim as opposed to its plural form Mus-
limeen, l use it somewhat dierently. A Muslim is someone who dooses to identify as a Muslim, or is by
nature that (that is, embodies lslamic tendencies/daracteristics). Unless, and in either of the two cases stated,
the individual has undergone compulsion, coercion or rejected lslam aner knowing it. Moreover, l dose to use
Muslim, as opposed to Muslima the feminized form following a clid, but only in so far to allow room for
both the reader and myself to subscribe and/or not to one area or category of gender, the other, or both. Tis way
l am recognizing that there are those who want to exhibit and remain in states of the Deleuzian and Guauarian
concept of becoming with respect to gender, sex and sexuality. As for the question who is a Muslim` Personally,
l believe a Muslim is an individual who expends from his and her wealth for a just cause, and who believes in the
hereaner and also dooses to believe in the value of the primary principle pillar of lslam called Al-Shahada. Tat
is, La illaha il Allah, Muhammadon Rasool Allah (trans. ere is authority but God and Muhammad is the nal
Messenger of God). Te basis of these prerequisites and only these prerequisites, to be identied as a Muslim, l
take from the Koranic verse Te (true) believers are those only who believe in Allah and His messenger and
anerward doubt not, but strive with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah. Sud are the sincere (Te
Holy Koran, Chapter .v Chapter of Te Hujurat, Verse 1). Respectively, when l use and address Muslims (my
own straw-persons, unless they are specied, constructed for descriptive convenience) here l mean to address all
Muslims (and also but indirectly non-Muslims as well). Particularly, however l address those Muslims who have
not yet embedded and opened themselves up to an ethically and politically oriented lslam to meet our conditions
as Muslims in our present day and age.
Afghanis as feeble subjects of lslamic tyranny who must be freed. Muslims in the West face
an intensied assault on representation, in other words, representations are abundant and of-
ten function through binary signications. As Jean Baudrillard argues there is a reduction
of lslam [and Muslims] to the representations lundamentalism and Orientalism, or terror-
ism and oppression, not to destroy but to domesticate [them]and the symbolic dallenges
they represent for the entire West (Baudrillard, 1vv zs).
ln the West, it has practically become a pathological obligation, born of scorn, to clear
the semiotic space of any alternative representations, as if the lundamentalist/Orientalist
pairing were sdool uniforms (loucault in Afray and Anderson, zcc z1c). Te Wests sym-
bolic dallenge is forcing Muslims to submit to these representations, especially immigrant
and citizen Muslims of the West who have slipped across that formations necessarily porous
borders (Deleuze, zccc vc). To the West, controlling Muslims by limiting elds of possibil-
ity for revolutionary representations of their subjectivities is now the only remaining feasible
form of discipline, considering that the West cannot ex-communicate Muslims en masse to
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or the notorious Abu Ghraib that has been renamed Baghdad Cen-
tral Prison`. But then l rhetorically ask, what is the dierence between being held between
the four walls of a prison cell, and the manipulation of ones identity to the point that one
comes to resent oneself`.
Tere is a special, delirious and dierent relation between Disciplinary and Control societies. ln disciplinary
were supposed to start all over again ead timeits analogical as you go from sdool to the barracs, from
the barracs to the factory (Deleuze, 1vvc 1s). Disciplinary societies adore relating between two connements
they have created, and using binaries, male/female, blac/white or hetero/homo. Tat is, in order to dene and
manage everyone all in an eort at daracterizing and giving daracter the complexities of what is really static in
life. But in Control, the various forms of control used want to jail us all the time using these inseparable variations
digitally. All the time in Control, there are constantly modulating connements, people and institutions, capable
and willing, identifying and dierentiating, pinpointing and monitoring. Tis results in the creation or birth of
us as micro-fascists, liule command centres proliferat[ing] everywhere, making coades, teaders and cops
all liule Mussolinis (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc zv/zzs). ln Control there is a system of Varying geometry,
a language thats digital and that can be, but isnt necessarily binary (Deleuze, 1vvc 1v). And now you and
l are never nished with anything not business, training or military service without having coexisted with
metastable states of a single modulation of control, a sort of universal transmutation of everything that is around
you and l.
`Te new prison, now supposedly a humane prison, has water fountains, a freshly planted garden and a
gym complete with weights and sports team jerseys on the walls. And is this supposed to erase and rewrite
the history of all the atrocious monstrosities that happened in between its prison walls before` Article Abu
Ghraib now a human prison, lraq ocial say by Arwa Damon. Retrieval Date lebruary zznd, zccv. Retrieved
from (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/22/iraq.abughraib/index.html)
What is the dierence between a rage that destroys, exterminating, strangling everything human poured
between concrete prison walls or inducing loss, manipulating all you want, wearing the subject out with no
objective or out of shear pleasure of watding, with a grin, the subject wears and tears his and her own identity
out, to make them resent and despise the vine that makes them dierent. Tis is not to insinuate no dierence
between a literal concrete asylum wall as Abu Ghraib, but an emphasis that the greatest traumas, the real
asylums, are engrained as walls within. Tis view is in line with Sherene Razacs argument. Tat is, that
Western Muslims, as Sherene Razac argues, edoing ltienne Balibar, are clearly a stigmatized group, barricaded
and internally walled by the representations Orientalism and lundamentalism qualitatively deterritorialized,
as Gilles Deleuze would say, in an intensive rather than extensive sense, they live on the edge of the city under
permanent threat of elimination, but also, conversely, they live and are perceived as nomads, even when they
e
Many sdolars have contended that September 11th has resulted in the intensication
of reductive imagery of Muslims. As Jean Baudillard argues, September 11th is there
rst only then does its possibility and its causes catd up with it, through all the [bi-
nary] discourses that will auempt to explain it (zcc 1!), like heroes/villains, victims/
perpetrators, innocent/evil, enemies/future allies (Virilio & Der Dian, 1vvs sv), with us/
against us, terrorists/oppressed, lundamentalist/Orientalist. Te United States war on ter-
ror successfully bred a particular geopolitical terrain in the post-v/11 period, enabling the
blatant racism now being exercised on the bodies of Western Muslims (Razac, zccs s.).
Now when Westerners speak of the martyrs, it is their way of lslamicizing the Japanese
suicide auac[s] (Virilio, zccz 1s) on Pearl Harbor. But the satire behind v/11 is not only
that it created Muslims as racialized enemy targets, but that any other remotely resembling,
defending or supporting Muslims became a terrorist or a co-conspirator of terror as well. ln
the article 9/11 Violence stalks UK Sikhs (zcc.), published on the British Broadcasting Cor-
porations website, Jagdeesh Singh, a member of the Sikh Community Action Network in
Britain, noted that racial assaults on Britains Sikh community have become fashionable
since the 11th September auacs, with racist abusersshout[ing] Bin laden at Sikh men
because of their beards and turbans. Singh, himself a victim, not just of a racial assault as
a result of a case of mistaken identity, but also of the general climate of v/11, is now seen as
a co-conspirator of terror. ln this sense, v/11 has caused the confusion of others as Muslims,
legitimizing violence not only on Muslims but the generalized other as well.
Beyond generalities, and although these representations can be seen as abstractions, they
can be brought closer home to demonstrate their existence on an everyday level through the
specic example of racist, lslamaphobic incidents at Qeens University, Kingston, Canada
in zccszccv. ln late September zccs, as Jane Switzer reported in the article Muslim Student
Targeted in Racist Incidents (zccs) of the Qeens Journal, the Qeens Muslim Student As-
sociations (QUMSA) prayer space was barraged by multiple anti-lslamic crimes. Crimes
that started with advertised slogans spanning a mass condemnation of Muslims to death (all
are xed in their homelands, that is, their mere existence, their quality, their movements, their virtual claims of
rights and citizenship are perceived as a threat for [Western] civilization (Balibar, zcc! 1z1!c, Razac, zccs
s.s). Because of the didotomous representations, Western Muslims subjectivities have been marked for
dying (Razak, zccs s), subjected to conditions of life [, unworthy of the full benets of citizenship, tantamount
to] conferring on them the status of the living dead (Mbembe, zcc! .c).
Article titled v/11 violence stalks UK Sikhs courtesy of the British Broadcasting Cor-
poration (BBC). Retrieval date lebruary 1.th zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:Wg4d1CDCF6YJ:news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4017161.stm+sikh+aaed+muslim+9/
11&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=ca)
Article titled v/11 violence stalks UK Sikhs courtesy of the British Broadcasting Cor-
poration (BBC). Retrieval date lebruary 1.th zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:Wg4d1CDCF6YJ:news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4017161.stm+sikh+aaed+muslim+9/
11&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=ca)
Article from Te Qeens Journal, Muslim Student Targeted in Racist lncidents. Retrieved on October eth,
zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008-09-26/news/muslim-students-targeted-
racist-incidents/)
Qeens Muslims should die, the grati said) to the breaking in, [and the] then of darita-
ble donations (Switzer, zccs). Tese incidents were followed later by the vandalizing of a
poster' and the tearing to shreds of religious texts (Switzer, zccs). Tese incidents happened
in two days, seven years aner the auacs on v/11.
Under sud circumstances, it would seem that Western Muslims have one of two options
We must either use mainstream media and politics against those who represent us, or con-
zccs.
racist-incidents/)
zccs.
racist-incidents/)
'But it did not end there. ln the following weeks, the pyramid of these cowardly incidents piled up sky high
over crypts of lundamentalist and Orientalist clids of Muslims, as a hijab dawning Qeens Muslimsister walk-
ing home one ne evening became a masturbatory target and a recipient of racist wails by a speeding motorist.
Te motorist wailed let me unwrap you, you fuking Terroristyou fuking Taliban. Who then is the terror-
ist` A sister warranting unwrapping because she is oppressed or a cowardly motorist disappearing beneath
the blanket of a shared nights sky as the betrayals of a faded sun became queues, green trac lights, for this
racist to aunt car love` ln the meanwhile, amplifying things even more, Qeens Universitys administration,
having done long ago with seeking justice on behalf of its othered minorities, maintained itself in total ambiguity
and total duplicity. lts response only included enhanced campus security. Apparently security was the best the
administration could do as its sucient evidence of aid to the sister harassed in the face of racism, and terrorism.
Te fact of the mauer is that the sister was len behind, stranded, by the administration, un-encouraged to even
suggestively le a police report. Te administration did not even try to nd out what the sisters life at Qeens
was like as a Muslim, widening even more an already existing distance between the administration and Muslim
students. Since the incident, the non-Kingstonian sister took the initiative of ling the report herself. Te ha-
rassed sister oers proof that the administrations auention was diverted. ln fact, it was nowhere, already in a
diversion, out of toud entirely with this other on its grounds and len entrusted in its care. And even if it can
be posited that the administration did blink an eye in an aectionate public display by denouncing these crimes
publicly and adequately enhancing campus security, undeniably these actions are anything but a performed
stunt on the administrations part, given the fact that a vast ample of other crimes have happened since. Totally
short circuited, it did not occur to the administration as a simple gesture of common decency to visit, not once, the
Muslim prayer space broken into for instance. Te administration had washed its hands of the incidents, sweep-
ing them under a Persian carpet rug for ostracized Muslims, racialized minorities, at least those demographically
available, and radical allies at Qeens to deal with these racist incidents. QUMSA, as reported, was compelled
to form a Task lorce [, given the administrations inadequate response,] to deal with the consequences of these
incidentsto implement security measures for the safety of the members, raise awareness, and organize support.
Te shouldered burden it seems was to continue, as always, to shin onto the innocent recipients of racism, in this
case Muslims, to set up a task force to educate Qeens non-Muslims of lslam in the hope of minimizing more
terrorist auacs. l oer these corroborating words from QUMSAs progress report dated November zth, zccs
We are only a student group [we] are having a hard time trying to collaborate with other [student] groups
and the Qeens Administration, we are not even able to guarantee that Canadian right [, that is, of respect].
As a Qeens Muslim, l cannot bring myself to write anything more on these particular incidents.
zccs.
racist-incidents/)
s
tinue to silently accept our lot and truly live in hell. lt seems to me that most Muslims in
the West have in fact dosen one of these options. Some, however, are resisting this false
doice, by recreating alternatives to it, by becoming'' Muslim anardists.' Tey are becom-
ing revolutionary subjects in a Deleuzian and Guauarian sense (1vs. 1z). Tat is, they are
casting o their shame [of being identied as Muslim] and responding to what is intolera-
ble, i.e. the didotomous representations themselves (Deleuze, 1vvc). Tese Muslims, many
of whom identify as anardists, are taking it upon themselves to pierce open desiring pro-
cesses by reconstructing a new understanding of what it is to identify and to be identied as
a Muslim in the West. And it is because of anardisms anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist
orientations that these Muslims are particularly drawn to it. Anardism oers Muslims new
avenues for their identitys reformulation.
Tis embracing of anardism by a minority'` of Muslims as a response to the problem
of Muslims and lslam (loucault in Afray and Anderson, zcc z1c), and this presentation of
Muslims as a socio-political force, allows us to see Muslim anardism as an example of what
Ridard Jl Day has called the newest social movements' (zcc v). Because of the critical role
''Becoming is the imagination and thereaner the actualization of perpetual projects of self-overcoming and
self-creation, constantly losing and nding ourselves (Call, zcc! !!). Te implication of whid is that subjec-
tivities, not necessarily identities, are subject to directions of motion and intensities, resulting in their instability.
(Call, zcc! !!). Anyone is already a multiplicity, the actualization of a set of virtual singularities that function
together, that enter into symbiosis, that auain a certain consistency (Deleuze, 1vv! xxix). Our subjectivities are
socially constructed through our experiences. Becoming is the perpetual projects of self-overcoming and self-
creation, constantly losing and nding ourselves, consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously (Call, zcc!
!!). An anary of our subjectivity is an anardy of becoming(s) where becoming(s) are not conned to linear
progressions and regressions along the lines of the past, present and future as a logos or telos. During becom-
ing(s), everything stops dead for a moment, everything freezes in place and then the whole process will begin
all over again (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vs ).
'l do not see a dierence between the terms Muslim anardist and anardist Muslim. lspecially and consider-
ing that writing either Muslim anardist or anardist Muslim, with one identity always before and one always
aner the other, will always lead to the privileging of one identity over the other. When, in fact, my initiative is
for them to always be together, with ead other. lt is only possible to keep the impossible initiative when keeping
the term silenced. ln light of this, and to avoid the readers confusion, from here on in l will use Muslim anardist
as opposed to always referring to both.
'`Te dierence between minorities and majorities isnt in their size. A minority may be bigger than a
majority. What denes the majority is a model you have to conform to the average luropean adult male city-
dweller, for example A minority, on the other hand, has no model, its a becoming, a process. One might say
the majority is nobody. lverybodys caught, one-way or another, in a minority becoming that would lead them
info unknown paths if they opted to follow it through. When a minority creates models for itself, its because it
wants to become a majority, and probably has to, to survive or prosper (to have a state, be recognized, establish
its rights, for example). But its power comes from what its managed to create, whid to some extent goes into the
model, but doesnt depend on it. A people is always a creative minority, and remains one even when it acquires
a majority it can be both at once because the two things arent lived out on the same plane. (Deleuze in a
Conversation with Antonio Negri)
Retrieved on October eth, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpdeleuze3.htm)
'Day wrote an entire book on this concept, the newest social movements. l use, summarize, contextually,
the term to imply social movements that in his words are non-universalizing, non-hierardical, non-coercive
relationships based on mutual aid, and shared ethical commitments (Day, zcc v).
v
it has to play, by acting as a safe space for Muslims (further) resistance, it is in the newest
social movements that l see hope, not only for Muslim anardists, but also for all Muslims.
lt is in this critical space where l can see a place for Muslims and Muslim anardists to be
able to begin again and again the radical recreation of their socio-political identities in a way
that is conducive to lslams present confrontations with contemporary Western societies. lt
is there that there are innite possibilities and opportunities for a Muslims resistance to the
horrors and neuroses of a Muslims daily life. Muslims supported with time by a passage
through anardisms vernaculars in the newest social movements can be bodies that are not
frozen in their current socio-political state of coma and naivet.
lt is in the newest social movements too, that anardism and anardists stand to learn
from interacting with Muslims. lor instance, anardists could benet by learning how to
disagree ethically as a community as opposed to tearing ead other apart over ideological
and personal dierences. lslam developed this type of ethics early on, in what is referred
to Usul Al-ikhtilaf,' or the ethics of disagreements, as a compassionate and forgiving form
of etiqueue for Muslims to address disagreements amongst themselves. Anardists in the
newest social movements, as mud as Muslims, indeed stand to gain, culturally, aesthetically,
politically and ethically, should anardists learn to accept that others who are not exactly
like them ought to be able to join them in their anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist revolt.
Despite the fact that the newest social movements can potentially act as a safe space, Muslims
and Muslim anardists still have a long way to go in terms of being made to feel welcome
and comfortable by anardists. Tis necessitates the opening up of a panegyric desert of
the present, a metaphor that stands for a more hospitable space carved out for Muslims and
Muslim anardists in the newest social movements. Tat is, a space where they can interact
with anardists and anardism, and similarly for anardism and anardists to interact with
lslam and Muslims. Tis panegyric desert is especially pertinent given that vital and critical
misconceptions exist between Muslims and anardists, whid hinder collaborations between
the two. Tese misconceptions have an especially adverse eect on Muslim anardists. Tey
leave Muslim anardists facing diculties because of their ostracization by anardists on
top of what is already their ostracization by Muslim communities. Still there is no way to
eradicate misconceptions completely. Tey will indenitely persist, given that their cause,
stereotypes, can never be entirely eliminated, but only identied, situated contextually, and
minimized.
'Ikhtilaf is the Arabic term[meaning] taking a dierent position or course from that of another person
either in opinion, uuerance, or action (Al-awani, 1vv! 11). lkhtilaf is from the related word khilaf from the
same rootsometimes used synonymously with [lkhtilaf]mean[ing] dierence, disagreement, or even conict
broader in meaning and implication than the concept of direct oppositionbecause two opposites are necessarily
dierent from ead other whereas two things, ideas, or persons that dier are not necessarily opposed to or in
conict with ead other (Al-awani, 1vv! 11).
1c
2. With an Alibi: Who is Speaking?
Troughout my thesis, l will showcase howthe seemingly didotomous identities Muslimand
anardist can co-exist. lor now however, let me state that l self-identify as a Muslim anar-
dist. ln fact, l am, in a Deleuzian and Guauarian sense destined to be becoming both Muslim
and anardist, considering there is no ideal state of either (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vs, 1!).
As a former immigrant and now citizen len feeling as a disrespected worthless foreigner, a
second-rate citizen, studying, working and living in the West, l am a seuler on indigenous
land. l am also a racialized person of color. l am a socially constructed heterosexual male.
l have class privilege. l am a human being who has experienced a cosmopolitan upbringing
taking me on journeys across four continents. l have no home or community. l want one
with anardists and anyone willing to share similar anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian
commitments to myself, and more importantly to anardism. l would go anywhere for that
community. l would do anything for it. l am a fascist with fascisms crystallized at the centre
of my heart because of the privileges l possess (Guauari, 1vv z..z.). l am a fascist till l
arrive at a position of grasping and comprehending my standings to privileges, but then un-
dertaking journeys and stories of warding o those privileges. linally, l believe that those
who enjoy structural privilege must strive to identify and work against this privilege if they
hope to establish relations of solidarity with those who do not share it (Day, zcc 11).
ln trying to convince anti-religious anardists not to out rightly reject what l am saying
because it is religious, l say to them here that part of the reason that l feel the pain l feel
is because though your anardistic ethical-political actions are so honorable, innocent and
disarming (Derrida 1vs 1se), they are also ones based on wanting to take anardism bac
from me on account of what to you is my useless spirituality. As anti-religious anardists,
you shun me from our community when you have never met me. You shun me when the
anardism you and l believe in is a commitment to standing against the exercise of any form
of oppression. You shun me out of your fear of lslam as an institutional and organized au-
thoritarian medanism of repression. But, who is to say that lslam has to be institutional,
organized, authoritarian, and repressing` l prove in this thesis it does not have to be. As
for your dogmatic view that God is Dead, l believe that view to be too easy to fathom
because it simplies what is, in fact, a complex reality. lurthermore, there is no proof of
Gods life or death. Your view is nothing more than a luro-centric view, rooted in the essen-
tialist perception that God [and Gods feuered religion solely possess]promisesnull and
voidonlyfullled by mans subordination (Goldman, 1vev ). But lmma Goldmans
statement pertains to a particular interpretation of Christianity being practiced at a partic-
ular place and time as opposed to all types of religious interpretations. And so my belief in
God is not an aesthetic thing or a ritual l do, but the strength from whid l derive reason to
drive myself to stand and share the same ethical and political commitments as you. lt is God
who graced me with the gin of encountering anardism aner v/11. Now anardism is what is
compelling me to come bac to lslam to unleash the lslamic and anardic anti-authoritarian
and anti-capitalist concepts and practices that l believe exist in lslam in an auempt to bridge
the proximity between the two, lslam and anardism, me and you.
11
As for you, immigrant and citizen Muslims, whoever and whatever interpretation of ls-
lam you doose to follow, l can feel some of you are lost, trapped between the politics of a
former corrupt native land and an adopted Western immigrant and citizen tongue. l feel you
by virtue of my years of residency in the West and my prayers with and alongside you in
Mosques. And my interest here rests on not bending myself to your determination (Der-
rida, 1vs 1se) by believing in barriers when discussing anything ethical and political with
anardists. My intent is to politically and ethically reorient your lslam and mine because our
lslam, as l will demonstrate, has given me the Koranic right to do so. Know that what l write
here cannot be rejected on the grounds of heresy. l am merely writing here because l am
deafened by the termination of dialogue between us as Muslims, as well as the ambivalence
and complacency of some of us towards patriardy, trans-queer-phobia, racism, ageism, cap-
italism and authority, unwarranted and existing in our communities. So aner reading this
come up with your own interpretations and l welcome all criticisms aner study, as long as
they are done respectfully.
linally, what is len and what l expect from all Muslims and anardists reading this thesis
is that they listen before passing judgment on what l have come here to say.
3. Everything Divided e Argument Condensed
Tere are ve remaining dapters to this thesis
ln the second dapter, Who Says What With Respect to Islamic anarismCan Anyone
Speak to What it Is?, l carry out a literature review of writings by Muslim anardists. lt in-
cludes HakimBeys essays Millennium (1vve), Islamand Eugenics (1vv), Sacred Dri: Essays
on the Margins of Islam (1vv!), and Midael Muhammad Knights ctional text Taqwacores
(zcc.). l also discuss three articles on the topic lslam and anardism, wriuen by non-Muslim
writers. Te rst is Harold B. Barclays lslam, Muslim Societies, Anardy published in An-
arist Studies (zccz). Te second is Patricia Crones Ninth-Century Muslim Anardists
published in Past and Present Volume 1c, no.z (zccc). Te third is Anthony liscellas lmag-
ining an lslamic Anardism A New lield of Study is Ploughed in Religious Anarisms:
New Perspectives (zccv, forthcoming). l also present contemporary and historical examples
of Muslim anardists and anardist Muslims, including Yakub lslam, Gustave Henri Jossot,
and leda Rafenilli. Te literature is a positive step in resisting the didotomous representa-
tions of Muslims but there are three critical problems l address lirst, the literature does not
deal with the Koran, leading to the secularization of the texts. Second, the writers do not
particularly identify who the intended audience is or the purpose of what is wriuen. Tree,
the writers adopt and advocate for a Stirnerian individualistic approad to writing on lslam
and anardism (Kropotkin, 1v1c).
l will be arguing for three things in light of this literatures problems. Te rst is the con-
struction of an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic interpretation of anardism.
And for this construction to be done Koranically and anardistically, by drawing concep-
tual and pragmatic anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist resonances between lslam and an-
1z
ardism. Second, that this synergistic interpretation addresses a relevant audience and be
with a particular purpose. Te audience addressed will be Muslims and anardists within
the newest social movements, with the purpose of helping increase the possibility of soli-
darity between Muslims and anardists. Tree, that this interpretation adopt and advocate
for a balanced approad between communal politics, based on anity-based ethico-political
commitments, and micro-politics (Day, zcc 1, 1.!) as opposed to a strict adherence to an
individualistic Stirnerian approad. Under these criteria, l oer the interpretation that l label
Anarca-Islam.
Tis interpretation is of value for three reasons. lirst, it can allow Muslims, and Mus-
lim anardists, to resist the aforementioned didotomous representations. Second, because
it counters two misconceptions of lslam and Muslims amongst anardists. Te rst miscon-
ception is the impossibility of the construction of either an anardic interpretation of lslam
or an lslamic interpretation of anardism. Te second misconception is the impossibility of
the co-existence of Muslim and anardist identities in a single subjectivity. lvidence of these
misconceptions is to be demonstrated through anardist articles, forums, and blogs. Tird,
this interpretation is of value because it carves a panegyric desert of the present where Mus-
lims, anardists, and Muslim anardists can collaborate more eectively in the newest social
movements. lxamples of their current collaboration are groups like No One ls lllegal (NOll)
and Solidarity Across Borders (SAB).
ln the third dapter, Methodology and eories, l introduce a method l call Anaric-
Ijtihad and outline the theoretical paradigms l use in my contribution, Anarca-lslam, to the
existing discourse on lslam and anardism. Troughout the thesis, l carry out a critical ex-
egesis of the Koran, as well as other lslamic and anardistic texts, using Anardic-ljtihad as
a method of interpretation. Some orthodox Muslim sdolars, known in Arabic as Muis or
Imams, will doubtless regard this method as heresy, and secular Muslims sud as Midael
Knight will regard it as unnecessary. Te accusation of heresy will be levied under the guise
of safeguarding lslam from an impure and tainted Westernized reading. When, truthfully,
the issue is related to power, its concentration within institutions versus its dissemination
amongst the Muslim populace at large. Te perception of Anardic-ljtihad as unnecessary
will be levied under the pretext that the Koran, as some sdolars like Knight contend, is a
tiny liule book for tiny liule men (zcc. 1c). ln defense of the practice of Anardic-ljtihad,
l argue that lslam grants me the right to conduct a critical exegesis of the Koran and to write
on Anarca-lslam. Tis right, whose classical form is referred to as ijtihad, literally implies
striving. ljtihad denotes not only an lslamic right, but an obligatory duty, entrusted by God
to Muslims involved in sdolarly study, to interpret and re-interpret lslamic ethico-political
principles and thereby engage in independent reasoning (lsposito, zccz 1v). Anardic-
ljtihad is so-named to highlight that it is an anardistic type of ijtihad. Anardic-ljtihad is
the deconstructive logic and force l will use to reread conceptual and pragmatic practices in
the Koran and the Prophetic Oral tradition(s) so that they resonate with anardism.
lollowing my discussion on Anardic-ljtihad, l identify the theoretical paradigms used
to create Anarca-lslam post-anardist, deconstructionist, post-colonial, and poststructuralist
theories, along with sociological theories of social movements. l discuss how these theories
1!
will be individually and collectively used. Briey, post-colonial theory oers a discursive
resistance to lurocentric biases (Gandhi, 1vvs ., 1c, Minh-ha, 1vv1, Bhabha, 1vv., Monod,
1vc). As Jacques Monod has argued, Muslims in the West face a survivalist necessity(1vc)
to resist assimilationist and racist practices and policies directed against them. Poststructural-
ist and deconstructionist theories oer a resistance to structuralism, hierardies and domi-
nant relations established upon the construction of essentialist or reductionist qualities. Here
l have in mind qualities along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, age, sexuality, re-
ligion and class. Post-anardist theory oers a poststructuralist interpretation of anardism,
resonating with the interpretation of lslam l advocate for. Social movement theory is the
space where these theories are manifesting and interacting (Deleuze, 1vvc).
ln the fourth dapter, Anarca-Islams Space and Political Consciousness in Relation to an-
arism, Islam and the capitalist-State, l dene Anarca-lslam in relation to anardism, lslam
and the capitalist-State. lirst, l argue for the death of a singular puritanical lslam, and the
death of a singular puritanical anardism, both are in fact pluralistic traditions (Deleuze and
Guauari, 1vsc ze!v). lslam is only alive in so far as it manifests itself in the Holy Koran
and the Prophetic Oral tradition. Anardisms, Western and Non-Western, are also only alive
in so far as they manifest themselves in their classical texts (Bakunin 1s!, Kropotkin, 1svc,
Goldman, 1v1c, Adams, zcc!). Anarca-lslam is then dened. lts relation to lslam and anar-
dism, specically post-anardism, is established. An immanent critique of Western classical
anardisms luro-centricity and perception of power operating strictly at the macro level
the state and institutionalized religion is carried out. Tis involves a discussion of Niet-
zsdean/loucaultian and post-anardistic views of micro and macro power (Day, zcc, May,
1vv., Call, zcc1, Rolando, 1vvc, Newman, zcc1) and of the similarities and the dierences
between strategic and tactical political philosophy (May, 1vv.1c11). Tis critique is done
to distinguish between Western classical anardism and post-anardism.
lollowing this, l dene, in line with Saul Newman (zcc1), a triadic relationship that con-
sists of Daddy (authoritarian practices of the type macro and micro), Mommy (capitalist
practices) and Me (oedipal subject). Te analogy, Mommy-Daddy-Me, is derived from New-
mans reading of Deleuze and Guauaris Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Sizophrenia (1v),
and whid Newman discusses in his text From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-authoritarianism and
the Dislocation of Power (zcc1). Newmans argument is that in a capitalist-State society, the
Holy State acts as a symbolic lather and capital as the symbolic Mother as if the Oedipal
duality were active as religious signiers to whid individuals are subordinated to (New-
man, zcc1 vv). ln this light, l discuss the particular role ead parent has with respect to me
and discuss the eects their relationship has on me. Given, that is, that l am an Oedipalized
subject seeking to become relatively de-Oedipalized' (Day, zcc 1.z1.!) by creating and
auending a clinic, Anarca-lslam. ln other words, Anarca-lslam resembles a clinic that l, an
'As Day argues, a relatively de-oedpalized subject is one who lives their life without having the capitalist-
States sanction or support and who does not love the [capitalist-State] form(Day, zcc 1.z1.!). ln fact, a
relatively de-oedipalized subject is one who seek[s] to render it [, the capitalist-State,] increasingly redundant
as mud as the subject possibly can (Day, zcc 1.z1.!).
1.
Oedipalized subject, construct and auend in an act of resistance to Daddy, Mommy, and thus
the capitalist-State.
ln dapter ve, e Birth of the Clinic Seeing and Knowing the Clinics Commit-
ments in Resistance to Daddy-Mommy-Me, l construct Anarca-lslam. l begin by establishing
Anarca-lslams resistance to authoritarian practices at the micro level through micro-anti-
authoritarian concepts and practices extracted from lslam, i.e. Shura, Ijma and Maslaha. l
then show how it is possible to resist authoritarian practices at the macro level, sud as in-
stitutionalized religion and the modern state. l oer an alternative rereading of the classical
interpretation of the lslamic concept Khilafah, lslamic state. l thereaner address the author-
ity of Prophet Muhammad and God. ln the end, l will have constructed an anti-authoritarian
lslam through Anarca-lslams resistance to authoritarian practices.
l then construct for Anarca-lslam its resistance to capitalism, through concepts and prac-
tices extracted from lslam Property, Communal and Individual Caretakers, Mudarabah/
Musharakah, Riba, Zakat, Ramadan, Sadaqat Al-Fitr and Islamic banking. Te rereading
of these concepts and practices produces an anti-capitalist lslam. linally, l announce myself
as no longer merely Oedipalized but becoming relatively de-Oedipalized. Anarca-lslams, or
the clinics, construction is the symbolic act of both delineating the misconceptions held by
many anardists in the newest social movements and the opening up of a panegyric desert
of the present for Muslims, Muslim anardists and anardist Muslims in the newest social
movements.
ln the sixth Chapter, e End is the Beginning is the End, l summarize the argument and
project the future trajectory of Anarca-lslam.
1
Chapter 2
Who Says What With Respect to
Islamic anarismCan Anyone
Speak to What it Is?
e anarist movement today contains virtually no Blas, Hispanics, Native
Americans, [Muslims], or ildreneven tho in theory su genuinely oppressed
groups stand to gain the most from any anti-authoritarian revolt. Might it be
that anarisms oers no concrete program whereby the truly deprived might
fulll (or at least struggle realistically to fulll) real needs and desires?
(Hakim Bey, 1vv1)
1. Chapter Introduction
ln this dapter, l carry out a critical assessment of academic texts as well as non-academic
anardist movement works that are relevant to the eld of lslamand anardismas it currently
exists. Here l am seeking to identify both academic and non-academic writers whose work
could be used to support my contentions, as well as what l consider to be gaps in the existing
literature.
ln the rst section of the literature review, l identify six tendencies l have observed in aca-
demic texts that l will use as resources to support my position for constructing Anarca-lslam.
Te rst tendency l observe is in academic texts by Muslim anardists or anardist Muslims,
1e
sud as Peter lamborn Wilson (a.k.a Hakim Bey') and Midael Muhammad Knight. Beys
non-ctional texts Millennium (1vve), Islam and Eugenics (1vv) and Sacred Dri: Essays
on the Margins of Islam (1vv!), as well as Knights ctional work Taqwacores (zccz) dis-
pel the false image of lslam as monolithic, puritan, and two-dimensional (Bey, 1vv!). ln
other words, Bey and Knight argue that lslam is neither homogenous nor monolithic, an is-
sue l will return to in more detail in dapter four. Te second tendency is in academic texts
'Bey is an American political writer, essayist and poet. He is an ontological anardist and a non-practicing
Muslim convert, mostly known for his concepts of Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), Semi-permanent Au-
tonomous Zones (SPAZ) and Permanent Autonomous Zones (PAZ). Bey spent years living and working in lran
under the reign of the Shah and returned to the US aner the revolution (liscella, zccv). ln response to the ques-
tion would you dene yourself as a Muslim, and if so, what kind of lslam would you say you practice amongst
the multiplicity of dierent forms` Bey responded
Well, lve been many things in my life and l dont renounce any of them. But l dont necessarily practice any of
them on a daily basis either. l never renounced Christianity or if l did, l take it bac. lve been involved in Tantric
things that l guess you could call Hinduism, although thats a very vague term. l practice Shite lslam. l still con-
sider myself all those things but, obviously thats a dicult position to take vis-a-vis the orthodox practitioners of
these dierent faiths. So, if l had to dene my position now in terms that would be historically meaningful in an
lslamic context, l would refer to Hazrat lnayat Khan and his idea of universalism, that all religions are true. And
if this involves contradiction, you know as lmerson said, OK. Well just deal with it on a dierent level. And the
inspiration for this in his case was lndian syndrotism, between Hinduism and lslam especially, although other
religions were involved too sud as Christianity, Judaism and others. Tis happened on both a non-literate level
of the peasantry and still persists to this day on that level, and also occurred on a very high level of intellectual
Susm whid was almost a courtly thing at certain times, especially under some of the wilder Mughal rulers like
Akbar who started Din-i llahi. So these things have precedents within the lslamic traditions, this universalism,
this radical tolerance would be another way of puuing it, but nowadays of course its hard to nd this praxis on
the ground. l cant practice some lndian village cult here, that would be a liule well l sort of do, you know
but actually (laughs), its highly personal.
Tese excerpts from Peter lamborn Wilsons lnterview on lslam are part of Ridard Jl Days Anity Project.
Te interview was done in zcc, transcribed and listed in zccs Retrieved on November 1zth, zccs. Re-
trieved from (http://affinityproject.org/interviews/plw1.html). Te Anity Projects website and
home (http://affinityproject.org/index.html).
Knight encountered lslamat the age of thirteen while he was listening to a record by Public lnemy with a ref-
erence to ll-Hajj Malik ll-Shabazz, beuer known as Malcolm X. Knight converted by seventeen then wrote two
books Where Mullahs Fear to Tread and e Furious Cook whidhe printed as Xeroxed zines. His bestseller arrives
in the winter of zccz, Taqwacores, a gesture of his farewell to lslam. Aner Taqwacores success, encouraging
feedbac from Midaels readers led him to travel bac, lnd Allah (God willing), not too far in reconsidering his
farewell to lslam. Knight owes the spread of his Taqwacoreto Wilsons anardist publishing company Autono-
media (liscella, zccv). Knight recently disavowed his former mentor due to Wilsons advocacy of paedophilia/
pedastry reected in Beys own membership and activism within the North American Man-boy Association
(NAMBlA)(liscella, zccv). A brief bio of Midael Muhammad Knight is available on the website below. Re-
trieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.autonomedia.org/MichaelMuhammadKnight). lor
Beys view on NAMBlA see untitled leuer in e Spark, 1 no. , 1vs. and My Political beliefs, NAMBlA
Bulletin (1vse, 1.). (http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1717956_comments.php)
1
by non-Muslim writers, sud as Harold B. Barclay,` Patricia Crone and Anthony liscella.
Barclays lslam, Muslim Societies, Anardy published in Anarist Studies (zccz), Crones
Ninth-Century Muslim Anardists in Past and Present (zccc) and liscellas lmagining an
lslamic Anardism A New lield of Study is Ploughed in Religious Anarisms: New per-
spectives (zccv, forthcoming) provide evidence against the traditional view that lslam and
anardism are necessarily incompatible (liscella, zccv). ln other words, Barclay, Crone and
liscella identify resonances between lslam and anardism, in support of my argument for
the possibility of constructing Anarca-lslam. Te writers identify these resonances anthro-
pologically and historically, and therefore adopt Beys approad. Te third tendency is in
Beys works Millennium and Jihad Revisited (zcc.). ln these two works, Bey advocates for
a necessary revolution the jihad (1vve), a method l develop in dapter three and use to
formthe constellation of a newpropaganda within lslam (1vve) for Anarca-lslamin dapter
ve. Te fourth tendency is in Beys text Islam and Eugencics. ln this work, Bey advocates
for the rise of a politicized lslam with a new spirit, what he calls the spirit of Sarajevo
(1vv), in America and lurope. Bey hopes that when this politicized lslam rises that it is
one based in communities, not professions of faith, and that it creates in mutual tolerance
& synergy a city-state of precious value, with an lslamic heritage(1vv). What Bey advo-
cates and hopes for is descriptive of Anarca-lslams orientation to a panegyric space in the
newest social movements. Te nh tendency is both in Beys text Sacred Dri: Essays on
the Margins of Islam and Knights text Taqwacores. ln these two works, Bey and Knight en-
gage in a scathing critique on authority (1vv!) in lslam, resonating with Anarca-lslams
anti-authoritarian position that l construct in dapter ve. Te sixth and nal tendency is
in liscellas text Imagining an Islamic Anarism: A New Field of Study is Ploughed. ln the
text, liscella classies the studies of lslamic anardism into three categories that are useful in
dening the discourse of lslam and anardism. Te rst category is concerned with studies
of lslamic anardist theory (liscella, zccv). Te second category is concerned with studies
in the anardic daracter of tribal Muslim societies (liscella, zccv). Te third category is
studies of the anardical structure of lslam (liscella, zccv).
ln the next section, l move from reviewing the academic texts to reviewing non-academic
works in the form of articles and blogs. Te review includes the article and blog forum
titled Islam and Anary Join Together (zcc!) by Chris R. on lnfo-shop. lt also includes the
`Barclay is an anardist and an anthropologist, but not a Muslim, whose central concern is darting what
might be regarded as anardist elements in lslam in general (liscella, zccv). His contribution to the discourse
of lslam and anardism was through lslam, Muslim Societies and anardy published in Anarist Studies
(liscella, zccv). See Anarist Studies Volume 1c, no. z (zccz).
Crone is a Danish born professor of lslamic History at Princeton University, New Jersey (liscella, zccv). She
is the author of Gods Rule: Government and Islam (zcc.) and Ninth-Century Muslim Anardists in Past and
Present (zccc), no. 1e.
liscella is an anardist researder and author of lmagining an lslamic Anardism A New lield of Study is
Ploughed in the forthcoming Religious Anarisms: New Perspectives (zccv).
Te article in the link below is lslam and Anardy Join Together. lt is avail-
able through lnfoshop. Retrieval Date October 1th, zccs. Retrieved from (hp://
74.125.95.104/sear?q=cae:UPpVN3mwVzwJ:news.infoshop.org/article.php%3Fstory%3D03/06/06/
1s
articles, Te Trouble with lslam in Red and Bla Revolution: Issue 7 (zcc!) by Andrew
llood and Muslim Anarism (zccv) by lric van luxzenburg. Te movements articles and
blogs rearm my contentions that lslam is neither homogenous nor monolithic and that
there exist resonances between lslam and anardism. Nevertheless, the articles and blogs also
paradoxically produce two misconceptions about lslamand Muslims. Te rst misconception
is the impossibility of the construction of either an anardic interpretation of lslam or an
lslamic interpretation of anardism. Te second misconception is the impossibility of the
co-existence of Muslim and anardist identities in a single subjectivity. l argue that these
misconceptions exist amongst anardists for two reasons. Te rst reason is their exposure
to Western corporate media representations. Te second reason is that they do not speak nor
read Arabic, practice the lslamic faith, nor have they struggled with the Koran to adequately
understand interpretative traditions of lslam derived from it.
ln the nal section of this dapter, l argue that although the academic and non-academic
literature are a positive move in resisting the didotomous representations of Muslims there
are three critical problems with them. lirst, both types of literatures do not deal with the
Koran and the Prophetic Oral tradition(s), the Sunnah, leading to the secularization of the
texts. Second, the academic and non-academic writers do not identify who the intended au-
dience is or the purpose of what they are writing. Tree, but particular to the literature of
Bey and Knight, the writers adopt and advocate for a Stirnerian individualistic approad to
writing on lslam and anardism (Kroptkin, 1v1c). l argue for three things in light of the liter-
atures critical problems. Te rst is the construction of an anardic interpretation of lslam
and an lslamic interpretation of anardism, Anarca-lslam. Moreover, l argue for the impor-
tance of this construction Koranically and anardistically by drawing conceptual-pragmatic
anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist resonances between lslam and anardism. Second, that
this synergistic interpretation addresses a relevant audience and be with a particular purpose.
Te audience addressed to be Muslims, Muslim anardists and anardists within the newest
social movements. Te purpose of this approad is to help increase the possibility of solidar-
ity between Muslims and anardists currently collaborating in groups like No One ls lllegal
(NOll) and Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) two groups that, in Days view, constitute part
of the growing newest social movements (Day, zcc 1sv1vc). Tree, for this interpretation
to adopt and advocate a balanced approad between communal politics, based on anity-
based ethico-political commitments, and micro-politics (Day, zcc 1, 1.!) as opposed to a
strict adherence to an individualistic Stirnerian approad.
7983966+anarism+islam+homophobic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca)
Max Stirner advocated for individualist anardism, or an individualistic approad to anardism, and whid
viewed the ego or the person as the repository of all that is human and self-determining, and the States as the
repository of all that is inhuman and oppressive (Horowitz, zcc .s).
1v
2. A Review of the Academic Literature
Te rst tendency Bey and Knight raise is supportive of my contentions. Tey concede that
lslam is not monolithic, but rather is multiple. To them talking of lslam as a singularity is
blasphemy. Aner all, it is problematic to speak of lslam as singular when, as Bey argues, it is
born from the recognition that
Te hyper-orthodox & the ulemocracy cantreduce [lslam] to a hegemonis-
tic/universalistic ideologyto rule out divergent forms of sacred politics in-
formed by Susm[like the Naqshabandis], radical Shia-ism, lsmaelism, lslamic
Humanism and Sunni-ism, the Green Path of Col. Qada (part neo-Susm,
part anardo-syndicalism)not to mention the cosmopolitan lslam of Bosnia
[Note we mention these elements not to condone them necessarily, but to indi-
cate that lslam is not a monolith of fundamentalism] (Bey, 1vve).
lollowing this premise, Beys work focuses on mapping and identifying, anthropologi-
cally and historically, anardisitic elements in lslam (zccv). ln doing so, Bey demonstrates,
Hakim Beys essay titled Millennium.
Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.hermetic.com/bey/millennium/millennium.
html)
However, Bey hardly stops there. Bey scorns lslam and Muslims on masodistically oering a puritan rep-
resentation of their self to the world. Beys writes in the opening lines of Sacred Dri: Essays on the Margins
of Islam As for lslam, it sometimes seems to want to represent itself as an emaciated parody of itself, stripped
of all organic subtlety, puried to the point of mindlessness (Bey, 1vv! ). To Bey, why should the light
of aming oil wells seen on CNN (Bey, 1vv! ) surprise Muslims when there is a complicit role played by
them, resulting in liule more than their desire of sameness transposing itself to become material translated for
imperial/colonialist appropriation (Bey, 1vv! ). Muslims are not powerless. Tey are equally responsible
for the images they have created and no less than a West basking on the appropriation of the representations.
Appropriations, as Bey notes, ldward Said (1vv! ) showed in e Clash of Ignorance (zcc1) and Orientalism
(1vs), and Joseph Massad wrote of in Desiring Arabs (zccs). Bey equally scorns and opposes the Western appro-
priations, critiquing the Western monolithic logic of the Huntington/ClA Clash of Cultures model of lslam
(1vv) adopted by authors like Ronald lnglehart and Pippa Norris in Rising Tide (zcc!). Huntingtons essentialist
model is that the primary source of conict in the world today is the cultural dierence between the West and
non-West, a culture clash in whid lslam gures prominently as the antithesis of Western civilization (Razac,
zccv sv). ldoing Huntington, lnglehart and Norris write regardless of the degree of economic modernization,
lslamic religious heritage remains ones of the most powerful barriers to self-expression, subjective well-being
and quality of life-concerns (Razac, zccv vc, lnglehart and Norris, zcc! 1.). Huntington, Norris and lngle-
harts cultural clash rests on their absurd portrayal of lslam as identical everywhere, paralyzed and paralyzing
its followers. A puritanical singular lslam perceived to be with an innate propensity towards violent conict
(Huntington, 1vv ze.), indenitely ready to war with the West. A war whid Huntington, Norris and lnglehart
propose lslam devoted itself to for fourteen hundred years, a conict that ows from the two civilizations dif-
ferences (Razac, zccv sv, Huntington, 1vv! .). Huntington, Norris and lngleharts theses, like Said blatantly
said in e Clash of Ignorance (zcc1), amount to nothing short of gimmic[s] like Te War of the Worlds, beuer
for reinforcing defensive pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering independence of out time. Te
theses, in fact, are uncritical and dismissive if not ignorant of historical processes (Razac, zccv sv), with an
interest in merely engaging in essentialist, totalizing and homogenizing readings of lslam and Muslims at an
auempt at narrowly regurgitating and constricting the representation of the duo as monolithic. ln line with Said,
Massad and Razac, Bey writes Te Huntington/ClA Clash of Cultures model of lslam proposes it as a kind
zc
as liscella notes, a plurality of anardically oriented interpretative traditions of lslam as prac-
ticed through the
Qalandars, lsmailis (especially the Assassins), the socialist Ali Shariati, Khezr
(or the Green Man whom Wilson associates with militant environmentalism,
Khalduns Bedouins, Sus (sud as lbn al-Arabi, al-Hallaj, and Rumi, Muammar
Qaddas Tird Universal Teory, and his own Moorish Orthodox Churd (orig-
inally a white beatnik outgrowth of Noble Drew Alis Moorish Science Temple)
(liscella, zccv).
ln demonstrating a plurality of anardically oriented traditions in lslam, Bey is identify-
ing lslam as multiple as opposed to it being monolithic.
Next to Bey is Knight, who in his text Taqwacores also argues against the idea of a mono-
lithic lslam. Knights text is a ctitious story of a straightedge Sunni, Umar, a drunken
Mohawk-wearing Su who plays roonop calls-to-prayer on his electric guitar' (Knight,
zccv), Jehangir, a dope smoking riot girl donning a burqa, Rabeya, and an lranian Shiite
skinhead, Ayyub. Te central protagonist and narrator of this renegade anardist pac of
Muslim-punk-rocers out of Bualo, New York, is Yusuf. Yusuf is an engineering student
of Pakistani descent who is caught between the worlds of Muslim piety, angry hardcore
music, and[a] mixed dose of both son and hardcore sex'' (Knight, zccv). Te novel beau-
tifully illustrates its daracters collective articulation of a heresy-friendly, pluralist lslam'
(Knight, zccv). Te novel sheds light on a few of the representations of lslam that are len out
of mainstream representations of it by looking into the twin identities of punk and lslam
in their many varieties and degrees of orthodoxy'` (Knight, zccv). A memorable passage in
the novel is when Umar says to Yusuf,
of disease that has to be kept isolated & conned. Te neo-liberal Global Market model of the Orient views it
as a source of raw material (sud as blac gold) and deep labor that must be exploited. Te resources are to be
taken away, the labor is to be kept in place. Obviously Moslem immigration to the North does not t well with
either of these models. lf lslam is a disease, then refugees are a virus, penetrating borders like immune systems.
But then disruptions are also inevitable, given the logic of the Market. Te old liberal response to the problem
of immigration was to turn the migrants into luropeans or Americans, to erase their dierence into sameness
(Bey, 1vv).
'Article titled Taqwacores by Midael Muhammad Knight.
Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:NCUk_7RoTqkJ:undermidnightsun.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/taqwacores-by-miael-
muhammad-knight/+taqwacores+aracters+yusuf&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)
''Article titled Taqwacores by Midael Muhammad Knight.
Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:NCUk_7RoTqkJ:undermidnightsun.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/taqwacores-by-miael-
muhammad-knight/+taqwacores+aracters+yusuf&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)
'Brief bio of Midael Muhammad Knight is available on the website below. Retrieved on October sth, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.autonomedia.org/MichaelMuhammadKnight)
'`Taqwacores description on Autnomedias website. Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http:
//www.autonomedia.org/MichaelMuhammadKnight)
z1
lslam enjoins solidarity with our oppressed and persecuted bothers. But lm
not a nationalist, thats why l got that one up
He gestured to the lslam Conference ag. Were one community, brother, thats
the umma, the only legitimate political entity on this earth. (Knight, zccz !).
ln this passage, Knight clearly demonstrates, through Umar, a view he believes exists
amongst some Western Muslims. Te view is that lslam is monolithic. Only then pages
later, in contrast to Umars view, during a conversation between Jehingar and Yusuf, Knight
writes of Jehingars response to Yusuf when Yusuf asks Jehingar about what taqwacore is.
Jehingar reveals that it is about ugly Muslims, outcasts from their individual communities,
who constitute a multi-faceted lslam as opposed to a monolithic lslam. Knight writes
So what do you think it is` l asked.
l think its just about being uglyBut yeah,
manl think thats where its
atugly
Whats taqwacore then` Ugly Muslims`
Kind of.
l stayed plopped on the pord, Jehangir stayed stretded out on the sidewalk
and we went a while without speaking. ln silence l lost myself daydream-
ing of an Ugly Muslim Parade marding single-le down our street with ev-
ery Ugly Muslim included the women who traveled without their walis, the
painters who painted people, beardless qazis, the dog owners in their angel-free
houses, hashishiyyuns like lasiq Abasa, liwats and sihaqs, Ahamdiyyas, believ-
ers who stopped reading in Arabic because they didnt know what it said, the
len-handers, the beer swillers, the Kuwaiti sentenced to death for singing Qran,
the guys who snuc o with girls to make out and undo generations of cerebral
clitorectomy, the girls who stopped blaming themselves every time a man had
dirty thoughts, the mumins who stopped their cloc-punding, the kids who had
pepperoni on their pizza, on and on down the line (Knight, zccz e).
Knights juxtaposition of Umar and Jehingers positions on a puritanical legitimate Mus-
lim community versus an ugly impure lslam is commendable. lt symbolizes the way some
post-colonial Muslims perceive themselves and the relative ease with whid the West appro-
priates these perceptions. Knights view, like Beys, is therefore in line with my contention
that lslam is not monolithic.
Te second tendency l observe, as taken from academic texts by non-Muslims, is the
recognition that resonances exist between lslam and anardism. To these writers, lslam and
anardism are not identical, but neither are they necessarily incompatible. lor instance,
zz
Barclay in his text Islam, Muslim societies and anary begins by addressing a possible rela-
tionship between the idea of anardy and Muslim society' as it exists in Kharijite and Su
traditions' (Barclay, zccz). Barclay then proceeds to push his argument further by consider-
ing various [anardic] manifestations of tribal organization in North Africa and Southwest
Asia (Barclay, zccz). Barclay pays specic auention to the anti-statist approad of these
tribes that was documented by lbn Khaldun (liscella, zccv), a thirteenth century Muslim
philosopher and sociologist. Barclay nally concludes his contribution with an assessment
of writings'(Barclay, zccz) by Colonel Muammar Qadda, libyas present day dictator. ln
doing this, Barclay argues like Bey that Qaddas writings appear to have some anardist
content' (Barclay, zccz), especially in the context of Qaddas Tird Universal Teory'
(liscella, zccv). At the end of Barclays text, Barclay writes that although there is no consis-
tent rejection of the notion of domination, and no advocacy of a free society,' nevertheless
it is apparent anardistic themes do pervade Muslim societies(Barclay, zccz). Barclay
therefore conrms my contention that there are anti-statist resonances between lslam and
anardism.
Crone, who adopts Beys anthropological and historical approad in her text Ninth-
Century MuslimAnarists, also recognizes resonances between lslamand anardism. Crone
identies anti-statist Muslims sud as Jafar ibn Harb (d. sc), Al-asamm (d.s1e or s1), Al-
Nazzam(d. between s! and s.), Hishamal luwati (d. s.c) and his pupil Abbad ibn Slayman
(d. sc). All these Muslims are Muslims who
lived or began their careers in Basra [, lraq, and belong to the] so called
Mutazilite ascetics (suyyat al-mutazila) [a Muslim sect], active in Bagh-
dad[and who along with a] sub-sect [of the Kharijites, another Muslim sect,
'lslam, Muslim societies and anardy in the Journal of Anarist Studies Volume 1c, zccz, No. z. Retrieved
October 11th, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/archive/
vol10no2.html).
vol10no2.html).
vol10no2.html).
vol10no2.html).
vol10no2.html).
vol10no2.html).
lslam, Muslim societies and anardy in the Journal of Anarist Studies Volume 1c, zccz, No. z. Retrieved
vol10no2.html).
z!
called] the Najidiyya,' or Najadat, [but] who had appeared [earlier] in the sev-
enth century and who seem to have survived into the tenth, possibly in Basra
and possibly somewhere else held that Muslim society could function without
the state(Crone, zccc !.).
Crone, like Barclay, therefore rearms my contentions that anti-statist resonances exist
between lslam and anardism.
liscellas text Imagining an Islamic Anarism: A New Field is Ploughed also recognizes
resonances between lslam and anardism. liscella does this by pointing to contemporary
examples of Muslim anardists who nd compatible the identities Muslim and anardist, and
the discourse of lslam and anardism. liscella rst points to a U.K. based Muslim, Yunus
Yakoub lslam, born Julian Hoare. Yakoub` had discovered anardism in the scs through
a punk band, Crass, only to convert to lslam in 1vv1 and then began writing a Muslim
Anardist Charter (liscella, zccv). Amongst the commitments of Yakoubs MuslimAnardist
Charter is that the purpose of life as a Muslim anardist necessitates a
Wholehearted commitment to learning, where sud learning is carried out
freely, consciously refusing to compromise with institutional power in any form,
be it judicial, religious, social, corporate or political the active pursuit of jus-
tice with the aim of establishing communities and societies where free spiritual
development is uninhibited by tyranny, poverty and ignorance. Sud a pur-
pose requires an anity with all peoples who dene themselves as belonging to
cultures of Judeo-Christian-lslamic origin in whid both commonalities and dif-
ferences are acnowledged and understood, and disagreement engenders debate
rather than division and satire but never moceryTe Muslim Anardist Char-
ter rejects fascist forces whid seek to enforce a single, absolute truth, including
patriardy, empire, and Wahhabism.
'Delving deeper with the case of the Najidiyya, Crone writes Najdite lslam was a do-it-yourself religion.
Politically and intellectually a Najdite would have no master apart from God (Crone, zccc zze).
Patricia Crones Ninth-Century Muslim Anardists in Past and Present, No. 1e (May, zccc), pp. !zs.
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Te Past and Present Society
Retrieval Date October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.jstor.org/stable/651252?seq=1)
Òn lhsans blog, Becoming a Muslim Anarist, Yakoub writes Prior to my conversion [to lslam], l had
always considered myself an Anardist one that believed in a spiritual reality. My anardism was founded on
a mistrust of all forms of coerced authority, however tacit, and like lmma GoldmanTank God, l now realize
Anardism is the hermeneutic through whid l must approad and realize the truth [of lslam]. lhsans blog-
spot Retried on October sth, zccs.Retrieved from (http://ihsan-net.blogspot.com/2005/06/on-becoming-
muslim-anarchist.html#111947719276883597).
Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.bayyinat.org.uk/manarchist.htm).
z.
liscella also points to the seductress leda Rafenelli, whom l consider as lslams con-
temporary lmma Goldman (liscella, zccv). Born with an early [anardistic] poetic vein
(liscella, zccv) in 1ssc in Pistoia, ltaly, Rafenelli immigrated in 1vc! to Alexandria, lgypt.
Bewitded with her treatment by Arabs, Rafenelli learned Arabic, embraced Susm, and be-
came a mystic anardist. Rafenelli then started writing of her experience in lgypt. ln the
early 1vzcs, Rafenelli went bac to her native ltaly and co-founded with Joseph Monanni
their Publishing House Company. She started publishing the works of Nietzsde, Malat-
esta, Kropotkin, Stirner (liscella, zccv) only to then write c novels in ltalian dedicated to
anti-colonialism[opposing] luropean lmperialismraging against clericalism, militarism
and the oppression of women (liscella, zccv). Near the end of her life, Rafenelli dedicated
her writing to the issue of solidarity among anardists, writing
l see comrades who, because of a word or two whid oends them, forget the
brother/sisterhood, the solidarity that bring us anardists together lt is nat-
ural that there should be some disagreements among usBut when someone
expresses his/her opinion on people or facts, those who oppose those judgments
should do so without personal antagonism` (liscella, zccv).
Rumor has it Rafenelli is later caught in a torrid love aair with the fascist Mussolini. Mussolini
writes her retro-love leuers When l want to have a break in my tumultuous busy but lonely life l will
come to you. You will make me live oriental hours. We will read Nietzsde and the Koran. larrell,
Nidolas. (zcc). Mussolini: A New Life. Sterling Publishing Company, lnc. pg. .v. Retrieval Date
lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from(http://books.google.ca/books?id=aSlIzmsxU8oC&pg=PA49&lpg=
PA49&dq=leda+Rafanelli&source=web&ots=nFfTWDRaTD&sig=fCHOw9nuayUeXOBxfi8vSP1bH8U&hl=en&sa=
X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA49,M1). ln 1vz!, Rafenelli rebus Mussolini. Te result is that
the scorned Mussolini lights a great holocaustic re to her publishing house. Rafenelli died in 1v1. Her
self-obituary reads leda Rafanelli, leaving forever, salutes all her comrades, Viva lAnardia! . lnter-access
Website. Retrieval Date lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/sear?q=cae:IivTk-
jQtf8J:www.interaccess.org/weavers/cafm/cmm.html+leda+Rafanelli&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=18&gl=ca)
Te link below is a brief bio of leda Rafenelli. Retrieved on lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from
(http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.socialismolibertario.it/leda_
rafanelli.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=4&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dleda%2BRafanelli%26hl%
3Den%26sa%3DG)
he wrote No one, other than the brute, can escape the darm of the desert, to the darm oasisTose who
have lived several years among the Arabs will hear the inuence forever. Brief bio of leda Rafenelli. Retrieved
on lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from (http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http:
//www.socialismolibertario.it/leda_rafanelli.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=4&ct=result&prev=
/search%3Fq%3Dleda%2BRafanelli%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG).
Brief bio of leda Rafenelli on a Su Website. Retrieval Date lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from
(http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.sufi.it/Islam/nisa/Leda.
htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=10&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dleda%2BRafanelli%26hl%3Den%
26sa%3DG)
Our Daily Bleed from Recollections Books. Retrieved on lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from (http:
//recollectionbooks.com/bleed/07ref.htm)
`lnter-access Website. Retrieval Date lebruary !rd, zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:IivTk-jQtf8J:www.interaccess.org/weavers/cafm/cmm.html+leda+Rafanelli&hl=en&ct=
clnk&cd=18&gl=ca)
z
linally, liscella points to Gusatve Henri Jossot or Abdoul-Karim Jossot (liscella, zccv).
Jossot was an early 1vth century caricaturist and contributor to the anardist publications Les
Temps nouveaux and lAssiee au Beurre (Moreel, zcc!). Tough Jossot never claimed to be
a Muslim anardist like Rafenelli and Yakoub, Jossot targeted his caricatures at authoritarian
families, the army, the courts, the police and the durd`', all of whid are anardist concerns
(Moreel, zcc!). Converting to lslam in 1v1!, Jossot contributed a statement to La Dpe
Tunisienne`. ln his contribution, Jossot wrote no mysteries, no dogmas, no priests, almost
no ceremonies, the most rational religion in the worldto start lslamic fatherlands [, states,]
is betraying lslam (La Dpe Tunisienne, 1c lebruary 1v1!). liscella, by pointing to the for-
mer contemporary examples of Muslim anardists therefore, along with Crone and Barclay,
rearms my contentions that there are anti-authoritarian, pro-solidarity and anti-capitalist
resonances between lslam and anardism, and the identities Muslim and anardist.
Te third tendency l observe is in Beys texts Millennium and Jihad Revisited (zcc.). ln
the texts, Bey emphasizes`` the revolutionary lslamic concept of jihad. Contrary to popular
perception, the concept does not mean holy war. lt means to struggle in the sense that it
is derived from the Arabic root jhd, to strive (Marranci, zcce 1). Jhd also serves as
the root for other verbs emphasizing eort and strugglein dicult tasks (Marranci, zcce
`'RA-lorum Website. Retrieved on October sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://raforum.info/article.
php3?id_article=20).
`lollowing his anti-statist comments on lslam, Jossot went on to demand from the lrend State equal pay for
its lrend citizens, refugees, legal and illegal immigrants but rejecting retaliatory acts of violence if the demands
he called for are not met (La Dpe Tunisienne, 1c lebruary 1v1!). Before concluding his statement Jossot
no less turned against lrend sdools and whid to Jossot were supposed to distribute knowledge but focused
instead on engaging in pedagogical practices and maintaining power in the hands of a certain social class while
excluding the other social class from that power. Sdool deforms the brain is among the things Jossot said (La
Dpe Tunisienne, 1c lebruary 1v1!).
``Jihad is a critical concept and implies the constant juristic struggle through free thinking as well as the use
of analogical independent reasoning (lsposito, zcc. 1.s) by Muslims during their localized daily practice(s)
and contact(s) with the Holy Koran and Sunnah, the Prophetic Oral tradition(s). Bey revisited this concept, jihad,
in Jihad Revisited (zcc.) having relegated it a brief paragraph in Millennium. Bey writes this of jihad in the
context of Susm, a denomination of lslam Susm itself is sometimes dened as the greater jihad [, in Arabic,
jihad al-nafs as jihad al-akbar,] while holy war is called the lesser jihad [, in Arabic, as jihad al-asghar]. [lt,
jihad al-nafs, is] the struggle to become who you are [and that] takes precedence over even the most righteous
cause. But esotericism is not always quietistic in lslam. Sus have launded revolutions, including 1vth and early
zcth century anti-colonialist/imperialist strugglesl fantasized, its now time for a kind of lslamic Zapatismo to
emerge using jihad (Bey, zcc.). Bey in this light advocates for jihad, seeing that Tere is only one world
[the] triumphant end of History, end of the unbearable pain of imagination actually an apotheosis of
cybernetic Social Darwinism. Money decrees itself a law of Nature, and demands absolute liberty. Completely
spiritualized, freed from its outworn body (mere production), circulating toward innity & instantaneity in a
Gnostic numisphere far above larth, money alone will dene consciousness. Te zcth century ended ve years
ago, this is the millennium. Where there is no second, no opposition, there can be no third, no neither/nor.
So the doice remains either we accept ourselves as the last humans, or else we accept ourselves as the
opposition. (lither automonotony or autonomy.) All positions of withdrawal must be re-considered from a
point of view based on new strategic demands. ln a sense, were cornered. As the old time ideologues would have
said, our situation is objectively pre-revolutionary again. Beyond the temporary autonomous zone, beyond the
insurrection, there is the necessary revolution the jihad (Bey, 1vve).
ze
1). An example of sud a verb is ijtihad, whid means to strive for understanding and
interpreting the Qranic law [and with]the same jhd root as jihad (Marranci, zcce 1).
Jihad and ijtihad are not just Muslim practices that involve oering variant meanings of
individual words (Alawani, 1vv! s!) in the Sunnah and the Koran. Rather they also involve
dealing with the linguistic dicultiesover questions of grammar in the Sunnah and the
Koran and deciding whether God is speaking in an active or a passive voice` (AlAwani,
1vv! sz). Jihad is the reason why there exists a pluralistic, impure lslam. lt is the concept
l develop as a method in dapter three, through its form ijtihad, and whid l then practice
when constructing Anarca-lslam in dapter ve. Bey argues in his text Jihad Revisited that
it is jihad, whid allowed the Neo-Sus and others, like the Sanussi order in libya, to break
with
the medieval concept of the all-powerful master. lnstead, they sought initi-
ation in dreams and visions. ln North Africa, the Sanussi Order and the Ti-
jani Order, amongst others, were founded by seekers whod been empowered in
dreams by the Prophet Mohammed himself[lt is jihad that allowed] the Neo-
Su orders[to be] conceived and shaped to some extent as reform movements
within lslam, in competition with modernism & secularism on one hand and
Salast/Wahhabi neo-puritan lslamism on the other. [lt is jihad] that allowed]
education & health and economic alternatives to colonialism[to be] stressed
in the Sanussi Order in libya. And when armed struggle against ltalian rule
erupted, Sanussi fuqara (dervishes) led the uprising` (Bey, zcc.)
Bey also rightly points out in Jihad Revisted that jihad has unfortunately become a for-
saken and an abandoned lslamic practice. Tis is particularly important considering that
perhaps the single most damaging blow to lslamic knowledge came in the tenth century
under the Abbasids when the Gate of ljithadwas declared closed (lsposito, 1vs. 1v). ln
this light, Bey in Millennium advocates for jihad, because it is only with it that
Traditions of tolerance, voluntarism, egalitarianism, concern for social justice,
critique of usury, mystical utopianism etc. can form the constellations of
a new propaganda within lslam, unshakably opposed to the cognitive colonial-
ism of the numisphere, oriented to empirical freedoms rather than ideology,
critical of repression within lslam, but commiued to its creativity, reticence, in-
teriority, militance, & style. lslams concern with pollution of the imagination,
whid manifests in a literal veiling of the image, constitutes a powerful strategic
realization for the jihad, that whid is veiled is not absent or invisible, since
`lor instance, a direct imperative of a verb, for example Do! onen indicates a command to fulll an obli-
gation, the negative imperative (Dont do!) indicates prohibition but these imperative formsare not always
used in this absolute sense (AlAwani, 1vv! sz).
`Te link below is for the article, Jihad Revisited, by Hakim Bey, from the website World War . Report
Deconstructing the War on Terrorism. Retrieval date October z1st, zccs. Retrieved from (http://ww4report.
com/static/hakim.html)
z
the veil is a sign of its presence, its imaginal reality, its power. Tat whid is
veiled is unseen` (Bey, 1vve).
Beys emphasis on jihad as an lslamic practice, therefore, arms my contention for the
necessity of its development as a method for constructing Anarca-lslam.
Te fourth tendency l observe is in Beys text Islam and Eugenics. ln this text, Bey advo-
cates and foretells the rise of an anardic interpretation of lslam and lslamic interpretation
of anardism in the West. Te interpretation Bey hopes will be endowed with a spirit of
Sarajevo and in possession of its own lslamic heritage as it introduces itself into a precious
city-state, a metaphor l perceive Bey uses in reference to social movements. Moreover, this
interpretations task, as Bey sees it, ought to create a panegyric desert for Muslims and Mus-
lim anardists amongst anardists in social movements. Bey describes the interpretations
spirit in Islam and Eugenics, writing
lnshallah, some day Sarajevo will rise again as a unique particularity in whid
luropean Moslems and luropean Christians (lm speaking loosely here of com-
munities, not professions of faith) will create in mutual tolerance & synergy a
city-state of precious value, with an lslamic heritage. Tat would constitute an
imaginal infusion, a ow of energy from the past, whid would now be our
past. Tis would mean far more than an empty apology for the old Ouomans,
Caliphs of lslam and inventors of the fez` (Bey, 1vv).
Bey then goes on in Islam and Eugenics to describe his vision of this anardic interpre-
tation of lslam and an lslamic interpretation of anardism, writing
lslam in lurope & America` Why not` Why not enjoy it` Autonomous
enclaves in Berlin, Paris, london linked by anardo-federalism with other au-
tonomous zones, squats, social centers, eco-farms & free rural municipalities, &
other anti-Capital entities & non-hegemonic particularities. Revolutionary dif-
ference against the idols of Molod & Mammon, & the culture of global same-
ness. Why not introduce into western culture the virus of a critique of the
tyranny of the image an iconoclastic breath from the desert` Reactionary
fundamentalism has long since betrayed itself as a revolutionary force. Why
not something else, the spirit of Sarajevo perhaps or the castles of the Assas-
sins` (Bey, 1vv).
`Te link below is for the article, Millennium, by Hakim Bey. Retrieval date October z1st, zccs. Retrieved
from (http://www.hermetic.com/bey/millennium/millennium.html)
`Te link below is for the essay, Islam and Eugenics, by Hakim Bey. Retrieval date October z1st, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.hermetic.com/bey/islamandeugenics.html)
`Te link below is for the essay, Islam and Eugenics, by Hakim Bey. Retrieval date October z1st, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.hermetic.com/bey/islamandeugenics.html)
zs
Beys hopes and visions in the passages above therefore arm my contention that it is
indeed possible and favorable to construct an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic
interpretation of anardism.
Te nh tendency l observe is Bey and Knights anti-authoritarian stance. ln advocating
for this stance, by drawing inspiration from his interpretation of the abrogation of the law
(Qiyamat) during the Assassin reign at Alamut (liscella, zccv), Bey writes
ln a sense anyone can be the lmam, in a sense, everyone already is the
lmamthe idea of the lman-of-ones-own-being implies the idea of self-rule,
autarky ead human being a potential king, and human relations carried out as
a mutuality of free lords To liberate everyday lifebeings with the individ-
ual and spirals outward in love to embrace othersradical (post-Qiyamat) ls-
mailism restores sovereignty to the individual, who thus becomes his/her own
authority. Spirituality is not a master/slave relation it is not an Oriental
despotism. Not anymore. Not now. Maybe it never was. Who cares` Here and
now we need something dierent (Bey, 1vv! s).
Similarly, Yusuf in Taqwacores expresses Knights anti-authoritarian stance. Knight
writes
luc the local imam, fuc the PhDs at al-Madina al-Munawwara give me the
lslamof starry-night cornelds with wind rustling through my shirt and recless
sabilillah make-out sprees that wont lead to anything but hurt. Knee-deep in
a creek is where lll nd my kitab. lf Allah wants to say anything to me Hell
do so on the faces of my brothers and sisters. lf theres any law that l need to
follow, lll nd it out there in the world (Knight, zcc. zz).
Bey and Knights arguments for an anti-authoritarian lslam therefore arm my con-
tention that it is possible to construct an anti-authoritarian commitment as a foundation for
Anarca-lslam.
Te sixth and nal tendency l observe in the academic texts is liscellas categorization
of the anthropological and historical studies of lslamic anardism to date in Imagining an
Islamic Anarism: A New Field of Study is Ploughed. liscella applies three classications
that could be useful in dening the lslamic-anardism discourse. liscella does this but also
humbly acnowledges that
Alternative models are required. lt is not possible right now to do justice to
the ridness and complexity of the material but a crude tool might be craned
in order to at least begin digging (liscella, zccv) the discourse on lslam and
anardism.
Te classications liscella uses include the following
zv
[Type One`, inclusive of works of Crone, Bey and Knight, are] studies of anar-
dist theory [and with the subtypes Organic lslamic anardismand Post-modern
lslamic anardism] [Type Two, inclusive of the work of Barclay, are] stud-
ies in the anardic traits of tribal Muslim societies [and with the subtypes Pre-
modern Muslim anardy and Post-modern Muslim anardy]and nally, [Type
Tree' are] studies of the anardical structure of lslam [with the subtypes An-
ardical lslam (Caliphate period) and Hyper-anardical lslam (Post-Caliphate
period)]Within ead category further distinctions can be made based on qual-
itative developments (liscella, zccv).
liscellas identication of the preliminary parameters of lslamic anardismas a discourse,
arms my contention that Anarca-lslam does have a theoretical and pragmatic role to play
in terms of its contribution to anardism and lslamic-anardism as discourses as well as the
newest social movements.
3. Review of the Movement Literature
Non-academic, movement articles and blogs rearm that there is no monolithic lslam and
that there have been historical, anti-authoritarian movements within lslam resonating with
anardism. Nevertheless, the same articles and blogs also paradoxically reproduce the two
misconceptions of lslam and Muslims that l discussed earlier. ln Muslim Anarism, luxzen-
burg writes of anti-authoritarian resonances between lslamand anardismand acnowledges
the existence of multiple strands of lslam as well. luxzenburg writes
Te rst recorded strand of anti-authoritarian lslam dates all the way bac to
the death of the third [Caliph] Uthmn ibn An. Tey had a disagreement
about who should succeed him as the leader of Muslims, resulting in the [Shia]
`With respect to the rst type liscella explains and writes Organic is meant to refer to any religious
anardism that arises independent of inuence from classical anardist theory and this would include all reli-
gious anardism that preceded the eighteenth century whether luropean or otherwise [as the work of Crone].
Postmodern is meant to refer to that point (historically and culturally) at whid the two worlds meet and are
capable of producing a synthesis [as the works of Bey and Knight]. lither of these subtypes could potentially
draw further distinctions between, for example, esoteric and literalist or individualist and communist variations
of lslamic anardism. What all of these variants share in common is that lslam as a conceptual framework is the
base from whid an anardist theory is developed (liscella, zccv).
With respect to the second type liscella writes Tere is already a question of synthesis inherent in the
material that of the potential synthesis between tribal culture and lslamic religion. Terefore, the term
organic, in this case, might be replaced by premodern to beuer daracterise the point of distinction [as is the
case in Barclays work]. A postmodern tribal anardy in lslam, wherein anardist theory and Muslim faith
meets tribal culture, may not even yet exist but it has the potential to do so [i.e. the work has not yet manifested
or been studies] (liscella, zccv).
'linally and with respect to type three, liscella writes that the study of lslam as anardical has not been
covered here but it appears nonetheless to be a related area of study that is clearly distinct from the other two
types (liscella, zccv).
!c
[Sunni] split. Tere was a third group, however, the [Kharijites], who opposed
both the Sunni and Shia sects, and claimed that any qualied Muslim could be
an lmam. Tey held that all people were individually responsible for the good
or evil of their acts. Tey dallenged all authority and encouraged all, especially
the poor and dispossessed, to see the struggle against injustice as being divinely
sanctioned. However, although Kharijites saw all believers completely equal re-
gardless of any social dierences, they believed that non-believers had no rights,
and could be killed. At least one sect of Kharajites, the Najdiyya, believed that
if no suitable [imam] was present in the community, then the position could be
dispensed with. A strand of Mutazalite thought paralleled that of the Najdiyya
if rulers inevitably became tyrants, then the only acceptable course of action
was to stop installing rulers (luxzenburg, zccv).
ln addition to luxzenburgs article, but hardly as historically and anthropologically in-
formative and interrogative as his, there is also Chris R.s article Islam and Anary Join To-
gether. ln the article, Chris R. also acnowledges resonances between lslam and anardism.
He writes
lSlAM and the llBlRTARlAN SOClAl struggle are, in no way, opposed, but
rather have an ample nexus that joins them together. To that end, brothers and
sisters, know that we are not dierent, we are like you and have the same objec-
tives, bringing awareness to social strugglesin reality lSlAM is pureness, love,
peace, social awareness and more` (Chris R., zccv)
Nevertheless, and in spite of the articles positive viewpoint(s) on lslam and anardism,
anardist bloggers like Brain-lear and PJP responded negatively to the article through its
blog forum. ln their comments, the anardist bloggers dismissed the possibility of Muslim
anardists and the possibility of an anardic interpretation of lslam and lslamic interpretation
of anardism, basing their views on their homogenization of lslam and Muslims. Brain-lear
and PJP write
Any form of religion is thought control lslam is sexist and homophobic
lf they [Muslims] are serious about anardism, they would have dropped the
sexist and homophobic aspects of the religion and accentuated more libertarian
aspects of the religion (Chris R., zccv)
Te link below is to lric van luxzenburgs article titled Muslim Anarism. Retrieval date Jan-
uary zznd, zccv. Retrieved from (http://knol.google.com/k/erik-van-luxzenburg/muslim-anarchism/
54up6rm0dd0u/3#)
`Te link below is to Chris R.s article titled Islam and Anary join together. Retrieval date Oc-
tober z!rd, zccs.. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.104/sear?q=cae:UPpVN3mwVzwJ:news.infoshop.org/
article.php%3Fstory%3D03/06/06/7983966+anarism+islam+homophobic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca)
Te link below is to Chris R.s article titled Islam and Anary join together and Brain-
lear and PJPs misconception. Retrieval date October z!rd, zccs. Retrieved from (hup//
..1z.v.1c./seard`qcadeUPpVN!mwVzwJnews.infoshop.org/article.php!lstory!Dc!/ce/ce/
vs!vee-anardism-islam-homophobic&hlen&ctclnk&cd1&glca)
!1
A third anardist blogger, Burning-man, also expresses a similar yet more direct critique
towards what is described as Anardo-lslam, a neither Koranic nor anardically proven fu-
sion of lslam and anardism. Burning-mans comments demonstrate the two misconceptions
of the impossibility of an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic interpretation of an-
ardism as well as the impossibility of the co-existence of lslam and anardism in a single
subjectivity. Burning-man wrote
Anardo-lslam is about the stupidest thing lve ever heard of. lslam is about
submission. Slave to Allah and all that crap. lt has an extremely rigid set of rules
and conduct and, while more enlightened than other monotheistic religions in a
number of important ways, it never quite went through anything like the Refor-
mation. lt is reactionary, pro-capitalist, pro-slavery, imperialist and misogynist
to the core. Just read the fucing Koran (Chris R., zccv).
Treading in line with Brain-fear, PJP, and Burning-man, in regurgitating these miscon-
ceptions are also anardists associated with the Anardist lederation in london, lngland. Te
anardists in question produced an article in the December zcc1 issue (AdamK., zcc) that
levels all dierences between lslam and Muslims and portrays lslam as monolithic, funda-
mentalist, reactionary, homo-trans-queerphobic, and oppressive towards women. Te article
reductively and lslamophobically claims lslam the enemy of all lreedom loving people
(Adam K., zcc).
Similarly, in lloods article e Trouble with Islam the two misconceptions reappear.
lloods argument revolves around this introductory statement
Te len in general [but in particular] groups like the British SWP [Socialist
Party of Britain] have gone so far as to describe len criticism of the lslamic
religion as lslamophobia edoing the ocial line of their government whid
insists Te real lslam is a religion of peace, tolerance and understanding. While
there is a real need for the len to defend people who are Muslims from state and
non-state victimisation in the anermath of v11 this should not at any time imply
Te link below is to Chris R.s article titled Islam and Anary join together and
Burning-mans misconception. Retrieval date October z!rd, zccs. Retrieved from (hup//
..1z.v.1c./seard`qcadeUPpVN!mwVzwJnews.infoshop.org/article.php!lstory!Dc!/ce/ce/
vs!vee-anardism-islam-homophobic&hlen&ctclnk&cd1&glca)
Te link below is to the article titled Anarist Orientalism and the British Muslim Community by Adam.
K. Retrieval date June zznd, zcc
Retrieved from (hp://72.14.205.104/sear?q=cae:z7sn9wsD9wgJ:illvox.org/2007/06/22/anarist-orientalism-
and-the-muslim-community-in-britain/+islam+anarist+homophobia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=ca)
Te link below is to the article titled Anarist Orientalism and the British Muslim Community by Adam.
K. Retrieval date June zznd, zcc
Retrieved from (hp://72.14.205.104/sear?q=cae:z7sn9wsD9wgJ:illvox.org/2007/06/22/anarist-orientalism-
and-the-muslim-community-in-britain/+islam+anarist+homophobia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=ca)
!z
a defence of the lslamic religion. lreedom of religion must also allow freedom
from religion! (llood, zcc!).
While l concur with lloods views that freedomof religion must allowfreedomfromreli-
gion and that the len ought possess the right to critique lslam without fear of the accusatory
darge of lslamophobia, lloods argument is problematic because llood writes of lslam and
Muslims as if both were monolithic. llood dismisses the possibility of constructing an an-
ardic interpretation of lslam. Causally, and by failing to acnowledge lslams multiplicity,
llood also denies the possibility of the existence of Muslim anardists in social movements.
However, l nd that the most unfortunate part of lloods article is his concluding statement.
ln it, he praises anardists and anardisms historical commitments to anti-oppression, yet
expresses his yearning for an anardic vigilance in opposition to lslam. llood supports this
conclusion through his view of lslam as puritanical and running counter to anardisms com-
mitment to freedom from oppression(s). llood writes
Anardists have a long and proud tradition of ghting the power of organised
religion, including in countries like Spain ghting fascist gangs formed on a re-
ligious basis. While we recognise the freedom of people to hold a religion we
also recognise that there has to be a freedom from religion an idea that runs
against the basis of lslam. Anardists in the Middle last and beyond will need
to determine for themselves the most eective ways of counteracting the inu-
ence of the fundamentalists there. ln the west we can at least make sure their
auempts to impose themselves on the immigrant communities are opposed
(llood, zcc!).
Te two misconceptions exist amongst these anardists for two reasons. Te rst is that
these anardists are inuenced by Orientalist and lundementalist Western representations of
lslam and Muslims. Te second is the fact that these anardists, for the most part, do not read
Arabic, practice lslam, and have never read the Sunnah or the Koran. Moreover, these anar-
dists have never practiced jihad and ijtihad and therefore have not understood interpretative
traditions of lslam derived from either the Sunnah or the Koran. Te majority of anardists
are not aware that within lslam, everything that is said under the explicit form of the law
usually also refers to another meaning (loucault, 1vs !.). lor instance, they are not
aware that the Arabic word ayn in the Koran may dange from meaning an organ of sight
to running water, from pure gold to a spy (AlAwani, 1vv! sz). Anardists for the most
part do not realize that it is possible through jihad and ijtihad that the Koranic word qar
(plural quroo) can either mean menstruation (AlAwani, 1vv! sz) or the exact opposite,
purity following menstruation (AlAwani, 1vv! sz). As a result of not being aware of any
Te link below is to Anrew lloods article titled e Problem with Islam. Retrieval date October z!rd, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr7/islam.html).
Te link below is to Anrew lloods article titled e Problem with Islam. Retrieval date October z!rd, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr7/islam.html).
!!
of this, the majority of anardists remain blind to the fact that there are non-dogmatic possi-
bilities in literal and gurative connotations that Muslim sdolars, Mujtaheideen, encounter
when they engage in jihad and ijtihad, especially when Mujtaheideen are orienting lslam
ethically and politically to a specic hermeneutic sud as anardism.
What the majority of anardists need to recognize then is that they cannot take for
granted the diculty Mujtaheideen face at deriving dierent connotations and alternative
readings based on the subtleties of the Sunnah and the Koran. ln not recognizing this, these
anardists undermine the power and burden of a Mujtaheid (singular for Muhtaheideen).
Anardists, for the most part, dismiss the sacred responsibility a Mujtaheid is entrusted with
and for whid he and/or she is accountable before God. All anardists must understand that
the last and lslam dont necessarily have the same regimes of truth as the West (loucault,
1vs, !.). Tese regimes of truth are knowable truths, but whid a majority of anardists
know liule of. Anardists cannot aord to be ignorant or ambivalent of lslam out of fear.
4. Conclusions Drawn from Reviewing both Literatures
ln drawing my conclusions from reviewing the literatures, let me say that the literature is
undoubtedly a vital symbolic step that can help Western Muslims in confronting Western
representations ascribed to lslam. However, the literature shows weaknesses on three inter-
related fronts. lirst, there is the weakness of the secularization of the texts, and this applies
to both the academic and non-academic literature. Te secularization occurs because the
texts use neither the Koran nor the Sunnah. Te writers abstain from oering conceptual
and pragmatic Koranic and anardic justications of how it is (im)possible to construct an
anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic interpretation of anardism. Te literature
defers instead to identifying useful but still just anthropological and historical resonances
between anardism and lslam. Te consequence is the literatures weakened eectivity due
to the overarding dismissal of what l see as a critical aspect with respect to the discourse
of lslam and anardism. As liscella argues, it is not merely about the imagination of the
Most anardists do not realize that a Mujtaheid could succumb to meanings and imprints totally at odds
(Alalwani, 1vv!, sz) with Gods intended imprint and word. Te two, the Mujtahids intent to imprint and Gods
intended meaning do not oppose. lad is the condition of possibility for the existence of the other provided the
Koran and the Sunnahs textual sustenance of the imprint and the Mujtaheids sincere investigative intent in
dealing with the subject mauer while deciding whether a Koranic text may be regarded as either general or
specic, absolute or limited, summing up or clarifying (Alalwani, 1vv!, sz). Otherwise and in the absence of
this power of a Mujtaheid there would not be a power of original formation of lslam or impression to arrive
anew to as inscribed through the concepts ijtihad and jihad. ln fact, as practices the two would be innate, benign
and uuerly useless while Muslims dispute as they do now in ignorance. Most anardists do not recognize that
Muhtaheideen, and whatever their relation to religion may be, and to this or that religion (Derrida, 1vve ),
are not priests bound by a ministry, nor theologians, nor qualied, competent representatives of religionin
the sense the certain so called lnlightenment philosophers are thought to have been (Derrida, 1vve ). A
Mujtahids jihad and ijtihad can never be a quest for the Mujtahids self as an authoritative gure. Anardists
need to realize that a Mujtahids lslam is longingly a spiritual bond, a reecting faithopposed to dogmatic
faithin so far as the lauer claims to know and thereby ignores the dierence between faith and knowledge
(Derrida, 1vve 1c).
!.
potential options for how things can be (liscella, zccv) between the two, lslam and anar-
dism. Rather, it is about proving the lslamic and anardic concepts and practices necessary
for this ideas presentation to a socio-political arena comprised predominantly of non-secular
Western Muslims. Tat said, l have liule doubt and can almost guarantee that post-colonial
immigrant and citizen Muslims, regardless of how liberal, can tolerate but will never seri-
ously accept a word in any of these literatures unless the Koran and the Sunnah are used.
Second, there is the weakness that the academic and non-academic writers do not identify
clearly who the intended audience or the exact purpose of their writing. Te literature lacs
clarity when in fact the writers could direct the literature and its intended message(s) far
more adequately to a particular audience. lor instance, Bey and Knight parley between
representing lslam and Muslims either through ctional insights that call the Koran a tiny
liule book for tiny liule men (Knight, zcc. 1c) or through insights using what Bey calls
poetic terrorism (Bey, 1vv! s) in his quest for poetic facts (Bey, 1vv! s). As liscella
writes, Beys work is easy to read but dicult to followseamlessly blend[ing] sdolarly
researd with manifesto in a quest for poetic facts (liscella, zccv). Te consequence of the
inadequate addressing of the religious literature, as well as the lacof clarity, is the persistence
of the former misconceptions in the hearts and minds of anardists.
A third weakness found generally in literature on anardism and lslam, but one that is
particular to the literature by Bey and Knight, is that they adopt and advocate for a Stirnerian
individualistic approadto writing on lslamand anardism(Kroptkin, 1v1c). l amvehemently
against this approad. Bey and Knight encourage Muslims to
not only [be Muslims in] a complete revolt against the state and against servi-
tudebut also [aner] the full liberation of[themselves] from all social and
moral bonds [and responsibilities to even themselves as community] the re-
habilitation of the l, the supremacy of the individual, complete amoralism,
and the association of egoists (Kroptkin, 1v1c).
lor Bey and Knight, when it comes to representing lslam and Muslims heresy and the
margins of legitimacy are perfectly respectable options (liscella, zccv). Tis means, accord-
ing to Bey and Knight, that any Muslim reserves the right to do as they please without being
bound by or accountable for the ethico-political rights of the community over that individ-
ual. On the one hand, Bey speaks of a need for the individual to be bound by an ethical
and spiritual stance[yet] on the other hand, he argues that the individual alone has the
right to determine the validity of those ethics (liscella, zccv). Whereas in Knights case,
Knights vision is one of multiple heresies and quasi-orthodoxies [of lslam and Muslims]
living under the same roof and together manifesting an lslam where individualists are bound
together in a radically intentional pluralism (liscella, zccv). l however believe in the need
for a more balanced approad between the rights of the community and the rights of the indi-
vidual, and beyond Knights radical intentional pluralism and whid is not rooted in shared
ethico-political commitments. ln this sense, the literature inadequately addresses Muslims
and anardists in the newest social movements, and remains lacing in Koranic substance,
encouragement, and call for communitarian action amongst Muslims and anardists.
!
lt seems to me then, that Bey and Knight fail to construct what l think is necessary.
Tat is, an anardic interpretation of lslam that is simultaneously an lslamic interpretation
of anardism. l accept and respect Beys anthropological and historical approad as well as
Knights ctional approad. However, the construction of an interpretation or a multiplic-
ity of interpretations is necessary, if only to eectively mobilize Muslims, Muslim anardists
and anardists towards understanding ead other beuer within the newest social movements.
Without this type of interpretation, Muslim anardists are fetishized revolutionary subjects
and representatives of a dreary fusion of lslam and anardism. ln fact, without this kind of
interpretation, Muslim anardists exist only in name, since they are without the adequate
theological foundations for the fusion of their two identities. leaving Muslim anardists sus-
ceptible to mocery by anardists like Brain-fear regarding something called Anardo-lslam,
and whid no one, not even Muslim anardists, have dened. Te consequence is more of
the same thing for Muslim anardists. Tat is, their further separation and ostracization from
anardists and Muslims. An interpretation is not a guarantee of the end of misconceptions
between Muslims, Muslim anardists and anardists but it is a start in proving Koranically
and anardistically the concepts and practices behind a Muslim anardists right to exist.
l argue for three things in light of this literatures critical problems. Te rst, as l have
already mentioned, is the construction of an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic
interpretation of anardism. Tis interpretation needs to be adieved Koranically and an-
ardistically by drawing conceptual, pragmatic, anti-authoritarian, and anti-capitalist reso-
nances between lslam and anardism. Second, that this synergistic interpretation addresses
a relevant audience and have a particular purpose. Te audience addressed needs to be de-
ned to include Muslims and anardists in the West, but more particularly Muslims and
anardists within the newest social movements, this literature should have the purpose of
increasing the possibility of solidarity between Muslims and anardists currently collaborat-
ing in groups like No One ls lllegal' (NOll) and Solidarity Across Borders (SAB). Tree,
l am also arguing that this interpretation adopt and advocate for a balanced approad be-
tween communal politics, whid would be based on shared ethico-political commitments,
and micro-politics as opposed to a strict adherence to an individualistic Stirnerian approad.
Tis way the interpretation is advocating for an escape from what Day refers to as the
hegemony of hegemony, but [not] at the cost of an excessive [heretical] reliance upon a no-
madic conception of subjectivity (zcc 1) and whid rejects not only coercive morality,
but anity based ethico-political commitments as well (zcc 1). My hope is that this in-
terpretation assists Muslims and anardists in forming a community where they can organize
'NOll is a forum for a loose coalition of activists resisting neo-liberal globalization in relation to its links to
the displacement of people from the South compelled to leave their homes due to persecution, poverty or oppres-
sion[and] colonial exploitation (Day, zcc 1sv1vc). Tese people of the South leave only to be categorized
as illegal aliens by the supposedly benevolent Gs countries where they seek refuge, they are denied the same
rights as regular citizens, and therefore face limited opportunities and further degradation (Day, zcc 1sv).
Solidarity Across Borders is a group where Muslim and anardist activists are involved in awareness-raising
activities and direct action casework, and are commiued to recognizing that struggles for self-determination and
for the free movement of people against colonial exploitation are led by the communities who ght on the front
lines (Day, zcc 1vc).
!e
themselves in a way
so as to minimize domination and exploitation [amongst eadother and in their
own communities], particularly in a world increasingly colonized by neoliberal
globalization and the societies of control (Day, zcc 1.!).
ln organizing in this communitarian way, as opposed to an individualistic way, this inter-
pretation is calling on Muslims, Muslim anardists and anardists to avoid the legacy of what
the Koran calls an individualistic narrow and constricted existence`. Aner all, there has to
be balanced approad between the rights of an individual and the rights of a community. As
God says in the Koran
And do not dispute with one another [by delighting in what ead of you thinks]
lest you fail and your strength desert you (Te Holy Koran, Chapter s Chapter
of Te Accession Verse .e, Al-awani, 1vv! !).
ln line with the three criteria, l advocate for this interpretation, what l call Anarca-lslam,
as this thesis contribution to emergent views on the discourse of lslam and anardism. l
believe it to be an important contribution, considering as liscella argues
None of these [aforementioned literatures] can tells us what lslamic anardism
is but all of them tell us how an lslamic anardism might be imagined even if
the imagining borders on the realm of wishful thinking and fantasy (zccv).
ln response to liscella, l oer Anara-lslam as a reinvention of lslamic forms of anardist
thought and anardist forms of lslamic thought. lor now, however and before constructing
Anarca-lslam the following dapter will address the methodology and theories necessary to
construct it.
`Tis interpretation is seeking to encourage Muslims and anardists to exercising and embrace deep compas-
sion towards ead other as community, without ead individualistically focusing on what divides and disperses,
ignoring the wisdom of dierence and the objectives of[adhering to specic ethico-political commitments] to
begin with (lsac, 1vv 11). Tis is not to say individual dierences or that the individual should not exist.
Aner all, if intentions are sincere, [individual] dierences of opinion could bring about a greater awareness of
the various possible aspects and interpretations of evidence in a given casedierences could generate intellec-
tual vitality and a cross-fertilization of ideas (Al-Awani, 1vv! 1.). Moreover, sud a process is likely to present
a variety of solutions for dealing with a particular situation so that the most suitable solution can be found
(Al-Awani, 1vv! 1.). ln this light, it is not that Muslims and anardists in their own communities or amongst
ead other should not have dierences over individual opinions but rather that they learn how to dier ethically
because if [the] dierences of opinion operate in a healthy framework they could enrid the Muslim [and anar-
dist] minds and stimulate intellectual development. Tey could help to expand perspectives and make us look
at problems and issues in their wider and deeper ramications, and with greater precision and thoroughness
(A-alwani, 1vv! .). What is critiqued here then are heretical politics stemming from an egoistic desire for a
divisive and righteous approad to politics in order to preserve the individual, without true regard for the politics
of others save through a purportedly shared intentional but not action oriented pluralism. Tis interpretation is
against this individualistic self-righteous approad because righteousness cannot be the monopoly of any single
competitor[ln this interpretation,] the judge God, has to be above the narrow interest of the participantsand
any [arrogant] claims of familiarity with the judge with any particular team will not avail the participants
(lsac, 1vv 1).
!
Chapter 3
Methodology and eories
I will say only this: if I ask to look closer, concerning this concept of positionit
is that it bears at least the same name as an absolutely essential, vital me-
anisme position-of-the-otherto pose oneself by oneself as the other of
the Idea, as other-than-oneself in ones nite determination, with the aim of
repatriating and re-appropriating oneself, of returning close to oneself in the in-
nite riness of ones determinationoverturningdisplacementscenes, acts,
gures of dissemination.
(Jacques Derrida, 1v1)
ln this dapter, l identify the methodological and theoretical positioning(s) necessary in
constructing Anarca-lslam. ln the rst section of this dapter, l introduce a method l call
Anardic-ljtihad. Anardic-ljtihad is the method l use to construct Anarca-lslam in dapter
ve. Aner introducing Anardic-ljtihad, l defend its use against possible objections against
this method of inquiry, sud as the critique oered by some orthodox Muslim sdolars and
secular Muslims sud as Midael Muhammad Knight. ln the second and nal section of this
dapter, l introduce the theoretical paradigms l use, alongside Anardic-ljtihad, to construct
Anarca-lslam, including post-anardist, deconstructionist, post-colonial and poststructuralist
theories along with sociological theories of social movements. lollowing the identication
of these paradigms, l explore the individual role of ead paradigm in constructing Anarca-
lslam. l conclude this section and dapter by clarifying a critical point to my argument for
constructing Anarca-lslam. Tat is, l distinguish between lslamic principles and Muslim
cultural practices. Te two are not to be conated, albeit that they do intersect.
!s
2. us Spoke God: e Method of Anaric-Ijtihad
Anardic-ljtihad is the method l use to construct Anarca-lslam. Tis method is derived from
its classical form ijtihad. ljtihad is the lslamic practice of using independent and rigorous
reasoning while interpreting and re-interpreting lslamic principles in the Sunnah and the
Koran. Te act of re-interpreting the Sunnah and the Koran in lslam is referred to as tafsir
(AlAwani, 1vv z).
Te principles on whid tafsir is based are not connected to mauers of belief. ljtihad
is a particularly acceptable act for a Mujtahid, or a sdolar, to engage in when there are
mauers on whid there is no clear guidance in the Qran and the Sunnah (AlAwani,
1vv! z). ljtihad, when there is no clear guidance in the Koran, therefore becomes a critical
deconstructive force for a Mujtahid to re-interpret principles in lslam. A force that involves
not only a Mujtahids critical exegesis of the Koran, but rather
the act of making a judgement, whether through considering the explicit
meaning of a text or analyzing it with respect to the pertinent principles and
proofs[and in this sense is] one of the most important types of juristic reason-
ing one whid the early Muslims followed (AlAwani, 1vv! zze).
Tis act of making judgement requires knowledge of pertinent linguistic and variant
grammatical implications when analyzing and understanding the Koran. Tis judgement
allows the Mujtahid to exceed the parameters of critically explaining, expanding, and in-
terpreting the text and therefore endows him and/or her with the ability to go beyond
critical analysis. Te Mujtahid is authorized to make ethico-political judgments with re-
spect to the re-interpretation of lslamic principles, provided the Mujtahid supports the re-
interpreted principles by the necessary textual evidence and Koranic justications for the
Mujtahids ethical-political re-orientation of the lslamic principles in a particular direction.
Te Mujtahid is able re-interpret the principles, if the principles are not already oriented in
the particular ethico-political direction a Mujtahid believes they should be oriented towards.
ln this thesis, l will show the textual evidence for my argument regarding the existence of
anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian principles, concepts and practices in lslam. As well, l
will provide the Koranic justications for my re-orientation of these principles in order to
demonstrate the interpretative tradition of lslam that resonates with anardism.
One might ask What does a Mujtahid do then with principles that pertain to mauers
of belief and whid a Mujtahid, as noted earlier, is forbidden from practicing ijtihad with
respect to` Te Mujtahid is to adopt the manifest meanings and what is properly and
strictly sanctioned by the purport of the text (AlAwani, 1vv! z). Te reason for the for-
biddance of ijtihad in sud cases is that these types of Koranic verses address mauers the
details and the knowledge of whid is reserved for God alone. One example of sud a verse is
in the second dapter of the Koran. Te dapter is titled Te Cow. lt begins with the verse
!v
Alif lam Mim'. Te verse is comprised of three Arabic leuers Alif, lam and Mim, and
whid do not form an Arabic word. Te details of this verse, of whid there exist ample
similar Koranic examples, are beyond the read of human perception included in the term
al ghayb (AlAwani, 1vv! z). Al-Ghayb means that the true meaning of the verse belongs
to God. ln this light, no Mujtahid possesses the ability to delve into interpreting sud verses
as Alif lam Mim. While a Mujtahid is permiued to comment on these types of verses, the
Mujtahids comments are bound to and cannot contradict what has been generally stated in
other verses in the Sunnah and the Koran in regards to the interpretation of this verse. Tat
is, Alif lam Mim cannot contradict enshrined principles of the faith sud as the oneness of
God. God says in the Koran of these types of ambiguous verses
But no one knows its interpretation except God. And those who are rmly
rooted in knowledge say We believe in it (Te Holy Koran, Chapter ! Chap-
ter of Te lamily of lmran Verse ).
God therefore strictly demands in the verse above from a Mujtahid that when an am-
biguous verse as Alif lam Mim appears that the Mujtahid simply accepts its ambiguous-
ness. ln a sense, a Mujtahids task here is therefore one that exceeds that of conducting
a discursive analysis of the text. Tat is, a Mujtahids duty exceeds studying, analyzing,
and comprehending the circumstances behind the revelation of a verse as Alif lam Mim or
the linguistic boundaries of the very verse itself. Te Mujtahid accepts the verse as Gods
verse or as is. Tat is, the verse is not to be analyzed, understood or misunderstood, but
appreciated as it is beyond a Mujtahids grasp and comprehension. ln light of this and in
the case of my thesis, there however are no sud types of verses upon whid l will draw to
construct Anarca-lslam.
ln light of the mentioned verse above, it is clear that the Koran that it is a complicated
text. Tis makes it more necessary for the reader to comprehend the Korans complexity as
a text. To quote Seyyid Hossein Nasr on this mauer
Many people, especially non-Muslims, who read the Qran for the rst time are
struc by what appears as a kind of incoherence from the human point of view.
lt is neither like a highly mystical text nor a manual of Aristotelian logic, though
it contains both mysticismand logic. lt is not just poetry although it contains the
'llectronic Text Centers translation of the Koran and whid is available at the University of Virginia
library. Retrieval date October 11th, zccs. Retrieved from (http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-
new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=
2&division=div1)
lurthermore on several occasions in the Koran, God even oers a wager that should humanity and all in-
telligent life forms in their entirety gather together to construct a verse, that the verse would fail in matding a
single Koranic verse. God demonstrates the wager in the following two verses [lor] lf all humankind and the
other intelligent life were to band together to produce the likes of this Koran, they could not produce the like
thereof (Te Holy Koran, Chapter 1 Chapter of Children of lsrael Verse s), [and] Bring then a single surah
[verse] like unto it, and call upon whomsoever you can if you are truthful (Te Holy Koran, Chapter 1c Chapter
of Jonah Verse !).
.c
most powerful poetry. Te text of the Qran reveals human language crushed
by the power of the Divine word. lt is as if human language were scauered into
a thousand fragments like a wave scauered into drops against the rocs at sea
(Nasr in Brown, 1vvz vc).
language in the Koran is therefore language that is not xed in meaning. Rather, the
Korans language is endlessly reinventing itself anew. Gods words remake` the rules and
limits of Arabic as a language. ln fact, as Nasr notes, God replaces human Arabic with a
Divine form of Arabic that is seemingly incoherent, poetic, and mystical. Te Koran oers a
descriptive account of tales of past prophets and callings upon the reader to contemplate the
very truth of the Divinity of the words and the language used.
Te degree of detail in the Koran transforms the Koran into a text whose principles can
never be fully analyzed and understood by a Mujtahid. lt becomes a text that requires a
Mujtahids endless struggle. ljtihad in a sense is Gods perpetual dallenge to a Mujtahid.
ln this dallenge, during a Mujtahids interaction with the Koran, a Mujtahid encounters
and reads a variety of dierent meanings for the same Koranic words. Te dierent mean-
ings oer varying principles and consequently result in dierent interpretations of lslam.
lxamples of sud words are ayn or qar, whid were discussed in dapter two, and upon
whidKoranic principles are laid and based. Te Mujtahids task consists of oering varying
insights, reasoning(s), and advancing proofs regarding Koranic principles. ln doing so, the
Mujtahid is continually engaging in an act of destabilizing dogmatic principles interpreted
by other Mujtahideen.
Tis analysis leads to this question Who is entitled to conduct ijtihad and who is permit-
ted to become a Mujtahid` ljtihad is considered to be a divinely decreed right and gin from
God to Muslims en masse. As Taha Jabir AlAwani argues in the Ethics of Disagreements
in Islam (1vv!) Te Koranic legal intellectual eort is required by the divine injunction
learn a lesson, then, O you who are endowed with insight (ze, Te Holy Koran, Chapter
v Chapter of Banishment Verse z). ljtihad is then a necessary right ordained and tanta-
mount to duty for Muslims through the Koranic verse AlAwani indicates above. Tis right
exists for all Muslims according to their individual abilities and upon sdolarly study. God
intends ijtihad as a merciful medanism to accommodate Muslims. ln this regard, God states
in the Koran
Shouldst thou not bring them a sign, they say, Hast thou not yet made doice
of one` Say, l only follow what is inspired to me by my lord [i.e. in the
Àt times the Korans descriptions are general and at times baingly specic and ahead of its time. lor
instance, in this verse below God describes the process of how the wrapping of muscles over the bones of a
dild occurs inside a mothers womb. God says[We] then formed the drop into a clot and formed the clot into
a lump and formed the lump into bones and clothed the bones in esh, and then brought him into being as
another creature. Blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators! (Te Holy Koran, Chapter z!, Chapter of Te Believers,
Verse 1.)As louis Massignon wrote Gods word unmakes all human meanings, all the proud constructions
of civilisation, of high culture, and then returns all the luxuriant cosmic, imagery bac to the lowly and the
oppressed, so that in their imaginations it can be made anew(Cheetham, zcc zcz)
.1
Koran]. Tese are perceptions from my lord, and a guidance and a mercy to a
people who believe. And when the Koran is read, then listen thereto and keep
silence, haply ye may obtain mercy (Te Holy Koran, Chapter Chapter of
Te llevated Places Verse zc1).
ln the verse, God acnowledges the Koran as a merciful text, a gin to Muslims. More-
over, God advises Muslims to partake in ijthad with the Koran, not necessarily by literally
re-interpreting it, but by actively listening to it as highlighted in the verse above. Tat is,
God ordains that Muslims understand the Koran as opposed to blindly ascribe to its mes-
sage. lurthermore, God advocates that Muslims neither dogmatically accept nor rely upon
a Mujtahids interpretation of the Koran. Muslims are not to take ijtihad for granted. God
even vows to guide Muslims in explaining the Koran. Tat is, God vows to support and en-
lighten any Muslim who engages and struggles with the Koran and not only Mujtahideen.
As God says in the Koran We explain the signs in detail for those who reect (Chapter 1c
Chapter of Yunus Verse z.). Gods insistence that capable Muslims use ijtihad as a med-
anism to re-interpret lslamic principles in accordance with their spatial, temporal, political,
and social conditions and circumstances highlights the relative ease whid ijtihad oers and
brings for lslamic practice. ln fact, God expects dierences in lslamic principles due to the
practice of ijtihad in dierent spatial, temporal, political, and social circumstances. Below
are two Koranic verses that address this mauer
Not all of them are alike (Te Holy Koran, Chapter ., Chapter of Te Women
Verse 11!)
and
unto every one of you We [God] have appointed a dierent law and way of
life and if God had pleased, God would have made you a single Ummah [com-
munity], but that God might try You in what God gave you. So vie with one
another in virtuous deeds. To God you will all return, so that God will inform
you of that wherein you diered (Te Holy Koran, Chapter , Chapter of Te
Dinner Table Verse .s).
ln the above verses, God acnowledges that Muslims are created equal but not alike. God
did not intend for Muslims to be organized into a single community, but rather that eadMus-
lim individual and community vie with the other in virtuous deeds while also appreciating
the dierences that set them apart. Te dierence in laws as a consequence of ijtihad, and
whid the second verse refers to, does not imply that Muslims ought not appreciate lslamic
interpretations of past Muslims or laws of other communities. Rather it encourages Muslims
to do right by themselves for their own conditions, while drawing upon lessons from the
past in order to appreciate and contextualize past adievements and interpretations of lslam
(lsposito, zccz 1v). God conrms that the Koran is an adaptable text through ijtihad and
for all time
.z
Will they not ponder on the Koran` lf it had not come from God [i.e. adaptable
for all time], they could surely nd in it many contradictions (Te Holy Koran,
Chapter ., Chapter of Te Women Verse sz).
ln spite of the fact that Muslims are aorded this Divine gin of interpretation most Mus-
lims today have become complacent in their right to ijtihad. Tis complacency can be traced
historically, as l note in dapter two, to when the Gate of ljtihad was closed during the
reign of the Abbasids in the tenth century (lsposito, 1vs. 1v, emphasis added). Te consen-
sus of the ulama at the time of Abbasids was that an lslamic way of life had already been
established and thus there was no need for further ijtihad or investigation. Tat is, that there
could be no justication for independent judgment or rational inquiry in lslam (Mehmet,
1vvc ec). Te consequence of this closing o of ijtihads gates was that future generations
of Muslims were bound to dysfunctional taqlid. Tat is, the unquestioned acceptance and
memorization of precedents and interpretations of past Muhtaheideen (Mehmet, 1vvc ec).
lurthermore, with the closing of the gates of ijtihad
the ulama assumed a monopoly control of public education, morality and
opinion, and, in the process, advanced the cause of jahiliyya (mass ignorance),
fatalism and underdevelopment as eectively as imperialism and colonialism
(Mehmet, 1vvc e1).
As a result of this monopolistic control over ijtihad most Muslims nowadays are caught
in a state of intellectual paralysis that has aicted both their resolve and their decisive intel-
lectual endeavor (Alawani, 1vv! s). Tis nearly total absence of ijtihad amongst Muslims
nowadays is all the more troubling considering that the gate of ijtihad was reopened in the
nineteenth century.
At its opening, lslamic modernists, notably Afghani, Abduh and lqbal, clamoured for
freeing lslamic knowledge fromits dogmatic slumber as a precondition for adapting it to the
requirements of life in a modern world (Mehmet, 1vvc e1). lslamic modernists understood
the dire consequences Muslims and the lslamic world faced due to the closure of the gate of
ijtihad. Muslim modernists fought for the gates reopening, realizing the dire consequences
should the new generation of Muslims continue to be forbidden from partaking in ijtihad.
Yet despite this call by lslamic modernists, save for a few notable lslamic sdolars[as] lbn
Timiya (1zez1!zs) Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti (1..1c)[and] lbn Khaldun (1!!z1.ce)
ln Gods call upon Muslims to ponder the Koran, God assures Muslims that the Koran is a text that is
condent in its program and is capable of situating exoterically and esoterically any analytic activity, where
truth plays apiece limited by a more powerful functioning of the text itself.
Ulama is another word for policymakers or religious sdolars. See John l. lspositos Practice and e-
ory: A Response to Islam and e allenge to Democracy (zcc!). Retrieval date October 1!th, zccs. Re-
trieved from (hup//..1z.v.1!z/seard`qcadevvwqMYbXYJwww.bostonreview.net/BR28.2/esposito.
html+ulama+definition+esposito&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)
Te absence of ijtihad is troubling considering that like many others [, Muslims have to be] worried about
the future being readied for[them], one that could make [them]miss the fascism of yore sud as during the
Crusades and the Mongol wars (Guauari, 1vv v.).
.!
(Mehmet, 1vvc e1), few others have dared to conduct ijithad or claimed their authority as
Muhtaheideen. Te result is the continued state of intellectual paralysis that nowadays
exists amongst a predominant majority of Muslims. lt seems, as opposed to the acceptance
of this divine gin, Muslims have predominantly opted for a strict dogmatic adherence to
past interpretations by past Muhtaheideen. Muslims opted to dismissing the divine gin of
interpretation when the fact is that it is with ijtihad that Muslims
will undoubtedly release an abundance of energies [, hima,] in the Ummah
[Muslim Community] energies whid are now dissipated and wasted in the
theaters of futile internal [, as external] conicts (Alawani, 1vvz v).
As a Muslim, l see a necessity for ijtihad. Te method l doose is its anardic form or
Anardic-ljtihad. lt is the method l develop for myself in my auempt at reading
out of the intellectual paralysis whid aicts the Muslim mindby tacling
the roots of this intellectual crisis and rectifying the methodology of [Muslim]
thought [arming Muslims through] a renewed stress on intellectual formation
and the recovery of a sense of [ethical-political] priorities (AlAwani, 1vv! v).
Anardic-ljtihad is commiued to identifying and re-interpreting, if necessary, anti-
capitalist and anti-authoritarian principles in the Sunnah and the Koran. l use Anardic-
ljtihad to identify these anardic commitments in lslam, so that the interpretation l am ad-
vocating for, Anarca-lslam, resonates with anardism. Similarly, l use Anardic-ljtihad to
reread lslamic anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian commitments in anardism so that they
resonate with Anarca-lslam. Because Anardic-ljtihad is an anardically oriented ijtihad it
is not only a form of critical or discursive form of analysis. Anardic-ljtihad, by virtue of the
very denition of ijtihad, is a method l use to make judgements in favour of Anarca-lslam.
lt also aords me the ability to critique interpretations of lslam that do not uphold Anarca-
lslams anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments. l regard these commitments as
lslamic commitments, just as l regard them as anardist commitments. Anarca-lslam too is
the method l use to coalesce the individual anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist concepts
and practices from lslam.
Te perception of this method of inquiry as unnecessary will be under the pretext that
in the mind of seculars as Knight the Koran is innate, benign or useless. To Knight, as l
discussed in dapter two, the Koran is a tiny liule book for tiny liule men (Knight, zcc. 1,
emphasis added). ln Taqwacores, Knight has the female daracter Rabeya cross out a verse
from the Koran (liscella, zccv) that Knight believes allows a man to beat his wife. Knight
highlights in the passage below through Rabeya his point of view of the Koran
linally l said, fuc it. lf l believe its wrong for a man to beat his wife, and
the Qran disagrees with me, then fuc that verse. l dont need to stretd and
squeeze it for a weak alternative reading, l dont need to excuse it with historical
context, and l sure as hell dont need to just accept it and go sign up for a good
..
ol fashioned bitd-slapping. So l crossed it out. Now l feel a whole lot beuer
about that Qran (Knight, zcc. 1c)
As a Mujtahid, and using Knights words, l prefer to stretd, squeeze and work through
the historical contexts of the verse and if necessary to re-interpret and provide the lslamic
justication(s) for the verses re-interpretation using Anardic-ljtihad. l do this not to provide
weak alternatives for the verse as Knight claims, but rather to construct a powerful position
from it in Anarca-lslam. ln sum, what l nd beautiful about the way the Koran uses language
is that it does so using Arabic words and sentences that are at times
a) lxtremely precise (whether in the scope of describing things and events or giving
guidelines, clear lessons, or rules to Muslims)
Or
b) lilled with metaphors that could be deciphered using ijtihad, or any of its types like
Anardic-ljtihad
Or
c) Contaminated by the use of Divine phrases that are secret and to whid Al Ghayb is
applied.
As an Arabic reader, l nd the Koran a dicult text to dallenge that way. Tat is, in its
ability to resist the judgments of human beings on its divine integrity as a text, especially
without critics understanding the dierent grammatical context to whid rules of syntax are
also applied. Unlike Knight, l therefore believe that it is in the spaces of these judgments
that are leveled by critics as critiques on the Koran that there is an advantage for Muslims
in using this space to their advantage while reinterpreting the Koran. Aner all there can be
liule doubt that the Koran speaks a thousand lies and truths that to this modern day creates
uncertainty because of the language the Koran uses. Te Koran creates this uncertainty while
also disabling the degree to whid heresy could be commiued against it. Tis is because the
Koran prides itself on being a text of moderation and that is lucid yet considerate to the
understanding and comprehension of an Arabic reader. As a text, it is the Koran that haunts
and holds lslam, and whid means the middle path, and without whid lslam does not exist.
3. us Speaks Academia: e eoretical Framework
Troughout this thesis, the principal theories l use and whid l intend to fuse are post-
anardist, deconstructionist, post-colonial, and poststructuralist theories, along with socio-
logical theories of social movements. Tis fusion denotes a common ethical and political
project to dismantle the belief amongst Muslims and anardists that it is impossible to iden-
tify as a Muslim anardist, as well as the belief that it is impossible to construct an anardic
interpretation of lslam and an anardic interpretation of anardism. My destination, Anarca-
lslam, is dependent upon the cohesive joining together of these ethical-political theories and
philosophies to establish what, l argue, ought to be a designated space, a panegyric desert, for
Muslims and Muslims anardists through Anarca-lslam. lt is the above stated theories that
.
will individually and collectively allow me to contest the validity of that whid is politically
and ethically assumed of lslam and anardism.
ln this thesis, l argue that post-colonial theory allows Muslims to dallenge and resist
assimilationist and racist practices and policies directed against themby the West. As Jacques
Monod argues, post-colonial theory is premised upon fate (1vz). Tat is, post-colonial theory
is a dividing line dierentiating between necessity and dance, or an ordered and erratic
disordered set of historical circumstances in light of colonial and imperial interventions upon
the Muslim other (Monod, 1vc). lt allows for the relocation of post-colonial Muslims in
light of their denitive abandonment of an old covenant [for] the [survivalist] necessity
of forging a new one that can resist the representations ascribed to it by the West (Monod,
1vc). Post-colonial theory is a theoretical form of power that functions for Muslims, as a
singular step towards a theoretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia ofcolonial [and
imperial] anermath(s) (Gandhi, 1vvs .). Tat is, it oers Muslims a discursive, if not also
a pragmatic, form of resistance to lurocentric biases (Gandhi, 1vvs ., 1c, Minh-ha, 1vv1,
Bhabha, 1vv.). ln particular, it oers resistance to lundamentalist and Orientalist readings
of lslam and Muslims by the West.
Poststructuralist and deconstructionist political philosophies, in this thesis, oer a re-
sistance to structuralism, hierardies and dominant relations that are established upon the
construction of logo-centric and essentialist or reductionist qualities. Here l have in mind
issues like race, ethnicity, gender, ability, age, sexuality, religion, and class. Poststructural-
ist and deconstructionist political philosophies as discourses and practices therefore serve to
dallenge andro-, phallo-hetero, luro-, and ethno-centrisms (Hutdeon, 1vsv !1). Post-
structuralist and deconstructionist political philosophies also signify the means necessary
through whid Anarca-lslam will reabsorb and then counter auac the essentialisms of mod-
ernist Western paradigms'. A critical point that l ought note is with respect to what Jacques
Derrida calls deconstruction. As Derrida argues deconstruction is not a method. Ridard
Beardsworth explains deconstruction in this way
Derrida is careful to avoid this term [method] because it carries connotations of
a procedural form of judgement. A thinker with a method has already decided
how to proceed, is unable to give him or herself up to the mauer of thought in
ln doing so, l am therefore no longer neutralizing or accepting by virtue of naturalizing that whid has been
given to me of lslam or of anardism, but rather opening up a new anardistic horizon for lslam, and a new
lslamic horizon for anardism, in Anarca-lslam.
Monad, Jacques. 1vc. Te lthics of Knowledge and the Social ldeal from Chance and Neces-
sity. Collins Publishing. Retrieval date lebruary vth, zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/
sear?q=cae:ekvvpYVDTRUJ:www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/monod.
htm+monod+chance+and+necessity&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=ca)
logo-centricity is the assumption that words can un-problematically communicate meanings present in
individuals minds sud that listener, or reader, receives them in the same way as the speaker/hearer intended
(Sim, zcc1 !ce).
'Tat noted, l acnowledge that poststructuralist and deconstructionist philosophies are without a doubt
Western paradigms, but they are Western paradigms that emerge out of a Western modernist paradigms insur-
rectionary movement against its own-self.
.e
hand, is a functionary of the criteria whid structure his or her conceptual ges-
tures. lor Derrida [] this is irresponsibility itself. Tus, to talk of a method
in relation to deconstruction, especially regarding its ethico-political implica-
tions, would appear to go directly against the current of Derridas philosophical
adventure (1vve .)
ln other words, deconstruction is already always at work in a text. A theorist does not
do deconstruction. Rather the theorist'' tries to bring to the surface fragments of what
the text is willing to oer and reveal of itself from its depth and that is inscribed in it as
a text. Deconstruction is therefore not the dismantling of the structure of the text but a
demonstration that it has already dismantled itself, its apparently-solid ground is no roc,
but thin-air (Miller, 1ve !.).
ln this thesis, post-anardist theory oers a poststructuralist interpretation of anardism
that resonates with Anarca-lslam. Tis is particularly important considering that classical
anardism retains the marks of its birth out of the womb of the luropean lnlightenment
(Day, zcc 1e, May, 1vv., Newman, zcc1, Call, zccz). Western classical anardism emerges
out of a Western modernist paradigm and whid poststructuralists and deconstructionists
critique. Anarca-lslam is therefore opposed to Western classical anardism on this ground
and especially with regards to its dogmatic and essentialist perspective on religion. Post-
anardism does not share Western classical anardisms essentialist and dogmatic perspec-
tive with respect to religion. Tat is, post-anardism is more open to religion than Western
classical anardism. lurthermore, post-anardist theory sets itself apart from other interpre-
tative traditions in anardism, especially Western classical anardism, by recognizing a lou-
caultian analysis of power. Tat is, post-anardist theory sees that power is decentralized
and therefore takes as one of its central pillars that sites of oppressions are numerous and are
not merely constricted, as in Western classical anardism, to the state and capitalism (May,
1vv. 1z). Again this is in line with Anarca-lslams perspective on power. Power neither
operates from the bouom-up or from the top-down, but rather everywhere, although points
of concentration or conglomeration of power do exist, as will be discussed in the following
dapter. Post-anardist theory also resonates with Anarca-lslam because it realizes what is
called a poststructuralist critique of representation is, at the political level and therefore re-
jects the idea that one group or party could eectively represent the interests of the whole
(May, 1vv. 1z). Post-anardist theory therefore refuses to play the role of the vanguard of
anardism. Tis resonates with Anarca-lslams position'. Tat is, Anarca-lslam is not intent
''With deconstruction, a theorist is doing work on work that is already at work in the text. ln other words,
auto-reecting. Tat is, reecting on an already present state of reection. A theorist at the end with deconstruc-
tion merely captures fragments from texts, while the rest hides. With deconstruction, the ultimate adievement
any theorist could hope to accomplish is to reveal what Derrida refers to as dirance. As Jacques Derrida writes
in Positions there is no economy without dirance [] the movement of dirance, as that whid produces
dierent things, that whid dierentiates, is the common root of all the oppositional concepts that mark our
language [] dirance is also the production [] of these dierences (zccz )
'Anarca-lslam will not save Western Muslims. Western Muslims are the only ones to save themselves.
Anarca-lslam cannot, however, do so itself. Not now, not ever. Qite the contrary, l merely hope Anarca-
.
nor is it going to seek to represent lslam and Muslims as a collectivity for itself and its own
interests. linally, post-anardist theory, and in particular Days work, recognizes the need
for a balance between communal and micro-politics, and again this resonates with Anarca-
lslams position and that goes against any individualist approad to addressing the discourse
of lslamic-anardism, as highlighted earlier with respect to the works of Bey and Knight.
Social movement theory in thesis is a membrane that indicates precisely this boundary
of a continuous two-way movement [to and fro] between an lnside [theory] and Outside
[praxis]'` (Deleuze, 1vvc). lt bridges the gap between academics and activists who are at war
at the grassroots and ghting against capitalism, the state, and numerous other oppressions.
Social movement theory' therefore is the space where all the former theories l identied are
manifesting and interacting. Social movement theory is the source upon whid the former
theories l discussed unfold and without whid mediation of the theories is, without surprise,
theoretically and pragmatically impossible if not in fact useless to the grassroots.
With the former theories discussed, l however strongly argue, as others' sud as Tariq
Ramadan' have done, that while lslamic practices and Muslim cultural practices may inter-
sect, the two practices are not to be conated.
My intent here is to distinguish between lslamic principles and Muslimcultural practices.
Tat is, to clarify the fact that in constructing Anarca-lslam my goal is neither to reduce ls-
lamic cultural sensitivities, nor dismiss culture altogether. l consider culture, in general,
and especially Muslim culture as valuable and is historically, politically, and socially rid.
Muslim cultural practices are heterogeneous motifs by virtue of the fact that they are com-
lslam will encourage and inspire other Muslims to conduct ijtihad for themselves and that it mobilize Muslims
in the West out of their state of paralysis.
'`lrom an interview of Gilles Deleuze by Antonio Negro. Retrieval Date lebruary vth, zccv. Retrieved from
(http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpdeleuze3.htm)
'Tat is, aner these theories have been derived and conrmed by warrior activists (Deleuze, 1vvc). Without
academics then, this energy that is derived from their eorts in analyzing the interaction between theory and
praxis and that is put to work through their publications to the membrane of social movements and their activists,
social movement theory would not exist.
'Tamim Saidi shares Tariqs view regarding culture and lslamic practices. Saidi argues in an article titled
Islam and Culture: Dont mix them up Tere are certain areas of overlap A peoples religion inuences their
culture, and culture inuences how they practice their religion. But in lslam there is a clear distinction between
the two (zccs). l agree with Saidi and Ramadans views and will illustrate this further in Sayyid-Sallys case
study as it pertains to latwah, lslamic laws, in light of their post-colonial encounters.
Retrieved on October 1sth, zccs.
Retrieved-from http://www.minnpost.com/community_voices/2008/02/15/891/islam_and_culture_dont_
mix_them_up
'Tariq Ramadan has the measured delivery of an academic, whid is no more than you would
expect from a man who used to be a high sdool principal and wrote his doctoral thesis on Niet-
zsde. But as the leading lslamic thinker among luropes second- and third-generation Muslim immi-
grants, the Geneva-based university lecturer also inspires a good deal of mistrust from both Arab
Muslims for his Western sensibility and Westerners for his controversial lslamic roots. Ramadan, !s,
is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder, in 1vzs, of the Muslim Brotherhood, an lslamic re-
vival movement that spread from lgypt throughout the Arab world. Retrieval Date lebruary vth,
zccv. Retrieved from (hp://74.125.95.132/sear?q=cae:h1i_0JQ7DyIJ:www.time.com/time/innovators/
spirituality/profile_ramadan.html+tariq+ramadan+culture+and+islam&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca)
.s
prised of intersecting interactions of ethnic, geo-political, trans-market, social, and historical
webs. Despite the fact that Muslim cultures of all types do historically possess revolutionary
power however, these Muslim cultural practices in this thesis are viewed as bound to lslamic
principles. lslamic principles and Muslim cultural practices revolve around and through one
another, yet this revolving performance takes place only in so far as the former does not
contradict the lauer'.
As Tariq Ramadan argues, this lslamic theological perspective on culture is an overard-
ing one. lt is a perspective that exists, astonishingly enough, regardless of whidever culture
Muslims identify with or belong to and whidever interpretative traditions of lslam Muslims
doose to follow. Tat is, given the fact that all Muslims may dier over the Sunnah, they
however share an identical text the Koran'. When asked in an interview about the inter-
action and dierence between lslamic principles and Muslim cultural practices, Ramadan
said
We [Western Muslims] need to separate lslamic principles from their culture
of origins and andor them in the cultural reality of Western lurope[We] can
incorporate everything thats not opposed toreligion [lslam] into[lslamic]
identity (Ramadan, zccv).
Terefore, Ramadans perspective, to whid l adhere, stems from a desire to neither abol-
ish culture altogether nor utilize culture to validate' Anarca-lslam. Te existence of similar
resonances between lslam and anardism is not a result of my oering a Westernized reading
of lslam either.
Having discussed Anardic-ljtihad and outlined the theories l use in this thesis, in the
following dapter l discuss Anarca-lslams relation to lslam, anardism and the capitalist-
State.
'Aner all and from a theological perspective Muslims reserve the right to engage in their dierent cultural
practices. lven more so, cultural practices are appreciated, respected and expected to exist in lslam. God even
acnowledges this intentional creation of varying cultures and the existence of dierences as result of cultures in
the following verse We createdand made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know ead
other (Te Holy Koran, Chapter .v Chapter of Te lnner Apartments Verse 1!).
'And this had been the premise upon whid God had vowed that it is God that would protect the Koran.
Gods vow is in the verse Verily We [God] ourselves have sent down this exhortation, and most surely will be
its Guardian (Te Holy Koran, Chapter 1 Chapter of Te Roc City Verse 1c).
'Any perceived dierences between lslam and anardism are not the result of a cultural problem. Having
that perception would be falling into a trap and would only be regurgitation and a re-enforcement of lastern
versus Western didotomies. l am therefore not seeking to establish a puritanical lslam by constructing Anarca-
lslam, nor dismissing the importance of culture, but giving paramount auention to lslamic principles and that
have been dismissed by a predominant majority of Muslims or of whid the predominant majority are not aware
of. l do this, as l put culture quietly to sleep.
.v
Chapter 4
Anarca-Islams Space and Political
Consciousness in Relation to
anarism, Islam and the
capitalist-State
ere are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are
more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than politicians think.
We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force:
not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles
carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it
is because the world has ideas that it is not passively ruled by those who are its
leaders or those who would like to tea it, once and for all, what it must think.
(Midel loucault, 1vs)
ln this dapter l sketd the outlines of Anarca-lslam, by identifying its relation to lslam, anar-
dism, and the capitalist-State. By the end of the dapter, having established Anarca-lslams
relation to anardism, lslam, and the capitalist-State, l am prepared to establish Anarca-
lslams anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments in resistance to the capitalist-State
in the following dapter.
ln the rst section of the dapter, l argue for the death of lslam. lslam is only alive in
so far as it manifests itself in the Sunnah and the Holy Koran. A similar argument to this is
posited with respect to anardism. Tat is, that anardism, like lslam, is dead. Anardisms,
Western and Non-Western, are only alive in so far as they manifest themselves in their clas-
sical texts. Te classical texts include works sud as Midael Bakunins God and e State
c
(1ssz), Peter Kropotkins Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1vcz), lmma Goldmans Anar-
ism and Other Essays (1v1c), William Godwins Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and
its Inuence on Modern Morals and Manners (1v!), Sam Mbahs African Anarism: e
History of a Movement (1vv), Arif Dirliks Anarism in the Chinese Revolution (1vv1), and
lrank lernandezs Cuban Anarism: e History of the Movement (zcc1). lollowing my ar-
gument for the deaths of lslamand anardism, l dene Anarca-lslamin terms of its relation to
anardism, and particularly to post-anardism. l do this by carrying out a critique of Western
classical anardisms luro-centricity, and a critique of Western classical anardisms percep-
tion that power operates strictly at the macro level, through the modern state and religion.
Te critique of Western classical anardisms perception of power involves a discussion of Ni-
etzsdean, loucaultian, and post-anardistic views of micro and macro power, whid result
in micro and macro authoritarian practices (Day, zcc, May, 1vv., Call, zcc1, Rolando, 1vvc,
Newman, zcc1). Tis critique of classical Western anardism also involves a discussion of the
similarities and the dierences between what Todd May refers to in e Political Philosophy
of Poststructuralist Anarism (1vv.) as strategic and tactical political philosophy (1c11). ln
carrying out the immanent critique of Western classical anardism and establishing Anarca-
lslams relationship to post-anardism, Anarca-lslam is dened as an lslamic reinterpreta-
tion of post-anardism. Having dened Anarca-lslams relation to post-anardism, l dene
Anarca-lslams relationship to lslam. Anarca-lslam is dened as a post-anardic reinterpre-
tation of lslam. Moreover, seeing that it is a post-anardic reinterpretation of lslam l argue
that, Anarca-lslam resists the luro, phallo and logo centric tendencies that accompany West-
ern classical anardist discourses (Day, zcc, Guauari, 1vs, Adams, zcc!). Tis resistance
oers Anarca-lslams anti-luro-logo-phallo-centric and feminized form Anarca.
ln the next section, and in line with Newman (zcc1), Rolando Perez (1vvc), Deleuze and
Guauari (1vsc), l discuss the relationship between Anarca-lslam and the capitalist-State. l
do this by dening a triadic relationship that consists of Daddy, symbolizing authoritarian
practices of the types macro and micro, Mommy, symbolizing capitalist practices, and Me, as
an Oedipal subject. Having dened this triadic relationship, it is critical to note that capitalist
practices too are authoritarian in so far as capitalist practices are intent on transforming
everything in a social space into a commodity for the forceful extraction of surplus value
(Marx, 1se 1c). ln this vein, the triadic relationship, a result of the interaction between
the modern state, capitalism and individuals, is modeled on the lreudian Oedipal structure of
Daddy-Mommy-Me. As Newman argues, in line with Deleuze and Guauari, a capitalist-State
society consists of this Oedipal relationship, where capitalism and the state form a system of
signiers and axioms that become internalized within individuals (Newman, zcc1 vv). ln
dening the Oedipal relationship according to these parameters, l discuss the particular role
the modern state and capitalism have with individuals (Deleuze and Guauari, 1vsc zc).
Te modern state, according to Deleuze and Guauari, functions as an apparatus of cap-
ture [whid] has a power of appropriation (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc .!). Tat is, the
modern states role is disciplinarian and coercive. Te modern states goal is the capturing
and appropriation of space in a social eld, as the space of an individuals identity for in-
stance. ln this example of an individuals identity, the modern state operates by carving
1
up and hierardically ordering the space of identity according to applied labels along lines
of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and ableism, for example. Tough capitalisms role as
mentioned is disciplinarian and coercive, its particular role in the Oedipal relationship is that
of seducing an individuals desire. Tat is, it functions through inscribing, coding and re-
directing [of] the ow of desire(s) so that they may correspond with the ows of capital
in the market (Perez, 1vvc e). Again, in the example of an individuals identity, once the
individuals identication is facilitated by the modern state, capitalisms role is materially
exploiting the representations of the individual identities. Aner discussing and distinguish-
ing the particular role ead parent has with respect to individuals, l discuss the eects the
relationship between them particularly has on me as an Oedipal subject. Tat is, l discuss
the relationship between the capitalist-State and me. l discuss the relationship between them,
because as others like Day, Newman, Deleuze and Guauari, have argued, l believe that the
modern state is innitely intertwined and bound' with capitalism. Terefore, though it is
possible to distinguish between the particular role of ead, as Day argues, it is clear that
the state form and capitalism have grown up together, in a relationship that while it may be
fraught with localized and short-term animosities, has been in the long term been mutually
benecial (Day, zcc 1.z). ln the vein of Days analysis, Anarca-lslams relation to the
capitalist-State is that it resembles a clinic that l, an Oedipal subject, auend to become rela-
tively de-Oedipalized. Te clinic is a parody of the very self-defeating symptoms, capitalist
and micro and macro authoritarian practices that led me, an Oedipalized subject, to construct
Anarca-lslam in order to become relatively de-Oedipalized (Al-Kassim, zcc 11). ln other
words, l construct Anarca-lslam as an act of resistance to the capitalist-State. l do this, while
recognizing the impossibility of ever constructing a space of resistance free of capitalist and
authoritarian practices and the representations ascribed to me by the capitalist-State.
2. Islam is Dead. Anarism is Dead.
lslam is dead. lslam is only alive in so far as it manifests itself in the Sunnah and the Koran,
besides whid there is no monolithic lslam. Rather, there are a pluralistic series of traditions,
perspectives and cultural discourses radiating from lslam. As Jacques Derrida argues
How dare we talk religion, talk lslam` Of religion, of lslam` Te singularity
of religion, the singularity of lslams today` How dare we speak of them in
the singular without fear and trembling, this very day` And so briey and so
quicly` (1vvs 1).
Utilizing Derridas question, it is inappropriate to speak of lslam as a monolith, with-
out the acnowledgment and recognition of the eld and host of possibilities that exist in
'ln doing so l am following the same anti-evolutionary logic that underlies Deleuze and Guauaris concept
of the state form, capitalism (Day, zcc 1.z).
Tere is a danger when pronouncing or writing anything with respect of lslam without context. lt is more
appropriate to speak of lslams or lslam(s), given the variant dierent interpretations and names of Islam. Con-
sidering, as Bey writes that lslam possesses a far deeper & more sophisticated critique of the modern world
z
the specic politicization of a particular interpretation of lslam in a particular context. Te
variant interpretations, or what could be referred to as the names of Islam, arrive as a con-
sequence of the concept and practice of ijtihad. ljtihad therefore serves as medanism of
resistance embedded within lslam in resistance to lslams conception as monolithic. lor in-
stance, as a consequence of ijtihads practice during the lranian revolution of 1vv, Shiism, a
traditional brand of lslam, bore the fruit of the lslamic-lenist Mujahedeen alKhalq, the
Marxist-leninist ledayeen i-Khalq, and Ali Shariatis synthesis of Marxism, existential-
ism, Heideggerianism [with] a militant form of traditional Shiism (Afray and Anderson,
zcc !s.c). Tese interpretations of Shiism are just three preliminary examples that bear
witness to the power of ijtihad. ln the absence of context, it is blasphemous to pronounce
or write anything with respect to lslam as a whole. As Aziz Al-Azmeh writes in Islam and
Modernities, there are as many lslams as there are situations that sustain it (1vv! 1).
Tis argument regarding the death of lslam is an argument that is applicable to an-
ardism, as anardism is dead too. Anardism is only alive in so far as it manifests itself
in its classical and contemporary texts. Particularly considering that anardism, like lslam,
bears fruit to a multiplicity of dierent interpretative traditions. As Jason Adams writes
anardists from all kinds of bacgrounds with all kinds of ideas have sought to make con-
temporary anardisms relevant to them in their own unique situations` (zcc!). Te result of
the unique situations is an ample number of variant reinterpretations and traditions of an-
ardism. Tese interpretations of anardism arrive not only through the reinterpretation of
anardism, as it is classically understood as a luropean tradition. Rather the interpretations
include anardism, as it is presently understood to possess Non-Western roots despite the
than that proposed by the lslamists. ln fact, more than one critique. To mention a few (without judgment or
evaluation) -Te militant anti-colonialist susm of lmir Abel Kader, or the Sanussi Order of libya -Te strange
anardo-susm of Col. Qaddas Green Book (Qadda rebelled against a Su king, but was himself raised as a
Su) the Shiite socialism of the martyred Ali Shariati -the idea of the Mahdi or Redeemer as a collectivity the
ideal of Social Justice the ban usury (whid makes Global Capital impossible, of course) -the heroic Naqshbandi
Order in Chednya, resisting Russian imperialism for centuries -going bac in time, the Persian Syrian Nizaris
or Assassins, who went so far as to proclaim the Day of Resurrection, and to liberate a network of castles in the
cause of esoteric enlightenment -etc. etc. or even further bac in time, the Prophet himself professional rev-
olutionary, guerilla leader, returned from his exile to establish egalitarian iconoclastic mystical/militant regime
in Meccaand so on (Bey, 1vv).
`Te link below is to Jason Adams article Nonwestern Anarisms: Rethinking the Global Context Retrieval
date October 1sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.geocities.com/ringfingers/nonwesternweb.html)
Adams writes of how he employs the terms Western and Nonwestern as follows By employing the label
Western l amnot referring to the actual history of anardismbut rather to the way in whidanardismhas been
constructed through the multiple lenses of Marxism, capitalism, eurocentrism and colonialism to be understood
as sud. Tis distorted, decontextualized and ahistoric anardism with whid we have now become familiar
was constructed primarily by academics writing within the context of the core countries of the West lngland,
Germany, lrance, ltaly, Spain, Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand. Since there was virtually
no real subversion of the eurocentric understanding of anardism until the 1vvcs, the vast majority of literature
available that purports to deliver an overview of anardism is wriuen in sud a way that one is led to believe
that anardism has existed solely within this context, and rarely, if ever, outside of it. Terefore, the anardism
that becomes widely known is that whid has come to be identied with the West, despite its origins in the last,
Kropotkin, Bakunin, Godwin, Stirner, and Goldman in rst wave anardism Meltzer, Chomsky, Zerzan, and
!
fact that these Non-Western traditions of anardismare not as well recognized and publicized
as Western interpretations of anardism. As Adams writes,
[that] most available anardist literature does not tell this history [of non-
Western anardism] speaks not to a necessarily malicious disregard of non-
Western anardist movements but rather to the fact that even in the context
of radical publishing, centuries of engrained eurocentrism has not really been
overcome (zcc!).
Despite this engrained lurocentrism, anardism is to be understood as a pluralis-
tic tradition, enrided with variant interpretations of it like anarda-feminism, anardo-
indigenism, poststructuralist anardism or postanardism, anardo-primitivism, African-
anardism, Cuban-anardism, panther-anardism and so on and so forth. All the former
interpretations of anardism are interpretations that arrive from a multitude of cultures and
subcultures that anardism has come in contact with and vice versa. lf anything, the arrival
of these variant interpretations is a testament to anardisms appeal and ability, not to be
reformed, but to be reinvented anew. Tat is, l argue for the possibility for anardism to
be made into the image of individuals and communities and for it to address the particular
struggles individuals and communities encounter.
ln light of anardisms identication as a pluralistic tradition, it follows that Anarca-
lslam is an lslamic reinterpretation of anardism, and more particularly post-anardism. Tis
lslamic reinterpretation of post-anardism is constructed through Anardic-ljtihad and the
multiplicity of theories l discussed in dapter three. Using Anardic-ljtihad, l locate, extract,
and interrogate lslamic commitments in post-anardistic texts, concepts and practices that
resonate with the lslamic interpretative tradition of anardism l seek. Anarca-lslam there-
fore operates on the promise of identifying and coordinating shared ethico-political commit-
ments between lslam(s) and anardism(s) using shared concepts and practices. lor pragmatic
reasons, in this thesis, the ethico-political commitments are conned to anti-authoritarian
and anti-capitalist concepts and practices due to the fact that it is these two commitments
that symbolically represent the commitments upon whid classical anardism was found and
continues to predominantly operate. Anarca-lslam, outside the parameters or connes of the
thesis nevertheless is not conned to the former two commitments. Nor are the former two
commitments regarded to be less or more important than the new commitments to be es-
Bookdin in second and third wave anardism. Rarely are sud seminal rst wave gures as Shifu, Atabekian,
Magon, Shuzo, or Glasse even mentioned, a similar fate is meted out for sud second and third wave gures sud
as Narayan, Mbah, and lernandez all of non-Western origin. Retrieval date October 1sth, zccs. Retrieved
from (http://www.geocities.com/ringfingers/nonwesternweb.html)
Te link below is to Jason Adams article Nonwestern Anarisms: Rethinking the Global Context Retrieval
date October 1sth, zccs. Retrieved from (http://www.geocities.com/ringfingers/nonwesternweb.html)
Te particularity of uniquely moulding anardism is accomplished by these individuals and communities,
while generally auempting to preserve anardisms anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist tenants, in so far as the
two commitments are understood to be the foundations upon whid classical anardism was grounded.
.
tablished in the future. Rather, l am constantly drawn towards the continual seard for
what l regard as important lslamic commitments resonating with post-anardisms commit-
ments. Tese commitments to be established cause an endless series of transformations of
Anarca-lslams ever-expanding contour towards post-anardism and vice versa. Te contour
of Anarca-lslam, in a sense, is therefore constantly made anew. lxamples of the future com-
mitments include, but are not conned to anti-transphobic, anti-queerphobic, anti-sexist,
anti-racist, anti-Semitic, anti-ageist, pro-environmentalist and anti-ablest.
Tere are four reasons that inform Anarca-lslams particular resonance with post-
anardism. Te rst reason is post-anardisms immanent critique of engrained lurocentrism
in classical Western anardism. Te second reason is post-anardisms stance on religion.
Tat is, post-anardism is not anti-religious. lt distinguishes between an individuals right to
hold religious beliefs and the transformation of sud beliefs through institutionalized forms
of religion into authoritarian practices. Te third reason is post-anardisms immanent cri-
tique of classical Western anardisms perspective with respect to understanding what power
is and how exactly it operates. Anarca-lslam, as l show later, shares and adopts, like post-
anardism, a loucaultian and Nietzsdean interpretation of power. Anarca-lslam in essence
possesses anti-micro-authoritarian concepts and practices, recognizing that power plays ev-
erywhereow[ing] through every social relation (Call, zccz zee). Tis Anarca-lslamic
reading of the operation of power is in line with the generally accepted view amongst post-
anardists that
power is not essentially repressive (since it incites, it induces, it seduces), it
is practiced before it is possessed (since it is possessed in only a determinable
form, [for instance] that of class [privilege], and a determined form, that of the
State, power passes through the hands of the mastered no less than the hands of
the masters(Deleuze, zcce ec).
According to this post-anardistic reading, power is therefore simultaneously libratory
and repressive. However, this reading is unfortunately not recognized or acnowledged in
classical Western anardism. Tat is, classical Western anardism does not recognize that
microforms of power or micro-power exists nor that power neither reductively operates as
many people believe from the top down nor the bouom up (Call, zccz ee). Rather classi-
cal Western anardisms perspective is that power is concentrated at the top and is always
oppressively exercised upon the bouom (May, 1vv. 1.). Te sole forms of power classical
Western anardism recognizes are macro forms of it, through the modern state and capital-
ism. Tis classical Western anardist perspective therefore dismisses the responsibility, role,
and power individuals in any society have as social actors. Tat is, it dismisses the existence
of micro-authoritarian practices, seuling only for macro-authoritarian practices. However,
in post-anardism as in Anarca-lslam, power is distributed among those aected by itat
ln the future, and upon discovering the new commitments these commitments are to be included with the
two commitments that will have been pre-established for Anarca-lslam in this thesis.
the bouom (May, 1vv. 1.). According to this analysis, in post-anardism and in Anarca-
lslam, unlike in classical Western anardism, individuals have power, micro-power, that can
be used to resist oppression. Tat is, individuals are oppressed no less than they are oppressors
themselves.
Te fourth reason that informs Anarca-lslams particular resonance to post-anardism
is post-anardisms immanent critique of classical Western anardisms strict adoption of
strategic as opposed to tactical thinking. Tat is, in classical Western anardism oppressions
and injustices and the possibility for justice pervade and are located in a single problematic
(May, 1vv. 1c11). To classical Western anardism, the abstract modern state and capital-
ism are perceived to be the only forms of oppressive powers that are at play in a social eld.
Classical Western anardism operates strategically, with its rst and nal concern resting
with the resistance of macro-forms of power. To classical Western anardism oppressions
like heterosexism, queer-phobia, racism, ableism, and trans-phobia, etc. are not seen to be as
oppressive as the modern state and capitalism. Classical Western anardism in adopting this
view operates as if there is a denitive way to quantitatively evaluate dierent oppressions.
ln fact, classical Western anardism genealogically and reductively auributes the existence of
the former oppressions to the modern state and capitalism. ln post-anardism and Anarca-
lslam however, power does not originate but rather conglomerates around not one, but mul-
tiple and dierent sites. Only then, upon its conglomeration, power interplays among these
dierent sites in the creation of the social world (May, 1vv. 1c11). Te interplay im-
plies that oppression does not start nor end with the modern state and capitalism. As May
argues, this is not to deny that there are points where various (and perhaps bolder) lines
intersect but rather that power does originate at those points (1vv. 1c11). According
to post-anardism, power thus operates everywhere and in its operation everywhere oers
individuals the means for oppressing and repressing others at the micro or myopic level. ln
this sense, post-anardists are not interested in reducibly leveling and conating oppressions
or auributing all oppressions to the modern state and capitalism. Rather they are interested
in analyzing mutually intersecting lines of power to contextualize how an oppression visi-
bly peaks one moment, but then disappears only for another oppression to peak in its stead
(May, 1vv. 11).
ln relation to lslam, Anarca-lslam is dened as a post-anardic reinterpretation of lslam
in so far as lslam manifests in the Sunnah and the Holy Koran. l doose to reinterpret lslam
as a whole, as opposed to doosing a particular tradition of lslam to reinterpret and focus on,
because l refuse to privilege one lslamic tradition over the other. ladtradition exists because
of the other. lad tradition possesses good and bad ethico-political concepts and practices.
l doose to seek the good in whidever traditions of lslam l encounter to serve for the inter-
pretation of lslam l am out to construct. ln this thesis, this post-anardic reinterpretation of
lslam then is constructed through Anardic-ljtihad and the multiplicity of theories that l dis-
cuss in dapter three. Using Anardic-ljtihad, l locate, extract, and interrogate post-anardic
commitments, concepts and practices in lslamic traditions, but particularly as they exist in
the Sunnah and the Holy Koran, sud that the concepts and practices l locate resonate with
the post-anardic interpretative tradition of lslam l seek. Seeing that Anarca-lslam is a post-
e
anardic (re) interpretation of lslam then and given post-anardisms critique of engrained
luro, logo, and phallo centric tendencies in classical Western anardism Anarca-lslam is
anti-luro-logo-phallo centric. ln this vein, it is Anarca-lslams resistance to luro, logo, and
phallocentricity that leads me to adopt for Anarca-lslam the feminine Anarca as opposed to
Anardo-lslam. Anarca is moreover adopted to dispel the general Western false image that
all interpretative traditions of lslam are naturally anti-feminist. lor now, and in relation to
lslam, Anarca-lslam is grounded in the anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments,
concepts and practices l nd.
3. Daddy-Mommy-Me = Deleuze & Guattaris Oedipal Triad
ln Deleuze and Guauaris Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Sizophrenia (1vz) Deleuze and
Guauari proclaim that presently
the hour of Oedipus draws nigh by dint of a privatization of the public
the whole world unfolds right at home, without ones having to leave the TV
screenprivate persons [are given] a very special role in the system a role of
application, and no longer of implication, in a code[the capitalist State] is pro-
duced by the conjunction of the decoded or deterritorialized ows[while] cap-
italism merely ensures the regulation of the axiomatic ows (z1zz).
Deleuze and Guauari therefore argue that a familys been born and to whid individuals
in a capitalist-State society are required to submit. Tis submission could be in the context
of the representations the capitalist-State oers of dierent individuals. Te capitalist-State
therefore forms an open praxisthe subaggregate to whid the whole of the social eld is
applied (Deleuze and Guauari, 1vz zezze). Te capitalist-States family is constructed as
a triadic hetero-normative relationship modeled on the lreudian Oedipal structure of Daddy-
Mommy-Me. ln this structure, Daddy symbolizes macro and micro authoritarian practices,
Mommy symbolizes capitalist practices and Me, symbolizes an Oedipalized individual in a
capitalist-State society. Te Oedipal relationship is a consequence of interactions between
three parties. Te rst party is the modern state. Te second party is capitalism and that
forces the modern state to enter with so mud force into the service of the signs of economic
power (Deleuze & Guauari, 1v zz). Te third party is an individual in a capitalist-
State society who is trapped as a consequence of his and/or her interaction with the former
two parties. Because of the internalization of this Oedipal relationship, an individuals po-
tentiality selfmastery and autonomy is denied (Perez, 1vvc zs). Te individual becomes
laing says ln some families, parents cannot allow dildren to break the family down within themselves, if
that is what they want, because this is felt as the breakup of the family, and then where will it end (laing in Perez,
1vvc z, also in Cooper, 1v1 !). Tis internal Oedipal structure that is inscribed by both parties/parents into
an individuals psyde, its purpose is to destroy an individuals yearn for self-directed action or what Nietzsde
called the innocence of becoming (Perez, 1vvc z). Te result is that we become poor, defenseless, guilt-ridden
puppets in internal straightjacets, un-free and Oedipalized (Perez, 1vvc zs).
someone who is his and/or her own legislator, desiring his and/or her own slavery and re-
pression. Te repression and slavery is due to an individuals unwillingness to create new
political alternatives to the dominating authoritarian and capitalist practices internalized by
individuals and the representations ascribed by the parents to individuals as a consequence
of the Oedipal relationship (Newman, zcc1 vv1cc).
ln discussing the particular role of the modern State and capitalism on individuals, while
maintaining a non-reductionist approad to the role of either, the task of modern states as
Day argues is to
striate the space over whid they reign. States hope to capture ows of all
kinds, to make order where is daos, convert outside into insidewhatever is
outside and not part of the plan is to be brought in, reduced to a the known, and
thereby rendered manageable (Day, zccc .z, Deleuze and Guauari, 1vse v).
Modern states, in the abstract sense, then macro-authoritatively discipline and coerce
individuals. Modern states form maps to divide and establish walls to cordon and conquer
landscapes and social spaces. ln other words, modern states territorialize and striate spaces.
Te purpose of the identication is for the modern state to authoritatively insert the individ-
ual into a malleable hierardy that is established according to an individuals race, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation, ability and so on and so forth. Any face that does not conform,
or seem[s] suspicious and that auempts to escape or deviates from the modern states grasp
is appropriated, disciplined and coerced bac into the hierardy (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc
1). As Deleuze and Guauari note, the modern states objective is to pinpoint and discipline
individuals, and once located a binary logic of Aha! lts not a man and its not a woman, so
it must be a transvestite is applied to an individual (1vsc 1). Te modern state pinpoints
through its establishment of institutions that apply macro-authoritative practices to individu-
als by employing regimes of normalization. Normalization is, as its name implies, a practice
of dening what is normal in a group and auempting to [hegemonically] hold people to that
norm (May, 1vv. 1!z). Tat is how, for instance, racism operates by the determination
of degrees of deviance in relation to the White-Man face (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc 1).
Te hegemonic medanism of establishing a norm by the modern state therefore operates
through ascribing judgments upon an individuals body. Te judgments are passed upon the
individual regardless of whether an individual exudes, identies, or possesses anity with
the macro-authoritatively assigned representations that led to the individuals appropriation
and insertion into the hierardy.
But the macro-authoritative practices of institutions sud as the modern-state are not
merely conned to disciplining and coercing individuals through ascribed representations.
Te modern state auempts to do what God does with a space as an individuals face. Tat is, carving and
establishing a place on the face for the innite shapes and sizes of the faces traits, and therefore forming a map.
Unlike God who appreciates and thus creates dierences amongst individuals, the objective behind the modern
states construction of a map is the disciplining and coercion of a denitive space. lor example, in the case of an
individuals face, the face acts as space that is to be dened, labeled and categorized to assure the identication
and recognition of an individual by the modern-state.
s
Rather, macro-authoritative practices are complicit in the production of individuals as disci-
plinarians who have internalized the macro-authoritative practices and representations pro-
duced and applied by modern states and institutions to individuals. Te macro-authoritative
practices, as Deleuze and Guauari write, create liule command centres proliferat[ing] ev-
erywhere, making coades, teaders and cops all liule Mussolinis (1vsc zzs). ln Deleuze and
Guauaris vein, macro-authoritative practices possess the capacity to colonize individuals.
Te process of colonization transforms individuals in a capitalist-State society into micro-
fascists in possession of micro-fascisms' during social interactions with other individuals
(Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc zc). lndividuals become micro-fascists who operate according
to the hierardy imposed upon them by the capitalist-State they have internalized. Te hi-
erardy as noted earlier is related to a particular set of privileges every individual enjoys
a relation to. Te consequence of the play of privileges is the transformation of individu-
als into micro-Oedipuses, microformations of power, micro-fascisms (Deleuze & Guauari,
1vsc zc). Here individuals are transformed into micro-Oedipuses, or the modern state and
capitalisms handymen, where in ead individuals interaction with other individuals, the
individual possesses the ability and power to aect others and the power to be aected by
the forces and privileges of others (Deleuze, zcce ec). According to this analysis, the conse-
quence of this play of privileges is micro-authoritarian practices indenitely at work between
individuals and in every social relation.
Contrary to the modern state, capitalism is
not at all territorial its power of deterritorialization [and reterritorialization]
consists in taking as its object not the earth, but materialized labor, the com-
modity (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc ..).
ln applying Deleuze and Guauaris quote above to the example of representations con-
structed by the modern state, capitalisms task in the Oedipal relationship is the consumption
and appropriation of individual representations that the modern state assigns. Upon the ap-
propriation of the representations, capitalism then repeats, multiplies and therefore produces
varying expressions of the representations, with slight adjustments ead time. Capitalism
does this to permit the correspondence of the variant expressions of the representations it
creates to the market. ln this sense, capitalism enables the materialization of the represen-
tations the modern state ascribes to individuals. ln line with this understanding, capitalism
'lvery fascism is dened by a micro-blac hole that stands on its own and communicates with others be-
fore resonating in a [great and then] great [er], [more] generalized central blac hole, macro-fascisms are a
subsequent of the macro-politics of the couple, the neighbourhood, the community, institutions and the modern
state (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc z1.). With the lurocentric State not being the common central point where all
[these] other [macro-fascist] points melt together, but instead acts as a resonance on the horizon, behind all other
points(Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc zz.). Micro-fascisms therein provide the necessary breeding ground, impetus,
and conditions for the germination of thinking whid resonates with, as (re) arms the existence of the State,
a macro-fascism possible (Call, zcc! 1). Currently the modern state no longer merely exists external to us, to
be fought outside us, but engrained internally, entangled, crystallized, within our hearts, as our thoughts, to be
fought within us. With both fascisms (re) arming their resonance with the other, micro to macro, and macro
to micro.
v
permits an individuals desire'' to create new forms of expressions outside what is generi-
cally produced by the capitalist-State and internalized by an individual. Yet whenever there
is some danger that these new forms of expressions may take a life of their own, capital-
ism reterritorializes the representations and therefore the individual (Perez, 1vvc ). ln this
vein, capitalism and its practices are authoritative and coercive as the modern states, yet its
early role from the start (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vz zz) is the forceful enslavement' of
everything in a social eld into the service of the market. Whether this enslavement is
from the standpoint of free workers, the control of manual labor and of
wagesthe ow of industrial and commercial production, the granting of mo-
nopolies, favorable conditions of accumulation, and the struggle against over-
production (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vz z!)
Capitalisms task is thus the material exploitation of a social eld. lt seductively creates
desire for love and friendships merely to transform them into something that can be brought
and sold on the market. lt therefore assigns relationships a price, engraining in individuals the
capacity to calculate and rationalize relationships. Tat is, it breeds in individuals the ability
to themselves materialize their relationships with a friend, a lover, sud that the sole purpose
of an individuals pursuit of friendship with a friend or love for a lover is born out of egoistic
interest. ln this vein, capitalisms function in the Oedipal relationship is the appropriation
of ows'` to push an individual further into connecting and consuming, as when a dilds
mouth could connect with a breast, a nger or noise to eat, suc, or make. Capitalism waits
for the dilds desire to appear and transforms the dilds ow or event into a commoditized
exdange.
ln adopting and maintaining the same anti-evolutionary approadthat underlies Deleuzes,
Guauaris and Days works regarding the conjoined relationship between the modern state
and capitalism, l too believe that the modern state and capitalism are inseparable. Tat is,
they are innitely bound together to form what is referred to as the capitalist-State (Day,
zcc 1.z, emphasis added). Te function of the capitalist-State is the conjoined application
of the described Oedipal relationship' between the modern state and capitalism to individu-
als. Tat is, individuals are made to feel dependent upon the Oedipal relationship, incapable
of either desiring or constructing possibilities of life outside the ascribed parameters of the
''lt is capitalisms ability to seductively free, yet when necessary contain an individuals desire to resist the
ascribed representations that permits capitalism to never be saturated. Here l have in mind desire, as Deleuze,
Guauari, Donzolet and Marx understood it As a natural and sensual object, not bolstered by needs, but sud
that needs are derived from desire (Donzolet, 1v !e).
'ln other words, capitalism constitutes an axiomatic (production for the market), [while] all States and all
social formations tend to become isomorphic [, or of heterogeneous daracters democratic, totalitarian, socialist
] in their capacities of realization of the State form but there is but one centered world market, the capitalist
one, in whid even the so-called socialist countries participate (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc .!e).
'`llows like the ows of milk from a breast to a dilds mouth, of faeces from an anus, or ows of a look from
a face, capitalism operates through the appropriation of ows.
'A relationship that is internalized by individuals not to repress an individuals desire, but rather to construct
desire in sud a way that it believes itself to be repressed (Newman, zcc1 vv).
ec
capitalist-State. According to this analysis, and as a Western Musliminternalizing this repres-
sion, my objective then is to re-dannel my desire as an Oedipalized subject, by inventing' a
new form of political action that counters this repression. ln my case, it is a repression that is
a consequence of my internalization of the didotomous representations of myself as a lun-
damentalist or an Orientalist Muslim that the capitalist-State super-imposes upon me. lt is
also a repression that is a consequence of my internalization of micro-authoritarian and capi-
talist practices. Te form of political action l doose in resistance to the representations is the
construction of Anarca-lslam as a clinic that allows me to become relatively de-Oedipalized
(Day, zcc 1.z1.!, emphasis added). ln other words, the clinic is a place l go to in order to
seek therapy and it allows me to temporarily break free of didotomous representations, and
the micro-authoritarian and capitalist practices l internalize by constructing a new political
identity as a Muslim anardist. Tat is, an identity, that for now is outside the purview of
the representations imposed on me by the capitalist-State. However, and in constructing the
identity, l also realize that no identity can be free of capitalist and authoritarian practices
no mauer how creative the identity constructed may be.
'Deleuze and Guauari refer to this process of critiquing and going beyond the lreudian Oedipal structure,
whid determines the life of the individual by making him or her dependent on the internalized mommy, daddy
and me structure as sdizoanalysis (Perez, 1vvc zz).
e1
Chapter 5
e Birth of the Clinic Seeing and
Knowing the Clinics Commitments
in Resistance to Daddy-Mommy-Me
Its strange that we had to wait for the dreams of colonized peoples to see that,
on the vertices of this pseudo triangle, mommy was dancing with the missionary,
daddy was being fued by the tax collector, while the self was being beaten by
a white manIts precisely this pairing of the paternal gures with another na-
turetheir loing embrace similar to that of wrestlers, that keeps the triangle
from closing up again, from being valid in itself, and from claiming to express
or represent this dierent nature of the agents that are in question in the uncon-
scious itself e Father, mother, and self are at grips with, and directly coupled
to, the elements of the political and historical situation the soldier, the cop,
the occupier, collaborator, the radical, the resister, the boss, the bosss wife who
constantly break all triangulations, and who prevent the entire situation from
falling ba on the familial complex and becoming internalized by it
(Gilles Deleuze, 1vv)
ln this dapter l continue the construction of Anarca-lslam by establishing Anarca-lslams
anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments in resistance to the capitalist-State. By
the end of the dapter, having constructed Anarca-lslam, l will have delineated the two mis-
conceptions, discussed throughout the thesis, of lslam and Muslims amongst anardists. Te
two misconceptions are regarding the impossibility of constructing either an anardic inter-
pretation of lslam or an lslamic interpretation of anardism, as well as the impossibility of
the coexistence of the identities Muslim and anardist in a single subjectivity.
ez
ln the rst section of the dapter, l construct, using Anardic-ljtihad, Anarca-lslams
anti-authoritarian commitments with respect to micro and macro forms of authority. lirst,
l introduce three micro-anti-authoritarian concepts and practices l extract from lslam
Shura (mutual consultation), Ijma (community consensus) and Maslaha (public interest). l
read Shura, ljma and Maslaha as micro-anti-authoritarian concepts and practices that in-
form Anarca-lslams commitment to minimizing micro-authoritarian practices amongst in-
dividuals and communities. Aner reading these concepts and practices through an anti-
authoritarian lens, Shura, Maslaha and ljma are collectively taken to inform Anarca-lslams
anti-micro-authoritarian commitment in resistance to microforms of authority. lrom there,
given that the State is not a point taking all the other [authoritarian practices] upon it-
self, but a resonance damber for them all (Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc zz.), l construct
Anarca-lslams anti-authoritarian commitment at the macro-level. Anarca-lslams anti-
authoritarian commitment at the macro-level involves an anti-institutional and anti-statist
critique. Anarca-lslams anti-institutional commitment is established through a critique of
the Muslim clergy and Sheikhs, who with the coming of [nationalist] independence in-
creasingly proclaim[ed] their auadment to lslam, in a frenzied seard for an ideological
guarantee for their social and material advantages(Rodinson, 1v! zze). Aner constructing
Anarca-lslams anti-institutional commitment, l construct Anarca-lslams anti-statist com-
mitment. ln doing so, l go against the lslamic concept Khilafah, meaning representation,
and whid is used by the clergy and Sheikhs as the context for the establishment of an ls-
lamic state. l reinterpret Khilafah to correspond to identifying human beings in general as
Gods vicegerents [Khalifahs, multiple, in a vehement opposition to the singular, Khalifah,]
on larth[with] human stewardship over Gods creations (lsposito, 1vve ze).
Aner constructing Anarca-lslams anti-statist commitments, l address the authority of
the Prophet Muhammad and God. Regarding the authority of Prophet Muhammad, l ar-
gue, using the Koran, that the Prophet Muhammad is nothing beyond a Rasul, a messenger,
for a religious call, working purely for the sake of the call on behalf of lslam. With respect
to the authority of God, l rst argue that in Anarca-lslam there is no compulsion in reli-
gion (Te Holy Koran, Chapter z, Chapter of Te Cow Verse ze). Tat is, according to
Anarca-lslam and in line with the Koranic verse cited, anardists are not required to accept
Anarca-lslams God, only to recognize the right of a Muslim to believe in God. Second, l
argue, in line with Newman, that God has not been completely usurpedas has always
been claimed [in anardism] only reinvented in the form of essence (zcc1 e). According
to this analysis, anardists ought to acnowledge the dierence between resisting God and
resisting institutionalized religion. When anardists resist God, God is not truly the subject
and object of resistance. Rather anardists are resisting institutionalized religion. Tere is a
dierence between the two and therefore the two must not to be conated. Having addressed
the authority of Prophet Muhammad and God, Anarca-lslams resistance to micro and macro
authoritarian practices will be constructed.
ln the next section, l construct, using Anardic-ljtihad, Anarca-lslams resistance to cap-
italism through concepts and practices extracted from lslam. Tese concepts include Prop-
erty, Communal and Individual Caretakers, Mudarabah/Musharakah, Riba, Zakat, Ramadan
e!
or Sawm, Sadaqat Al-Fitr and Islamic banking. lirst, l oer an anti-capitalist reading of the
concept and practice Property. ln Anarca-lslam, property is interpreted as belonging solely
to God, with human beings as merely Caretakers of Gods property. Property is therefore
publicly shared amongst Caretakers and is not to be privately hoarded as in capitalism. Sec-
ond, l oer an anti-capitalist reading of the concept and practice Caretaker. A Caretaker is a
temporary beneciary and a trustee or borrower of Gods property. A Caretakers role is that
of a borrower and is thus radically dierent from that of an absolute owner under capital-
ism. Tere are two types of Caretakers Communal and Individual. Communal Caretakers
are dened as Caretakers engaged in economic unity and who are in collective partnerships
as a community, dealing in business mauers as a large number of small rms (Awan, 1vs!
!c). However, though Communal Caretakers in lslam are preferred, lndividual Caretakers
are permiued because an individual and their desire(s) must not live in servitude and be
forgouen on account of the community. Tat is, lndividual Caretakers are permiued given
that the construction of healthy communities begins and ends with unique personalities,
that the collective potential is realized only when a singular is free (Guauari, 1vs 1).
However, while lndividual Caretakers are permiued there are three restrictions placed on
lndividual Caretakers to establish equilibrium between the desires and rights of an individ-
ual and those of a community. Te rst restriction is that they are forbidden from caretaking
for natural resources. Tat is, natural resources like water or oil for example belong to the
whole community, and all its members have equal shares and rights of access to these re-
sources. Second, if their caretaking of property is done in an ignoble, indignant, manner,
whid damagesothers then the community intervenes to prevent them from causing fur-
ther damage (Ahmad, 1vv1 !!). Tird, is that if a segment of society is without shelter,
clothing, food, and adequate economic opportunity, then societal needstake priority over
(Ahmad, 1vv1 !!) the lndividual Caretakers rights by virtue of Maslaha. Having oered
an anti-capitalist reading of Caretaker and distinguished between lndividual and Communal
Caretakers, l read Mudarabah/Musharakah as Anarca-lslams third anti-capitalist concept
and practice. Mudarabah/Musharakah in Anarca-lslam is interpreted as a communally es-
tablished anti-monopolistic and anti-oligopolistic external nancial structure, completely de-
void of interest and with the role of encouraging joint ventures amongst existing Caretakers
and new Caretakers.
Having read Mudarabah/Musharakah as an anti-capitalist concept and practice, l read
Riba as Anarca-lslams fourth anti-capitalist concept and practice. Riba, interest, and its
collectionwas and is forbidden because it[serves] as a means of exploiting all those who
undergo dire and bare poverty (lsposito, zccz 1e!). Having read Riba as an anti-capitalist
concept and practice, l read Zakat as Anarca-lslams sixth anti-capitalist concept and prac-
tice. Decreed in the Koran, Zakat is interpreted as an obligatory darity and denotes the
perpetual disassociation of oneself from ones accrued wealth(Cummings, Askari, Mustafa,
1vsc zzs). l then read Ramadan and its associated Sadaqat Al-litr as Anarca-lslams nh
and sixth anti-capitalist concepts and practices. Ramadan is interpreted as an act of wor-
ship [existing to] lead Muslims to perceive, to feel inwardly, the need to eat and drink
and by extension to ensure that every human being has the means to subsist (Ramadan,
e.
zcc. sv). Sadaqat Al-litr is interpreted as another [obligatory] darity, along with Za-
kat, and that is given to those poor and imposed on every Muslim who has the means for
themselves and their dependents (Budak, zcc v!ve). linally, l interpret lslamic Banking
as Anarca-lslams seventh anti-capitalist concept and practice. lslamic Banking in Anarca-
lslam is interpreted as an anti-capitalist concept and practice that oers unrestricted access to
nancial resources in banking systems without reference to the criteria of creditworthiness
(Ahmad, 1vv1 .e). ln concluding the section, l clarify that it is the anti-capitalist concepts
and practices of Property, Communal and lndividual Caretakers, Mudarabah/Musharakah,
Riba, lnheritance, Zakat, Ramadan, Sadaqat Al-litr and lslamic banking that nowcollectively
form Anarca-lslams anti-capitalist position of resistance to capitalism.
ln the nal section, having established Anarca-lslams anti-authoritarian and anti-
capitalist commitments, l make two claims lirst, that l am no longer Oedipalized but be-
coming relatively de-Oedipalized. Second, that Anarca-lslams construction is the symbolic
act of delineating the two misconceptions of lslam and Muslims amongst anardists.
2. Castrating Daddy: Anarca-Islams Anti-Authoritarian Concepts
& Practices
lslam seldom oers concrete guidance, in either the Koran or the Sunnah, regarding macro-
politics. Nevertheless, lslam invests in pragmatic, micro-political concepts and practices.
lslam develops the micro-anti-authoritarian concepts and practices to limit Muslims, indi-
vidually, and as a community, from derision (lsposito, 1vve zs). To dictate Koranically
less to Muslims, lslam breeds an alternative sense of individual and collective responsibility
through these micro-anti-authoritarian practices that are to be applied individually and by
the community. Tat is, in order to catalyze Muslims in an anti-authoritarian direction, lslam
creates the following micro-anti-authoritarian concepts and practices as counter-measures to
micro-authoritarian practices Shura (mutual consultation), Ijma (community consensus) and
Maslaha (public interest) (lsposito, 1vve zs).
Tis section will start with Shura as Anarca-lslams rst micro-anti-authoritarian concept
and practice, signifying consultation, concertation or deliberation (Ramadan, zcc1 s1).
Shura is not just a micro-anti-authoritarian concept and practice, but rather is of critical
importance, as evidenced by its having been named and prescribed as a dapter, number .z,
in the Holy Koran, Surrat Al-Shura, Te Chapter of Te Counsel. Tis is the extent to whid
God emphasized Shuras criticality. ln this dapter, we can read
but what is with God is beuer and more enduring for those who believe and
put their trust in their lord[than] those who avoid the heinous sins and inde-
cencies and when they are angry forgive, and those who answer their lord, and
perform the prayer, their aair being counsel between them, and they expend
of that We have provided them (Te Holy Koran, Chapter .z Te Chapter of
Te Council, Verses !e!s).
e
ln this verse God describes the enduring Muslim believer as a Muslim who conducts his
and her aairs through counsel or mutual consultation. Te Koran therefore envisages the
Ummah as a perfectly egalitarian, open society based on good will and cooperation with
ead Muslim, advised to seek Shura with the other Muslim (lsposito, 1vve zs). ln other
words, through Shura, Muslims, individually and collectively, are encouraged to embody,
ead towards the other, the essence of the practice described in the following words lf you
see me in the right, help me, if you see me in error correct melf any of you sees distortion in
my actions, let him [and her] rectify me (Ramadan, zcc1 s!). To becon for help, to becon
for advice, is lslamically tantamount to humbling oneself in comprehending the rights and
the wrongs of the self and hence caring for that self. Muslims are to perceive these rights
and wrongs by contemplating comprehensively and reecting indenitely, through ijtihad,
on the ethico-political commitments they espouse. lor how else can a Muslim seek coun-
sel without comprehending, to a fair degree, the ethical-political commitments they commit
to or are darged with while acnowledging the sets of privileges enjoyed by ead Muslim
(Ramadan, zcc1 s!)` ln this vein, Shura necessitates a kind of radical personal responsibil-
ity, a jihad, on the part of ead individual Muslim and a responsibility to engage in internal
molecular insurrections' (Guauari and Negri, 1vs 11e). As related in the Sunnah regarding
these insurrections
lmam Jafar al-Sadiq (a) said Te Prophet (s) of God dispatded a contingent of
the army (to the baulefront). Upon their (successful) return, he (s) said Blessed
are those who have performed the minor jihad and have yet to perform the
major jihad. When asked, What is the major jihad` the Prophet (s) replied
Te jihad of the self (struggle against self) (Al-Majlisi, Vol. 1v 1sz, hadith no.
!1)
Tese insurrections therefore create room for the comfort and safety of a Muslim in the
Muslims community. Tey enable a Muslim to humble him and/or her self publicly as an
ethically and politically conscious individual. Tat is, an ethico-political individual, who
thrives in seeking Shura with respect to other Muslims, and an ethico-political individual
who asks and trusts others to rectify his and/or her politically and ethically distorted acts.
Tis ability to ask and trust other Muslims also demands a Muslims consciousness of the
individual ethico-political commitments that he and/or she espouses with respect to their
relationship to others. Accordingly, lslam, having recognized the necessity of Shura sought
to constitute Muslims as ethically-politically conscious individuals, with ead aware of their
occupying and occupied surroundings. ln other words, due to a Muslims power dynamics
in relations to others as a concurrently singular individual as well as being part of a com-
munity, God commands Shura as a form of retaliation to micro-fascisms. lslam recognizes
'lnsurrections, that entails confrontations of knowable privileges vis--vis political-ethical commitments
commiued to by a Muslim.
ee
the necessity for constructing a non-egoistic spirit, to be engrained by Muslims, individu-
ally and collectively, through the practice of Shura. ln this vein, lslam recognizes that social
and political organizing signies rst, work on one self, in as mud as one is a collective
singularity as that singularity, in the end, constitutes, and contributes to the collectivity
(Guauari and Negri, 1vs 11e).
Trough Shura, a Muslim arrives, lslamically, at an understanding of the dynamics of
micro-power, and micro-fascisms that grow as a consequence of pride. Shuras practice on an
individual and a collective level becomes a practice that is warranted to minimize dominating
and oppressive micro-authoritarian power relations occurring at the myopic level. lslam
targets micro-fascisms by recognizing micro-powers passing through the domestic hands of
the mastered no less than through the hands of the masters. We can nd lslams recognition
of micro-fascisms in the Koranic verse below, particularly with the emphasis on micro-power
existing in the word innerselves
Verily God does not dange peoples condition, unless they dange their inner-
selves (Te Holy Koran, Chapter 1! Chapter of Yusuf, Verse 11).
Combating pride is therefore the heart of lslams Shura, as pride is at the heart of micro-
fascisms. As Spinoza writes of pride
A man [and/or woman] is proud if he [and/or she] thinks too liule of other
people [to seek their advice]the proud man [and/or woman] is necessarily
envious [enough of the opinion of others]he [and/or she] hates those above
all others who are the most praised on account of their virtues. lt follows, too,
that his [and/or her] hatred of them is not easily overcome by love or kindness
(1v.v zzvz!c).
But Shura is not solely prescribed for its application to a group of individuals beconing
for ead others call for counsel. Rather Shuras prescription is for its everlasting engagement
with the entire community. Shura exists to guide the communitys decision-making pro-
cess (lsposito, 1vve zs). ln its collective application, Shura proers a commiued sense of
communal cohesiveness. lt breeds and manifests in a community a shared notion of mutual
responsibility. A mutual responsibility, whid too rises in Shuras varied communal form
when exercised during ljma Anarca-lslams second micro-anti-authoritarian concept and
practice.
ljma is the pertinent practice required by a Muslim community in seeking consensus,
through Shura, on mauers pertaining to the community as a whole (AlAwani, 1vv! z.). lor
it is narrated, regarding ljma, that upon the rst confrontation of with the people of Makka
at Badr, [Prophet] Muhammad called his Companions Opeople! Share with me your views
Tere is no shame or pride, lslamically, in seeking the advice of others. Tere is no shame or pride, lslamically,
in being compassionately and forgivingly called out by others. Tere is no shame or pride in erring before others.
Provided, that is, that a Muslim possesses the will to comprehend the err erred, and the undeniable resilience of
heart and mind in correcting the err upon erring.
e
(Ramadan, zcc1 sz). ljma stresses and calls for a well-spirited, extenuated bonding, whid
ought to be embedded within a community, particularly with respect to what is consensually
agreed upon collectively, through Shuras exercise by virtue of Maslaha Anarca-lslams
third micro-anti-authoritarian concept and practice.
Maslaha is the communitys seard for and eort towards the establishment of its po-
litical, as well as social, survivalist necessities or interests. lt is the principle of the public
interest (AlAwani, 1vv! ). Although it is possible that dierences and disagreements
may surface in the absence of ljma or consensus over issues that pertains to the commu-
nitys Maslaha, lslam develops an ethics of disagreement in the event of disagreements as
discussed in dapter one. Under the presumption however that consensus is adieved the
concept and practice of Maslaha ought not be taken with requisite delicacy, in spite of its
ostensible ideality. Tat is, because Maslaha has to provide benet to individuals and the
community as a whole and not only to a class or an individual, Maslaha reemphasises the ls-
lamic importance of seeking an egalitarian community (Ramadan, 1vvv sc). ln this vein, the
micro-anti-authoritarian practice of Maslaha is at the essence of [communal] lslamic com-
mands and principles (Ramadan, 1vvs s1). lt is a command and principle that denotes the
communitys collective seard and struggle for not merely its cohesive existence, but rather
its existence as a healthy egalitarian community. Tat is, a community striving to become
egalitarian having comprehended its necessities and cared for its mutual interests`.
Ultimately, no singular individual or collective is immune to micro or macro fascisms,
irrespective of the quantity or the intensity of Shura, Maslaha and ljma practiced as micro-
anti-authoritarian practices. Nevertheless, these micro-anti-authoritarian practices assist in
warding o micro-fascisms, individually and collectively. ln other words, provided there is
acnowledgment amongst the community of the distinction between an individuals personal
opinions and the opinions of the community. lslamically, an individual reserves the inherent
right not to seek consultation or the conduct of Shura. However, this individuals right not
to seek Shura exists only with respect to what pertains to the individual. ln the end, above a
singular individual, the giving of dues to Maslaha is indenitely nal. Maslaha is always over
and above the individual for that is precisely the reason upon whid Maslaha was lslamically
prescribed to begin with (Al-Awani, 1vv! 1zv).
To end the discussion of the themes of Shura, Maslaha and ljma, l identify Anarca-lslam
through other lslamic interpretations. Tat is, Anarca-lslams micro-authoritarian stance is
not built upon the classical doctrine of Shura, as it developed, [and] was in error[where] it
viewed consultation as the process of one personasking other people for advice (lsposito,
1vve zs). What l advocate for and what Anarca-lslam demands is quite the opposite. Tat is,
that the Koranic understanding of Shura does not mean that one person ask others advice,
Ànd hopefully the communitys interests are not deemed bad interests. Because bad interests can exist
regardless of the type of collectivity given that there is rural [micro] fascism and city or neighborhood fascism,
fascism of the len and fascism of the Right, fascism of the couple, family, sdool and oce (Call, zcc! z).
Without a similar courtesy however bestowed, or extended, during a mauers pertinence to what there is
collective contention over. Due, in other words, to the mauers pertinence as a necessity with respect to the
communitys existence as a cohesive, healthy, egalitarian community.
es
but rather refers to a process of mutual advice through mutual consultation (lsposito, 1vve
zs). Mutual consultation, Shura, in so far as Anarca-lslamis concerned, must be accompanied
by Shuras multiple form, ljma, whid complements the lively simultaneous practice of the
individualized Shura on the personal stratum with a preservation of Maslaha. Ultimately, as
the Prophet Muhammad proclaimed in Khutubatul Wadaa, the last sermon given prior to
his death, regarding the necessity of lslamic egalitarianism
All humankind is from Adam and lve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-
Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab, also a white has no
superiority over blac nor a blac has any superiority over white except by piety
and good action Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim, whid belongs to a
fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do
injustice to yourselves.
Te former overarding anardic reading of the concepts and practices of Shura, ljma and
Maslaha are collectively Anarca-lslams micro-anti-authoritarian principles, unveiled using
Anardic-ljtihad. Over these principles there can be no compromise.
Before moving on to a discussion of Anarca-lslams macro-anti-authoritarian principles,
it is critical to clarify a few mauers. As stated earlier, generally, lslam oers liule in concrete
guidance in the Koran or the Sunnah on macro-politics. With respect to the arena of macro-
politics, Koranic access is only oered to abstract principles (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). However,
in general, any hierardal, dictatorial systemhas been condemned as non-lslamic (lsposito,
1vve z). Te premise for the condemnation is the notion of God as the sole sovereign and
protector of rights for all beings in the lslamic concept Tawheed. Tawheed is the paramount
duty of [a Muslim to solely] arm the oneness [, and thereby, the Absolute Authority,] of
God and none other but God, human or otherwise (Alawani, 1vv! z). With Tawheed
armed, God aords Muslims the right to embrace any macro-political structure Muslims
deem t. Tat is, the right to orient macro-politically is entrusted to a Muslim community.
Tis is contingent upon the guarantee that the macro-political structure dosen by a Muslim
community does not contradict the concept of Tawheed and the practices Shura, ljma and
Maslaha (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). God intends this right as a merciful act for Muslims so
that they can adapt to diering geographical, spatial, temporal and historical circumstances
(Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). Given these requirements, the macro-political orientation adopted by
Muslims could thus be anardistic in its approad and viewpoints.
Tis potential to render lslamic practice compatible with anardismhas nevertheless been
subverted by Monardies of Meccan Kingdoms with Sheikhs and Muslim clergy ushered in
by luropean colonialism. Historically, this occurred during luropes imperialist fragmenta-
tion of lslam in the 1vth century, and resulted in the abandonment of its former native princi-
ples for luropeanized institutions via a gradual transition towards nationalism (Abdul-Rauf,
Translation of the Prophets last sermon is from the website, Islam-city, with the link below. Retrieval date
October 1!th, zccs. Retrieval from http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/lastserm.HTM
As for labels like sultan/king (Malik), there are absolutely no grounds in the Koran for what really is just
arbitrary personal dictatorship and domination (lsposito, 1vve z).
ev
1vs 1!). Muslim clergy and Sheikhs thus came into being and non-lslamic dynastic no-
tions were introduced into lslam (Abdul-Rauf, 1vs 1!). Currently, dynasties of successive
heirs have come to inherit concentrated power and corruptive inuences [preserved amidst
their] families and entourages for generations to come (Abdul-Rauf, 1vs 1!). While
the Sheikhs concentrated their power, a new generation of self-righteous Muslim clergy also
arrived to institutionalize lslam as in the example of Al-Azhar lslamic University in Cairo,
lgypt. Tis new generation of Muslim clergy arriving with the Sheikhs is very similar to the
earlier generation of Muslim clergy who shut the door of ijtihad during the Abbasids. As
Max Rodinson argues, this new generation of Muslim clergy
with the coming of [nationalist] independencegradually[rose] on the social
scale[alongside] the (more or less exploiting) upper strata [who] increasingly
proclaim[ed] their auadment to lslam, in a frenzied seard for an ideological
guarantee for their social and material advantages(Rodinson, 1v! zze).
ln institutionalizing lslamic knowledge the Muslim clergy simultaneously opted for lu-
ropeanized institutions, dismissing the imperative of Shura, Maslaha or ljma as public and
open practices. ln dismissing the rightful public practice of Shura, ljma, and Maslaha, the
Muslim clergy violated a right decreed by God for Muslims to partake in the interrogation
of knowledge (lsposito, 1vve ze). Tis is particularly important considering that seeking
knowledge is a vital task of Muslims. As Anas lbn Maalik reports, the Prophet Muhammad
said
Seeking knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim, he [and/or she] who oers
knowledge to those who do not appreciate it, is like the one who decorates pigs
with precious stones, pearls and gold
Te right violated by the clergy is one whid no authority, no leader, no government, no
assembly can restrict, abrogate or violate in any way (Arkoun, 1vv. 1ce). Te clergys cor-
ruption, as well as the fact that they sought the accumulation of power in the consolidation of
lslam when Muslims did not elect the clergy as a representative voice for lslam, violates key
lslamic principles. As a result of the overarding corruption of the Muslim clergy, their disre-
gard for what are divine rights, and the clergys seulement for the adoption of luropeanized
lt seems, as sud, the meek come forth to inherit the larth and lslam. Considering as Rodinson argues the
more successful the clergy[became] in raising their standard of living, or even merely in becoming integrated
in the nation [in the anermath of colonialism and imperialism], the less lslam serve[d] as slogan[s] for the
disinherited (Rodinson, 1v! zze).
Te quote is part of the Sunnah. lt is retrieved from the link below. Retrieval date October 1!th, zccs.
Retrieved from (http://www.geocities.com/islamicwayz/20_of__40_hadith_on_the_superior.htm)
As John lsposito argues, the theory that the inuential persons could represent the general public was
[and still is] operative in [lslam] but in view of danged circumstances and in consideration of the principles
of consultation it is essential that this theory should give place to the formation of an assembly [a] real
[representation] of the people (1vve z).
c
institutions, Anarca-lslam is principled upon an anti-institutional commitment. Over this
commitment there is no compromise.
But the Muslim clergy did not only institutionalize lslam and advocate for the adoption
of luropeanized institutions as a medanism of controlling public knowledge, they also legit-
imized the authority of Sheikhs using the lslamic concept Khilafah (Badiou, zcc! 1.v). Tat
is, Khilafah became the context the clergy manipulated to correspond to the dire necessity
for kinship as a type of ruler-ship. lurthermore, Khilifah became the justication used by the
Sheikhs and the clergy for the adoption of the lurocentric' notion of upholding an lslamic
state. Khilifah according to the Arabic lexicon means representationin addition to the
connotations of a deputy [or] representative (lsposito, 1vve ze). Classically, the doosing
of sud deputies occurred by means of elections, a representative system or any other orig-
inal ideas (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). Te criteria for doosing a representative included all the
conditions that allow Muslims the opportunity to doose with full knowledge of the facts re-
garding representatives (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). Te second criterion holds that any pressure
or auempt at coercion, to inuence public opinion is unacceptable (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s).
Te classical criteria therefore operate upon three presumptions. lirst, that Muslims partici-
pate in the decision-making processes of doosing. Second, doosing without being coerced
by any means, measure or standard. last, Muslims must possess all the facts with respect
to the eld of candidates or representatives from whid they are to select. Nevertheless in
light of ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, corruption, and misery, social phenomena rather ram-
pant and predominant within societies, sud criteria cannot be fullled lslamically due to the
failure to meet every condition (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). Tis un-fullment of every condition
obstructs the participation of grass-root Muslims in the process of doosing a representative
according to the classical principles and criteria (Ramadan, zcc1 1.s). Tis move of the
Muslim clergy, adhering to the classical lexicon of Khilafah, clearly does not hold. lurther-
more, it undermines and clashes with the Koranically commanded micro-anti-authoritarian
practices ljma, Maslaha, and Shura.
Given the absence of fullment of the conditions required for the Khilifah, as the non-
binding nature of the idea itself, there can be no doubt that a truly radical interpretation
ought be posited in its stead (lsposito, 1vve ze). Anarca-lslams anti-statist commitment
emerges therefore by marking a radically dierent ethical-political territory'' in reference to
Khilafah. ln resisting the classical view of Khilafah, l contend that Muslims en masse are
bearers of Gods trust. Muslims are collectively caretakers of one another and their aairs.
As it is assuredly
'Tere exist a number of signicant problems with lurocentric-style democracy as every Muslim [is
required, ead according to their abilities,] to give a sound opinion on mauers entitled to interpret the law
of God (lsposito 1vve z). Tis becomes a basis for distinguishing between democracy in Western traditions
and lslam (lsposito, 1vve zze). Tis is because the vision, of bearing the communal right to self-govern,
do[es] not t into the limits of lurocentric based denition[s] [because of its andorage in] consultation
(Shurah), consensus (ljma) and independent interpretative judgments (ijtihad) (lspoito, 1vve zze)
''A territory that is bound by an anardistic alternative and Anarca-lslams never-ending aspiration for micro
as macro anti-authoritarian commitments throughout and in spite of authoritys stratas myopic, and macro
institutional and state-like existence.
1
possible to interpretthe Koran as identifying human beings in general as
Gods vicegerents [Khalifahs, multiple, in opposition to the singular, Khalifah,]
on larth[with] human stewardship over Gods creations (lsposito, 1vve ze).
ln order to interpret Khilafah as multiple, it therefore follows that upon a Muslims sub-
scription to the principle of TawheedMuslims are then collectively and as a group ready
to full their responsibilities of representation towards one another (lsposito, 1vve ze). Ac-
cording to this analysis, ead Muslim is then worthy of the responsibility of the Khilafah
[and] ead one shares the divine Khilafah (lsposito, 1vve ze). Tat is, in this divine Khi-
lafah, every Muslim in an Ummah, a Muslim community, enjoys the rights and powers of
the Khilafah and in that respect all individuals are equal (lsposito, 1vve ze). Tis analysis
that Khilafah ought to be interpreted as multiple is also conrmed in lslams Universal Dec-
laration of Human Rights (1vve) that emphasizes, that the ultimate objective of the Ummah,
Muslim community, is to read the level of self-governance (lsposito, 1vve ze).
To conclude and concretely establish Anarca-lslams anti-statist commitment, it is in
reinterpretation of Khilafah from singular to multiple that there is a foundation for con-
cepts of human responsibilityof opposition to systems of domination (lsposito, 1vve ze).
Anarca-lslams anti-statist commitment is therefore informed by two positions lirst, an ap-
preciation for human responsibility, where individuals are responsible for themselves and for
ead other, second, an opposition to systems of domination, given they contradict Tawheed,
Tis anti-statist commitment is the only way for consultation (Shurah), consensus (ljma)
and independent interpretative judgments (ijtihad) (lsposito, 1vve ze) to be preserved and
not contradict Koranically decreed Muslim concepts and practices. Tat is, it is only with
Anarca-lslams anti-statist commitment that there may truly be a transfer of power of ijti-
had fromindividual representatives of sdools to Muslimlegislative assemblies whidin view
of the growth of opposing sects is the only form of ljma possible (lsposito, 1vve z). Tis
type of ljma would allow for contributions to and discussions from lay Muslims who desire
and have a right to publicly participate in political decision-making processes (lsposito, 1vve
z). Tis is how an anti-statist Anarca-lslam, an egalitarian lslam becomes possible.
Te two remaining gures of authority upon the failure of the classical Khilafah and
due to the lac of any further [political] generalities or specicities are the Prophet
Muhammad and God (lsposito, 1vve z). With regards to the former, Muslims ought to
appreciate everything that the Prophet Muhammad taught. However, a prophet merely sig-
nies prophecy, nothing beyond. Accordingly, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
is not a Sheikh or God. Te Prophet Muhammads function is nothing beyond that of a Rasul,
a messenger, for a conveyer of a religious call, purely for the sake of the call, on behalf of
lslam. Unblemished by the desire to rule', Prophet Muhammad was not called forth to rule.
'lor further emphasis, see reference to Ali Abdel Razeq (1vz), Al-lslam wa Ushul al-Hukm lslam
and the Principles of Governance, in Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, Muhammad: Prophet and Politician (May v, zcc.).
Retrieval Date December sth, zccs.
Retrieved from
(hp://74.125.95.132/sear?q=cae:3yd4xlk72wYJ:islamlib.com/en/article/muhammad-prophet-and-politician/
z
Sucient evidence justifying this stance has been provided in three Koranic verses. Te rst
Koranic verse is Say (O Muhammad) that l am a man like you (Te Holy Koran, Chapter
1s, Chapter of Te Cave Verse 11c). Te second Koranic verse is Say l [Muhammad]
am nothing but a man and a messenger Chapter .1, Chapter of lxplained in Detail Verse
e). ln this vein, a third Koranic verse was revealed to address directly the scope of Prophet
Muhammads authority. Te third verse is
lor those who take as Awliy [guardians, supporters, helpers, protectors, etc.]
others besides Him [i.e. whom take other deities, other than Allah as protectors,
and worship them, even then] Allah is Hafz [Protector] over them [i.e. takes
care of their deeds and will recompense them], and you [O Muhammad] are
not a Wakl [guardian or a disposer of their aairs or have say] over them (Te
Holy Koran, Chapter .z, Chapter of Te Council Verse e).
Tis verse rearms that God is an Absolute Authority with respect to Muslims and Non-
Muslims, and that the Prophet Muhammad himself is forbidden from becoming a Wakil,
a guardian, or a disposer of aairs or having a say over Non-Muslims. According to this
analysis, the Prophet Muhammads authority ought to be put to rest.
As for the authority of God, it is pivotal to rst understand that in Anarca-lslam la
ikrah lid-din (Te Holy Koran, Chapter z, Chapter of Te Cow Verse ze). Tat is, there
is no compulsion in religion. ln this vein, Anarca-lslam is not concerned with taking over,
conquering or converting anardists or anyone to either lslam or Anarca-lslam. Rather,
Anarca-lslam is determined through exdange and the oering of an extended arm to indi-
viduals and communities who espouse ethico-political commitments that resonate with those
of Anarca-lslams. ln other words, Anarca-lslam could care less should anardists or anyone
doose to believe in God, the Prophet Muhammad or lslam. lor it has been foretold, in the
Sunnah that
lt is narrated through Tauban, that the Prophet peace be upon him said
[Upon the approading of the day of judgement,] you [Muslims] shall be in
great numbers, but you will be as powerless as the foam of the waves of the
sea due to feebleness in hima, political-ethical vigor of spirit (Prophet Hadeeth,
Sunan Abu Dawud, Book !, Number .zv).
Anarca-lslam is not interested in giving rise to mass-produced'` anardist converts, nor
does it require that anyone else become conquered colonial Muslims.
Second, as Newman argues, anardism has
+ali+abdel+%22islam+and+principles+of+governance%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca),
lurthermore see, Yunan labib Rizk, Cabinet Toppled by a Book, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, zz (lebruary
zzzs, zcc1). Retrieval Date January znd, zccv.
Retrieved from (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/522/chrncls.htm)
'`lor as it is, numerically Muslims resemble grains of salt within a sea but are as the foam of the waves as
narrated above in the Sunnah.
!
not ousted God [as anti-religious anardists would have hoped because] the
place of authority of the category of the divine remains intact, only re-inscribed
in the demand for presenceAtheismdanges nothing in this fundamental struc-
ture (Newman, zcc1 e).
ln this vein, anti-religious anardists ought to concede that within a scenario where anti-
religious anardists proclaim and dant God is dead, as other religious anardists argue' for
the possibility and the usefulness of divine presence within their lives, both remain trapped
in the unveriable empirical existence of either Gods life or death. All that could result then
from the inexhaustible deliberation or the cruel argumentation over this moot point
is a massive loathsome expansion of dogmatic, essentialist, and auened-out perceptions of
the world. Tese conceptions merely enhance micro-fascist tendencies internalised amongst
religious and anti-religious anardists, while both are aligned to derish anardic sensibilities
and mutually resist common enemies. According to this analysis', as far as Anarca-lslam
perceives it, and is commiued, every politically and ethically commiued individual is a right-
ful bearer of the trust' in themselves and the community. ln this vein, the issue of Gods
authority ought to be put to rest.
Having put to rest the question of the authority of the Prophet Muhammad and God,
l hope to have made clear that my focus is on the micro-anti-authoritarian concepts and
practices, and the anti-institutional and anti-statist commitments, that collectively inform
Anarca-lslams anti-authoritarianism. l will now return to the level of the conceptual and
practical inscriptions of lslam, where we may discover, using Anardic-ljtihad, an ensem-
ble of fundamentally anti-capitalist concepts and practices, whid complement its anti-
authoritarian leanings.
'As Newman argues, God has not been completely usurpedas has always been claimed [in anardistic
discourses] only reinvented in the form of essence (Newman, zcc1 e). ln other words as long as [anardism
and anardists] continue to believe absolutely in grammar, in essence, in the metaphysical presuppositions of
languagethey will continue to believe in God (Newman, zcc1 e).
'However, if in the end still despite the aforementioned anti-religious anardists perceive that with the
metaphysical slaughtering of God there lies an anti-authoritarian solution to every type of authority, an expense
comes with the adoption of this conduct or solution. lor with the presumed metaphysical Death of God there
arrive innite demagogues, mini-gods, vying and squabbling over the displaced dead Gods space and power. A
space now abandoned, open, to receive the highest bidder. lt would be deceiving to think otherwise. ln other
words, to presume upon Gods metaphysical death, Gods space and power will remain void and unoccupied is
absurd, given that Gods space does not disappear with the Death of God. Rather, Gods space and power, upon
Gods death merely becomes a bauleground, bauled for by us as individuals no longer human, but demagogues
instead.
'Tis is the case, whether the trust comes from atheists or religious anardists. Te adoption of any other
alternative interpretation would merely imply the unleashing of an apocalypse upon the constitution of political-
ethical individuals, and communities, with demagogues cropping up in the absence of a collective commitment
to becoming anti-authoritarian, ead to the other. At least within the framework of the absolute sovereignty of
God, human hierardy in theory is impossible, as before God every human being becomes equal (lsposito, 1vve
z, Newman, zcc1 e).
.
3. Shit-Talkin Mommy: Anarca-Islams Anti-Capitalist Concepts
& Practices
Te rst anti-capitalist concept and practice l want to discuss is Property'. ln lslam, property
belongs to God. Human beings are merely Caretakers of Gods property. lor it is stated in
the Koran
O believers, expend of the good things you have earned, and of what We have
produced for you from the earth, and intend not the corruption of it for your
expending, for you would never take it yourselvesTose who expendnight
and day, secretly and in public, their wage awaits them with their lord, and no
fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow (Te Holy Koran Chapter z,
Chapter of Te Cow Verse zev).
lt is in the divinely stated words We have produced for youfor you would never take
it yourselves that we can see that property is produced and owned by God (Hasan & Siddiqi,
1vs. v1). Gods maxim and intent is for property to be shared and distributed in equity by
Caretakers whomGod had entrusted with Gods property (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc
!). God ordains property as divinely possessed, to circumscribe the hoarding of property
by Caretakers. No Caretaker may deprive another Caretaker from property, even if by force.
Tis is because the right of access to property is a divinely decreed right by God, and is
amongst a set of other divinely ordained rights referred to as Al-Dururiyat Al-Khamas, or
the fundamental qualities of life (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc !). Al-Dururiyat Al-
Khamas are ve divinely protected and sanctioned rights, two of whid are property and life
(Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc !). Te role of a human being, as noted, is the temporary
caretaking for or borrowing of Gods property. As lsposito argues, everything ultimately
belong to Godhuman beings are simply Caretakers, or vicegerents, for Gods property on
larth (lsposito, zcc1 1e). Upon death and resurrection, a Caretaker is accountable to God.
Tat is, on the Day of Judgement, God is the Witness and Absolute Judge of the Caretakers
role in the Caretakers partnership with God. God judges whether the Caretaker betrayed
and corrupted the entrusted property or not. Property is thus publicly entrusted, owned' by
'lt is the role of property to drag. lor it is reported in the Sunnah, through Abu Huraryrah that the Prophet
[peace be upon him] said Te poor will enter paradise ve hundred years ahead of the rid(Hasan & Siddiqi,
1vs. v1). Tat is, while the lauer remain behind accounting for accrued and hoarded wealth, how they received
it and how they expended it, the former will not be answerable for any sud thing, in this sense, property drags.
'Tere are four other Koranic verses that conrm this aspect of God as Absolute owner of property. Te
emphasis in ead of the four verses below is on the constantly returned keyword We. Te Koran conrms
And the earth We have spread out (like a carpet), set thereon mountains rm and immovable, and produced
therein all things in due balance. And We have provided therein means as subsistence, for you and for those
whose subsistence ye are not responsible. And there is not a thing but its (sources and) treasures (inexhaustible)
are with Us, but We only send down thereof in due and ascertainable measures. And We send the fecundating
winds, then cause the rain to descend from the sky, therewith providing you with water (in abundance), through
ye are not the guardian of its stores, so intend not corruption of the earth and Do not kill a soul whid Allah
God, and to be collectively and equitably shared by Caretakers' and not privately hoarded.
Read in this manner, property is an anti-capitalist concept and practice.
With property absolutely possessed by God, as noted, a unique economic relationship
emerges God-Caretaker. A Caretaker is a temporary beneciary, a trustee or borrower
of Gods property, nothing more. A Caretaker is not an absolute owner as under capitalism.
A Caretaker cannot become a capitalist, if the Caretaker is to full the concept and practice
of caretaking (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc !e). Rather, a Caretaker has two types of
available economic relationships with God and with other Caretakers in Gods community.
Te Caretaker can either become an Individual and/or a Communal Caretaker.
Communal Caretakers are Caretakers who are engaged in economic unity and collective
partnerships. Tey deal in business mauers as a large number of small rms through bor-
rowed property from God (Awan, 1vs! !c). Communal Caretakers, are expected to conduct
their aairs by mutual consultation by virtue of Shura and ljma (Awan, 1vs! !c). According
to this analysis, small rms co-borrowed by Communal Caretakers from God and with ljma
from the community dier from worker-owner relationships under capitalism. lurthermore,
this economic structure distances a Muslim communitys economy from being economically
centralized and controlled by monopolies and oligopolies as under capitalism. lnstead, a
Muslim communitys economic system is decentralized. Tat is, it is a system structurally
comprised of a multiplicity of decentralized small rms co-borrowed from God, with ead
small rm constituted by a group of Communal Caretakers in collective partnership. Com-
munal Caretakers doose whid small rm they partake in. Te collective partnership in ead
small rmis continually transforming through the entry and exists of other Communal Care-
takers in a community into the small rm (Awan, 1vs! !1). Tat is, the small rms are open
to everyone in the community to participate in, provided they adhere to certain particular
ethico-political principles over whid there exist ljma. ln this vein, Communal Caretakers
are capable of entry and exit into or out of a small rm without having to deal with capitalist
suppliers, [and] planning authorities (Awan, 1vs! !z). ln this interpretation of lslam, the
ethico-political principles involve upholding anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commit-
ments. According to this analysis, comfort, safety and a collective sense of shared ethical-
political commitment amongst Communal Caretakers are bred as a result of this relationship
between Communal Caretakers and property (Wilson, 1vv 1!.). Tis entry and exist of a
new Communal Caretaker into an established small rm also minimizes the possibility of the
concretization of the partnership of the small rm amongst existing Communal Caretakers.
Communal Caretakers from this lslamic perspective are therefore expected to be Caretakers
who are conducting their aairs collectively in Shirakah, partnership, with God and with
ead other (Awan, 1vs! !z). lt is under Shirakah and this decentralized lslamic economic
structure that Communal Caretakers in lslam can truly become worthy human beings capa-
has made sacred(Te Holy Koran, Chapter 1, Chapter of Te Roc Verses 1vzz, and Chapter e, Chapter of
Te Caule Verse 11).
'ln vein of this relationship, God-Caretaker, human beings, individually and collectively, are nothing but
Caretakers, legatees, and Khalifahs of Gods property, with none permiued claim or the corruption of property
borrowed from God.
e
ble of deciding freely [, Ikhtiyar,][to participate or not] without outside inuence in a
small rm of their doosing (Awan, 1vs! !z). With all Communal Caretakers equal before
God, ead Communal Caretakers voice contributes to the decision-making processes of the
small rm and ead Communal Caretakers voice is respected (Cummings, Askar, Mustafa,
1vsc ..). Communal Caretakers in lslam are thus aorded a dignity in keeping with
[their] status as vicegerent[s] of God on earth[whose] return[s] can take the form ofa
share in the useful prot of enterprise (Ahmad, 1vv1 !).
Although Communal Caretakers are preferred in lslam, lndividual Caretakers are per-
miued. Tat is, lslam oers room and appreciation for the arrival and survival of the unique
and the singular, the stem of every collective root, that is, the Caretaker as an individual
(lsposito, 1vsc .z). Te logic behind the lslamic right to become an lndividual Caretaker
is that an individual must not be compelled to live in servitude and forgouen in an act of
forceful enslavement on account of the whim of a community. As Guauari and Negri argue
the most important lesson is that the construction of healthy communities be-
gins and ends with unique personalities, that the collective potential is realized
only when a singular is free (1vs 1).
ln lslam, it is therefore unnecessary to privilege the right of the community over the
individual, or the right of the individual over the community, as both are interdependent. ln
lslam, the death of the individual and the death of the communal denote extremes. lslam
therefore advocates for moderation, preserving an individuals right to introduce new desires
into the individuals corresponding social eld, while maintaining its position with respect
to the importance of a communitys Maslaha. lt is not necessary that a community explore
the same zone of desire that an individual might. And it is equally not necessary that an
individuals desire be driven by an individualistic ego or result in the exploitation of his and/
or her community. Rather, an individuals desire may be guided by an individuals seard
for a communitys Maslaha. Nepotism then is as lethal to a communitys healthy existence
as individualism is under capitalism, since nepotism usurps and strips individual autonomy.
lslam rejects the extremes of both capitalism and communism. lor as Guauari and Negri
argue
Capitalism and Socialism have only succeeded in[subjugating] work to a so-
cial medanism whid is logo-centric or paranoid, authoritarian[resulting in
that whid is] destructive (1vs 1.).
According to this analysis, lndividual Caretakers may exist as a small rm. Te lndi-
vidual Caretakers small rm, as with Communal Caretakers, remain unconditionally and
conditionally open for other Caretakers in the community to partake in. Terefore, while
Tat is, catering to a communitys needs. Otherwise, what remains with an individuals repression is not
only the death of an individual but the eventual death of the community due the communitys constitution by
what is now a repressed individual (Abdul-Rauf, 1vs 1s1v).
lndividual Caretakers are permiued the right to exist, lndividual Caretakers are restricted
by three impediments that lndividual Caretakers are not to exceed. Tese impediments ex-
ist because it is expected that dierences in Mal, money, between Caretakers will naturally
arise. Te dierence in Mal is a consequence of dierences in productivity and work ethics
between Caretakers. Tat is, some Caretakers may enjoy working a lot while others may
prefer to work less. Tere is no reason in the end that the two should earn the same Mal.
Nevertheless, the dierence in Mal, danges nothing with respect to the preservation of the
lauers right to a decent quality of life in light of Al-Dururiyat Al-Khamas.
Te rst impediment an lndividual Caretaker is restricted from proclaiming base or nat-
ural' resources (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc .1, Ahmad, 1vv1 !!). Te lndividual
Caretakers community because of the virtue of the communitys Maslaha enforces this for-
biddance. Terefore, an lndividual Caretaker is only permiued to borrow specic types of
property. As Cummings, Askari and Musafa argue, an lndividual Caretaker is forbidden
from
Natural resources in the universe, sud as land, capital, general circumstances
sud as shortages for reasons of war or disasters as well as laws of nature, all
these belong to the whole of society, and all its members have equal shares and
rights of access to them (Cummings, Askari, Musafa 1vsc !1).
Te second impediment is that if an lndividual Caretakers use of property is accom-
plished in an ignoble, indignant, manner, whid damagesothers then the community is
to intervene and stop an lndividual Caretaker from inicting further harm or damage (Ah-
mad, 1vv1 !!). ln the end, as the third impediment, if a segment of society is without [the
qualities of life whid include] shelter, clothing, food, and adequate economic opportunity,
then societal needstake priority over this myopic lndividual Caretakers rights (Ahmad,
1vv1 !!). Tat is, the community is required to intervene in the lndividual Caretakers eco-
nomic aairs by virtue of Maslaha. Read in this way, the concept of Caretaker, Communal
and/or lndividual, is anti-capitalist in principle and practice.
Te third anti-capitalist concept and practice reread for Anarca-lslam is Mudarabah/
Musharakah. Mudarabah/Musharakah is a communally established anti-monopolistic and
anti-oligopolistic external nancial structure. lt is completely devoid of interest, with the
role of encouraging joint ventures amongst existing Caretakers and new Caretakers. ln this
sense, Mudarabah/Musharakah delimits auempts by identical Caretakers to take control of
small rms for themselves. Mudarabah/Musharakahs obstruction of the existence of mo-
nopolies or oligopolies therefore tends towards extending existing Caretaker relationships.
Tat is, it creates room for new Caretakers and new small rms as independent oshoots of
presently pre-existing Caretaker partnerships and small rms (Choudhury, 1vv 11c). Tere
'lor further emphasis see Abdul-Hamid Ahmad Abu-Sulayman, Te Teory of lconomics of lslam, in
Contemporary Aspects of Economic inking in Islam, proceedings of the Tird last Coast regional Conference
of the Muslims Students Association of the USA and Canada, American Trust Publications (April 1ves) (emphasis
added).
s
are three beneciary eects of Mudarabah/Musharakah. Te rst is the creation of other di-
versied autonomous small rms for new Caretakers. Tis move assists in creating room for
new Caretakers and facilitates less animosity amongst new and existing Caretakers that may
arise due to jealousy between both. ln this vein, Mudarabah/Musharakah promotes sharing
between both new and existing Caretakers, as well as Ehsan, kindness or generosity by ad-
equately and fairly allocating resources between Caretakers of a community (Choudhury,
1vv 11c). Te second beneciary eect of Mudarabah/Musharakah is the minimisation of
stocpiling or otherwise what is referred in lslam to as Israf (Choudhury, 1vv 11c). Tat
is, since Mudarabah/Musharakahs objective is adequate resource allocation, Mudarabah/
Musharakah minimizes waste in production, consumption and commodity exdange val-
ues. Mudarabah/Musharakah minimizes the gap of stocpiling and prevents unnecessary de-
pletion or destruction in production and consumption once a threshold is readed (Deleuze &
Guauari, 1vsc ..c). Te third and nal beneciary eect of Mudarabah/Musharakah is that
Huquq al-Ibadah, the dutiful responsibility to new Caretakers, and Huquq al-Allah, duties
to God, are expressly rearmed through a fullment of Gods intent for the preservation of
Huquq al-lbadah, or the duties of Caretakers towards one another (Choudhury, 1vv 11c).
Mudarabah/Musharakah is an anti-capitalist concept and practice.
Te third anti-capitalist concept and practice is Riba. Riba, interest, is forbidden at least
thrice throughout the Koran. We may read
Tose who benet from interest shall be raised like those who have been driven
to madness by the toud of the Devil, this is because they say Trade is like
interest while God has permiued trade and forbidden interest (Te Holy Koran,
Chapter z, Chapter of Te Cow Verses z).
Riba, and its collectionwas and is forbidden because it served as a means of exploiting
those who undergo dire and bare poverty (lsposito, zccz 1e!). Aner all, Riba advances the
life of the wealthy while it exhausts and harshly abuses the life of others in dire poverty on
account of their weak economic position or strata. Riba is therefore repugnant of the spirit
of lslam, and contradicts the philosophies of al-adl wal-ihasan, justice and benevolence
(Ahmad, 1vv1 !e). Riba is also an anti-capitalist concept and practice.
Mudarabah/Musharakah seeks to minimise the production of what a community is not need of by trans-
forming the threshold of production or consumption into the exdange limit, in whid exdange is of interest to
a consumer and a producer. As Deleuze and Guauari note Te exdange limit, is one of temporal succession[s]
because [it] preserves itself [from lsraf] by switding territories [of that whid is produced and consumed by
way of a joint consensual collaborative operation between both parties, [consumer and producer,] at the conclu-
sion of ead period (itinerancy, itineration)[and it is] this iteration [that] will govern the apparent exdange
(Deleuze, & Guauari, 1vsc ..c). Capitalism, the other way around thrives on stocpiling, as its cardinal law and
concern is that of the simultaneous exploitation of dierent territories, or, when the exploitation is successive,
the succession of operation periods bares [exploitation] on one and the same territory till the force of serial it-
eration is superseded byglobal comparison, that is, capitalism functions by over-producing, under-producing,
intentionally, serially, locally or globally, the consequence of whid are exploitative assemblages, markets, in the
absence of consensual collaborations between consumers and producers (Deleuze, & Guauari, 1vsc ..c).
v
Te fourth anti-capitalist concept and practice reread for Anarca-lslam is Zakat, progres-
sive alms tax. Zakat is a Haqq, a right`, for the poor over the rid. Te Koran is clear that
Zakat is ordained and to be interpreted as sud
Te oerings are for the poor and needy, those who work to collect them, those
whose hearts are brought together the ransoming of slaves, debtors, in Gods
way, and the traveller, so God ordains (Te Holy Koran, Chapter v, Chapter of
Repentance and Dispensation Verse ec).
Zakat progressively keeps social equity integrated in the wider social eld. Zakat de-
segregates class dierences, whid are due to dierences in Mal between Caretakers. As
the third pillar in lslam, and there are ve, Zakat is not merely a concept and practice but
is divinely decreed for any Muslim to auain salvation (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc
zez). Zakat is an act of expiation for the sins of a Muslim, aimed at engraining in the
Zakat giver the desire to give further. ln this vein, Zakat is the temporary minimization of
micro-fascisms, whid are a consequence of class privilege, through the perpetual disasso-
ciation of oneself from ones accrued wealth(Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc zzs). An
interesting element with respect to Zakat is that a payer of Zakat is forbidden from consti-
tuting a self-righteous ego because that negates the act of Zakats payment. Tat is, if Zakat
`lt is worthwhile noting as well the existence of other varying forms of Zakat and that are considered too to
be rights. lor example, Infaq and Itam. lnfaq of Sadaqah, denotes the act of the voluntary spending of darity
and though unlike Zakat in that it is un-obligated, it is still as Zakat in that it is directed to the welfare of those
in more need, is always insolent and deerfully encouraged as a practice amongst the community. Of course
there remains then ltam. ltam is the act of leaping beyond worldly glory, to hosting and being able to do so
without cost, calculation or rationalisation, and therefore co-existing and voluntarily feeding guests, foreigners,
brothers and sisters in need of sustenance, un-obligated, it stills brings strange freedom into the Mutimars or
hosts world by basking in the company of those poorer on a dinner table (Ahmad, 1vv1 .z).
ln terms of money there is also the minimization of the accumulation of it in terms of inheritance. lslam
established inheritance laws in order to maximise the mobility of comforts arriving with wealth. Inheritance
laws in Islam in a sense is a capitalist medanism directed at folding bac wealth upon its own self. An anaric
reading of lslamic inheritance laws would illustrate that lslamic inheritance laws are fundamentally at their core
anti-capitalist aimed at adieving a wide distribution of wealth amongst the close relatives of the deceased, at
the same time the laws are geared to avoid hoarding and individualistic discrimination and squabbling within the
family unit(Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc !). Looking at them, lslamic inheritance laws therefore seek
the reshuing and de-centring of the peuiness of the deceased individuals whims, with respect to their indi-
vidualistic allocation of their wealth upon death, through a displacement of them, as the fabric of a community,
Maslaha, is placed ahead [of and above] the emotional whims of the deceased [thus] a dispersal of wealth
from the one to the many, instead of dannelling wealth from the many to the one (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa,
1vsc !). lor we can read as the Holy Koran conrms Never let those who hoard the wealth whid God has
bestowed on them out of His bounty think it good for them indeed it is an evil thing for them. Te rides they
have hoarded shall become their feuers on the Day of Resurrection. lt is God who will inherit the heavens and
the earth. God is cognizant of all your actions. God has heard the words of those who said God is poor, but
we are rid. Teir words We will record, and their slaying of the prophets unjustly. We shall say Taste now
the torment of the Conagration. Here is the reward of your misdeeds. God is not unjust to His servants[and]
the multiplication (of possessions and its boasting) occupied you (from worshipping and obeying) until you visit
the graves. But no, indeed, you shall soon know Te Holy Koran, Chapter ! Chapter of Te lamily of lmran
Verse 1sc, and Chapter 1cz, Chapter of Rivalry in Worldly Aairs Competition Verses 1!).
sc
is paid begrudgingly, or self-righteously, it is not accepted. Zakat ought be oered willingly
and not to be paid begrudgingly, if the divine law [associated with it] is to be fullled
(Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc z). ln this vein, the Koran is rather clear with respect to
the auitude of the individual payment of Zakat
as does he [and/or she] who spends his [and/or her] wealth only to be seen and
praised by othersfor his [and/or her] parable is that of a smooth roc with [a
liule] earth upon it-and then a rainstorm smites it and leaves it hard and bare
(Te Holy Koran, Chapter z Te Chapter of Te Cow, Verse ze.).
Tis Koranic verse is therefore an impassioned witness for the auitude and the duty to
give, bearing the mark of respect for an individuals dignity in all circumstances, even the
most intimate[and] to avoid being seen by anyone so that no one has to be embarrassed
(Ramadan, zcc. 1s1). Zakat is also repaid indenitely to humble the ego of the payer and
remind the payer of Zakat that it is God who is the Supreme giver and the true provider.
Tis indenite repayment of Zakat therefore demandsknowledge of the environment, the
community, and the social and economic situation (Ramadan, zcc. 1v!). Tis knowledge of
the communitys circumstances has the further positive eect of emphasizing and reinforcing
a communal sense of responsibility that is continuously renewed. Terefore, Zakat is not to
be understood as just a widows mite to be paid out of [spite or] duty and distributed as
darityanything but thatWoven into the very fabric of society[it] aims at freeing the
poor from their dependence so that eventually they themselves will pay Zakat to help less
fortunate others (Ramadan, zcc. 1sv). Tat is, because Zakat is the annual payment of alms
in income and savings, in trade commodities, in crops, and in certain other properties, it acts
as an anti-thesis to taxation (Ramadan, zcc. 1v!). As Deleuze and Guauari note
taxation creates moneyand it corresponds with services and goods in the
current of that [economic] circulation[ln it] the state nds the means for for-
eign trade, insofar as it appropriates that tradeand whid makes monopolistic
appropriation of outside exdange possible (Deleuze, & Guauari, 1vsc ..!).
Tus Zakat, unlike taxation, is not a conventional source of nourishment supposedly for
the poor provisionally provided through government revenues then distributed (Cummings,
Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc. z). Nor is Zakat to be manipulated, as with taxation, for the appro-
priation of an outside exdange as for foreign trade. Rather, unlike taxation, Zakat is not to
be collected by way of government or a revenue-collecting agency but paid specically and
directly by hand and through personal communication (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc
z). Zakat is not to be distorted or understood as a subsidy or darity for some towards others
in the hope that the wealth of the rid and the destitution of the poor will miraculously nd
a point of balance (Ramadan. zcc. 1s). Zakat is the right of the poor over the rid and not
ln this vein, the giver of Zakat is to experience, and to feel the shame the other feels, and the aect of the
eects that hover over the others body when it is judged for being poor.
s1
a privilege honourably bestowed to those in whose wealth is a right known for the beggar
and the outcast (Cummings, Askari, Mustafa, 1vsc z). lor those who refuse the payment
of Zakat, God in the Koran states
As for all who lay up treasures of gold and silver and do not spend them for
the sake of God give them the tiding of grievous suering [in the life to come]
on the Day when that [hoarded blessings] shall be heated in the re of hell and
their foreheads and their sides and their bacs branded therewith, [those sinners
shall be told] these are the treasures whid you have laird up for yourselves!
Taste, then, [the evil of] your hoarded treasures(Te Holy Koran, Chapter v,
Te Chapter of Repentance and Dispensation, Verses !.!).
To conclude, Zakat is a rightful act of giving what is already rightfully due. ln this
sense, someone who willingly pays Zakat is someone who has dosen to bare faith to
bear responsibility for social commitment at every moment to possess is [tantamount] to
have the duty [and obligation] to share (Ramadan, zcc. 1sz). Zakat, read in this manner,
is anti-capitalist concept and practice.
Te nh and sixth anti-capitalist concepts and practices for Anarca-lslam are Ramadan
and Sadaqat Al-Fitr. Ramadan is a fast, a Sawm, from dusk till dawn, for a lunar month
every year. Ramadan is an act of worship [decreed by God, designed] to lead Muslims to
perceive, and to feel inwardly, the need to eat and drink and by extension to ensure that every
human being has the means to subsist (Ramadan, zcc. sv). lasting during Ramadan leads
to the purication of the fasters mind, body and soul. Tat is, fasting is an act of expiation in
the voluntary washing out of a fasters sins internally and externally. lurthermore, Ramadan
reduces surplus, excessive acts of production and consumption, and the waste of property
entrusted to a faster by God. Ramadan, in essence, sanitizes and puries a fasters body and
the property she and/or he are entrusted with even if it is only for a month. Upon Ramadans
end is Sadaqat Al-litr. lt is another [obligatory] darity imposed on every Muslim who
has the means for themselves and their dependents (Budak, zcc v!ve). Sadaqat Al-litr
exists in connection with Ramadan and is therefore
related to property and is obligatory on every Muslim that possesses more than
the prescribed amount of provisions aner giving the darity[and is] to be given
in person into the hands of those who are eligible to receive [not] the wealthy
(Budak, zcc v!ve).
Again, like Zakat, Sadaqat ll-litr is to be paid face to face and in discretion, without any
state or institutional-like intervention. Ramadan and Sadaqat Al-litr, read in this manner,
are anti-capitalist concepts and practices.
Te seventh and nal anti-capitalist concept and practice read for Anarca-lslamis Islamic
banking. lslamic Banking is an act of resistance to capitalism. lt gives way to and oers a
new form of unrestricted access for Muslim and non-Muslim individuals and communities to
sz
nancial resources in banking systems. Unrestricted access in lslamic banks is therefore dif-
ferent from capitalist nancial systems because it does not refer individuals or communities
to the criteria of creditworthiness (Ahmad, 1vv1 .e). lslamic banks rst appeared in
the mid-nineteenth century [and consists in] funding trading activities
[opening] saving accounts with no interest [and] whose patrons participate in
investments and either earn a share of the prot on the return or suer a portion
of the losses sustained by the bank(lsposito, zccz 1e1s).
lor their part, banking transactions do involve risk. Tat is, they involve the use of
equity sharing rather than debt nancing (lsposito, zccz 1s). However, despite this risk,
lslamic banks oer a way of supporting willing resistors with a preliminary necessary set of
credit systems that can be used to ward o current capitalist nancial systems. lslamic banks
showcase an understanding of the problems with current nancial institutional systems. ls-
lamic banks oer nancial opportunities that create favourable conditions for real transfor-
mation. lslamic banks are capable of empowering grass-root levels by extending their social
funds towards developing a diversity of small rms and generating resistance by oer-
ing an egalitarian way towards organising autonomous grassroots workplaces (Choudhury,
1vv 1s). lslamic Banks are a way of demanding the reopening up of what are cordoned
credit-worthy asylums by seuing up real alternatives and encouraging individuals and com-
munities in engaging in inter-communal economic cooperation and participation. ln this
sense, lslamic banks possess the capacity of restoring agency to every individual and collec-
tively within the community (Choudhury, 1vv 1s). lslamic banking, read in this manner,
is an anti-capitalist concept and practice.
lt is the former anti-capitalist concepts and practices that collectively inform Anarca-
lslams anti-capitalist commitment. Tat is, it is in the rereading of the principles of Prop-
erty, Caretakers, Mudarabah/Musharakah, Riba, Zakat, Ramadan, Sadaqat Al-litr and ls-
lamic banking that there is clear evidence of alternatives to capitalist practices and an oer,
instead, of fair measure of value in economic transactions.
4. e Patient comes to their own Aid
Obviously, many of the anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments l have discussed
work against currently dominant interpretations of lslam. lndeed, these principles may be
seen as slogans against capitalist and authoritarian practices that Anarca-lslam and post-
anardism oppose. Tat is, it is
through these [former] slogans, [that] ead individual [Muslim] would have to
see himself [and herself] confronted with an immediate duty to perform, ead
in his [and her] place[through] a denunciation of the privileges of wealth and
power identied with those who had distorted lslams (Rodison, 1vz z!c).
s!
lor it is only with Anarca-lslams construction that the capitalist-State can be denounced
as an adversary of the highest values to whid Anarca-lslams ideology appeals.
Moreover, it is in constructing Anarca-lslam, that l, a Muslim anardist, am able to stand
with an auitude of theological and epistemological certitude, becoming both anti-capitalist
and anti-authoritarian, breaking through the walls that purportedly cordon lslam and an-
ardism from one another. Moreover, it is in constructing Anarca-lslam, my clinic, that l
remain a micro-fascist, yet one who despite their micro-fascisms is now becoming relatively
de-Oedipalized. Tat is, l have no illusions of being completely free of the capitalist-State.
l suggest only that l have begun to avoid micro-fascisms by rejecting the practices im-
posed upon me by the dominant order (Day, zcc 1e). Perhaps now that l have constructed
Anarca-lslam, and because of my willingness and openness to sharing values, resources and
spaces with Muslims, anardists, and others in the newest social movements, we may col-
lectively begin building communities of resistance and reconstruction that are wider and
more open to others, yet however that remain non-integrative in their relation to others
(Day, zcc 1e).
s.
Chapter 6
e Beginning is the End is the
Beginning
If literature dies, it will be a violent death, a political assassinationCreation
takes place in oked passagesYour writing has to be liquid or gaseous simply
because normal perception and opinion are solid, geometricSo style requires a
lot of silence and work to make a whirlpool at some point, then ies out like the
mates ildren follow along the water in a guerWhats really terrible isnt
having to cross a desert once youre old and patient enough, but for young writers
to be born in a desert, because theyre then in danger of seeing their eorts come
to nothing before they even get going. And yet, and yet, its impossible for the
new race of writers, already preparing work and their styles, not to be bornIf
you dont admire something, if your dont love it, you have no reason to write a
word about it[because writing is] the exigency of life against those who would
mutilate and mortify life
(Gilles Deleuze, 1vvc)
1. A Summary of the esis
ln this thesis, l oered an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic interpretation of
anardism by identifying anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist resonance between lslam and
anardism.
ln dapter one, l talked about how Muslims in the West are facing didotomous repre-
sentations of terrorism and oppression, lundamentalism and Orientalism. l explored these
representations as abstractions, but then brought them closer to home by demonstrating their
existence on an everyday level by discussing specic examples of racist and lslamphobic in-
s
cidents at Qeens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada in zccv. l then claimed that v/11'
resulted in the intensication of these reductive representations of lslam and Muslims.
l also discussed the presence of a minority of Muslim anardists escaping these repre-
sentations, and doing so in a positive sense, by transversing the gaps, puncturing the holds
[of representations]opening up the new world order to a quite dierent and new world of
the multiple as opposed to subscribing to the aforementioned didotomies (Howard, 1vvs
1z!1z.). Muslim anardists are escaping these didotomous representations in the face of
the isolation and distress some Western Muslims have been facing since v/11. lnstead of being
led by the majority, Muslims anardists have dosen not to retreat. Tey did not become par-
alyzed and complacent as a result of the damaging representations. lnstead, they understood
their standing(s) and positioning(s) as political subjects in the West, whether they like it or
not, post v/11. Tey dose to never again become subjects of the signier [, subjects of West-
ern representations, and][of] Knowledge, Power, Money (Guauari, 1vs. 1.!). And based
on that doice, Muslim anardists acted by engaging internally in molecular revolutions
(Guauari and Suuon, zcc e), as well as externally by creating new aesthetic, cultural and
ethico-political lslamic territories of reference with respect to anardism through literature.
ln this light, Muslim anardists have creatively envisioned and pragmatically embodied
a unique formula in reinvigorating lslamic life in the West. Tis has come at a cost of their
ostracization by the dogmatic and essentialist majority of constituents constituting the two
communities these Muslim anardists belong to. Tis ostracization is the price paid for their
simultaneous allegiance to lslam and anardism. Tere is always going to be a price exacted
for inventing anything new and, for now, the cost is ostracization and the lac of community.
like the Holy Koran says Verily, God does not dange peoples condition until they dange
their inner selves (Chapter 1!, Te Chapter of Te Tunder Verse 11).
ln dapter two, l examined academic literature wriuen by Muslim anardists like Bey and
Knight. l also discussed academic and non-academic literature on the discourse of lslamic
anardism wriuen by non-Muslims like Crone, Barclay, Chris R., luxenburg and liscella.
Moreover, l also empirically proved the existence of contemporary and historical examples
of other Muslim anardists like Yakub lslam, Gustave Henri Jossot, and leda Rafenilli in or-
der to demonstrate that Muslim anardists are not entirely a new phenomenon. l argued that
though the academic and non-academic literature is a positive step in resisting the didoto-
mous representations of Muslims, there were three critical problems with the texts. Based
'v/11, beuer than the rst Gulf War, acted as the mask dawned by the West for perfecting its non-colonial
and non-imperial entry into and exit out of Muslim life and resources under the name of freedom and in the
face of what a few Muslims in the name of lslam had done. lslam and Muslims because of v/11 have indenitely
become the ideal candidates handpiced by the West as the enemy aner the Cold War, with the war on terror as
a war on ghosts.
lor now Muslim anardists are destined to be ostracized and othered exponentially beyond the othering
the average Western Muslim faces as a result of the Wests representations of them. Muslims anardists have
no community. Tat is the cost however of the (re) invigoration of lslam and that is now being driven forth
by these Muslims anardists and their helpless falling in love with anardism, its currents and its commitments.
Commitments, whidl proved in this thesis, were once lslamic but unfortunately have been abundantly dismissed
or forgouen by the majority of Western Muslims, let alone most Muslims worldwide.
se
on these problems, l oered Anarca-lslam, rstly, to give willing Muslims and Muslim an-
ardists the Koranic and anardic concepts and practices necessary to continue on with their
resistance against negative representations. l oered Anarca-lslam, secondly, to counter two
misconceptions of lslam and Muslims amongst anardists like llood in the newest social
movements. l encouraged anardists to overcome their fear of lslam by exploring jihad and
ijtihad in lslam. l tried to engage anardists by explaining to themthe diculties a Mujtahid
goes through while partaking in jihad and ijtihad as well. l encouraged anardists not to ac-
cept what they think they know and hear of lslam. Tirdly, l oered Anarca-lslam so that
there is a more welcoming space for Muslims and Muslim anardists in the newest social
movements. Tis space, whid l call a panegyric desert, is the place where l hope Muslims,
anardists, and Muslim anardists can collaborate.
ln dapter three, l introduced a method that l call Anardic-ijtihad, and then defended it as
my right against dismissive views from both secular and orthodox Muslims. l distinguished
between Anardic-ijtihad and ijtihad in that the former is an anardically oriented type of
ijtihad that l put to practice when l write on Anarca-lslam. l emphasized that l use Anardic-
ijtihad to extract anardic concepts and practices in lslam and vice versa. l adopted it as my
method to engage in a rigorous interrogation of semantics and syntax in the Sunnah and the
Koran, thus overturning themes in the arena(s) of Muslim, anardist, and lslamic and anardic
politics. Aner discussing Anardic-ijtihad l nally outlined the theoretical paradigms l used
to construct my contribution, Anarca-lslam, to the existing discourse on lslamic-anardism.
ln doing so, l discussed post-anardist, deconstruction, poststructuralist, post-colonial and
sociological theories of social movements.
ln dapter four, l began the process of constructing Anarca-lslam. l discussed Anarca-
lslams relation to lslam and anardism, but more specically to post-anardism. l then de-
ned a triadic relationship that consisted of Daddy (authoritarian practices of the type macro
and micro), Mommy (capitalist practices) and Me (Oedipal subject). l discussed the particular
role ead parents has with me and then discussed the eects the relationship between them
has on me.
ln dapter ve l constructed Anarca-lslam. l did this so that Muslim anardists are no
longer just an illusory image gripped by repression like essentialist Muslims and anardists
would have themselves believe (Guauari, 1vv sz). l rst constructed for Anarca-lslam
its resistance to authoritarian practices at the micro-level through micro-anti-authoritarian
concepts and practices extracted from lslam by using Anardic-ijtihad. Te micro-anti-
authoritarian concepts and practices were Shura, ljma and Maslaha. l then showed how
it is possible to resist authoritarian practices at the macro-level, through resisting institu-
tionalized religion and the state. l oered an alternative rereading of the classical inter-
pretation of the lslamic concept Khilafah, lslamic state. l then concluded the discussion on
anti-authoritarianism by addressing the purported authority of Prophet Muhammad and
God, all of whid nally led to the construction of an anti-authoritarian lslam and Anarca-
lslams resistance to Daddy. Aner this point, l constructed for Anarca-lslam its resistance to
capitalist practices through concepts and practices from lslam and again by using Anardic-
ijtihad. Te concepts and practices of Public Property, Communal/lndividual Caretakers,
s
Mudarabah/Musharakah, Riba, Zakat, Ramadan, Sadaqat Al-litr, and lslamic banking were
reread and then collectively used to construct an anti-capitalist lslam and Anarca-lslams
resistance to Mommy. At the end of the dapter, aner having established Anarca-lslams
anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist commitments, l proclaimed myself as a Muslim who is
becoming relatively de-Oedipalized. As for Anarca-lslams construction, it is the symbolic
act of delineating the misconceptions held by many anardists in the newest social move-
ments.
l hope that what l am calling Anarca-lslam` will be seen as making useful contributions
to the discourse of lslamic anardism, both theoretically and pragmatically. lor example, l
do not believe that any of liscellas three categories and their subtypes, whid l point to in
dapter two, and whid liscella devised for the discourse of lslamic anardism, made room
for Anarca-lslam. Te closest category and subtype Anarca-lslam could t into is the rst
category and particularly its subtype, whid liscella calls Postmodern lslamic anardism.
Although Anarca-lslamcould t into this category, l do not believe it ought to for two reasons.
ln his description of Post-modern lslamic anardism, liscella writes
Postmodern is meant to refer to that point (historically and culturally) at whid
the two worlds meet and are capable of producing a synthesis(liscella, zccv).
Given liscellas denition, the rst reason l do not believe Anarca-lslam would t in this
subtype is because of liscellas use of the term postmodernism. lt is an elusive and highly
ambiguous term, whid, following other more established theorists who have been called
postmodernist, l reject in light of the fact that it signies an era that follows the modernist
movement and not a movement that rejects the auitude of modernity (loucault, 1vs.
!zc). lf understood as era then, l reject the term Postmodern, given that the modernist
movement is still alive, well, and ongoing. Tat is, as an era in space and time, the modernist
`What l did throughout this thesis is bring together two traditions to a conversation, Anarca-lslam, whid has
been going on internally inside me for over z1 years. Tey are now negotiating their resonances and dierences.
And negotiations sometimes last so long you do not know whether they mean the beginning of war or the
beginning of peace. Anarca-lslam is always going to be caught between anger with the way things are and
a peace so close when the discourse of lslamic anardism is broaded. But, lest we ever forget or even fool
ourselves, Anarca-lslam is not power. lnstitutional religions, states, capitalism, empires, multitudes, science, law,
public opinion and television are powers, but not Anarca-lslam. Anarca-lslam is always going to have its internal
baules between lslam and anardism, but they are moc baules. When it comes to powers, Anarca-lslam, not a
power, cannot baule with the powers that be, because it ghts a war against these powers without baules. lt only
ghts a guerilla campaign against them all through lslam and anardism. Just it cannot baule with these powers,
Anarca-lslam cannot converse with them either. Anarca-lslam can only negotiate between lslam and anardism.
But since powers are not just external things, but permeate ead of us, Anarca-lslam has already thrown willing
Muslims and anardists into a panegyric desert of the present where they will be eternally negotiating with ead
other, in a guerilla campaign against their own selves, until Muslims and anardists learn that they will always
stand in the shadowof their names in the ght of their lives to live up to the commitments that ought have arrived
with the names, lslam and anardism. Muslims and anardists, from here on in, have to learn to negotiate and
compromise. lt is time for a community, whid is not a totality but is, as in Spinoza, absolute, to rise, with a force
so strong, that it stands tall without a base (Deleuze, 1vv). One day the day will come when the day will no
longer come, but before that day, l promise you this Tat Community will come.
ss
movement in fact has not ended, and therefore it is not possible for another movement
labeled Postmodernism to follow it. Te terms modernist and postmodernist are therefore
problematic because from the beginning their use as eras, as opposed to auitudes, assumes
a linear conception of time and history. However, history is not linear, it is rhizomatic
(Deleuze & Guauari, 1vsc 1!). Tat is, the past, present and future are interconnected as
the inverted root of a tree.
Te second reason that l do not believe Anarca-lslam ts in liscellas subtype Postmod-
ern lslamic anardism is that liscella reads Bey and Knights literatures as examples that
produce a synthesis of the two worlds, lslam and anardism, and therefore as examples of
Postmodern lslamic anardism (liscella, zccv). liscella does this despite the fact that Bey
and Knight do not truly produce a synthesis, as l have argued above. Neither Bey nor Knight
provide the Koranic and anardistic conceptual and pragmatic practices for an lslamic an-
ardism, and therefore neither develops an anardic interpretation of lslam and an lslamic
interpretation of anardism. lnterestingly, liscella himself acnowledges this when he ad-
mits that none of the lnglish-based literature he encountered on the discourse of lslamic
anardism can tell us precisely what lslamic anardism is (liscella, zccv). His acnowledg-
ment sets the stage for what l oer in this thesis. Tat is, my thesis registers the possibility
of Anarca-lslam and therefore contributes and aspires towards the creation of a community
between Muslims, Muslim anardists and anardists in the newest social movements. ln light
of these two reasons, perhaps a new category ought to be constructed for Anarca-lslam, or
perhaps liscella should reconstruct the parameters of the subtype Postmodern lslamic anar-
dism in sud a way so as to distinguish the works more adequately.
What l have wriuen in this thesis is part of a past, that is also a present and also future, all intersecting at
once. l would have preferred liscella use the term poststructuralist, and whid l discussed in dapter three, this
way leaving less room for ambiguity, as opposed to the term postmodernist and whid is altogether dierent
from poststructuralist.
sv
2. Connecting M.A. to Ph.D.: Where Anarca-Islam proceeds to
from here
ln my future work, l intend to examine lslamic sexual practices. l do this to add an anti-
queerphobic commitment to Anarca-lslams set of pre-established anti-authoritarian and
anti-capitalist commitments. l am particularly interested in homosexuality in Muslim so-
cieties and traditions, as l seard for a dierent way of understanding, demystifying, and
justifying the rights of queer Muslims and non-Muslims in lslamic terms, especially among
immigrant Muslims in North America. My starting point will be, as it was here, that lslam
is not a monolithic, unied belief system but rather a heterogeneous and pluralistic series
of traditions, perspectives, practices and discourses, not all of whid embrace the authoritar-
ian, conservative and essentialist positions that have emerged in modern and contemporary
expressions of orthodox or lundamentalist and Orientalist lslam. My current researd will
be strongly linked to my future project, whid is to develop the historical and intellectual
bases for an anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist and anti-homo-trans-queerphobic lslam that
likewise can play a positive and critical role in political and social theory and practice.
Nearing the end where the end is just the beginning of another end, because the end can only mean that l
would have to just begin again and again, my silence has been temporarily broken and l feel incredibly lonely.
lrom here on in, the ethical and political anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist responsibilities l discussed will not
and cannot allow me to hesitate anymore before the cynicism of Muslims, anardists and anyone else who says
that things are as they are because there is no other way (lreire, 1vvs 1c11c.). And although lreire is writing
about a dierent topic, in a dierent time and context, l believe his words are relevant here. Just as lreire notes,
with respect to faith, l cannot see how [Muslims] who so live their faith could negate the rights of anardists
who do not want to have faith (lriere, 1vvs 1c11c.). lven if that means that they do not want to have faith
in their selves or the ideals they espouse. ln the same way Muslims cannot be rejected by anardists for having
faith because being in faith means moving, engaging in dierent forms of action coherent with that faith to
engage in action that rearms it and never action that negates it (lriere, 1vvs 1c11c.). Negating faith is not
being without it, but rather contradicting it through acts (lriere, 1vvs 1c11c.). Not having faith is both a
possibility and right of human beings, who cease to be human if they are denied their freedom to believe or not
to believe (lriere, 1vvs 1c.). Having faith and believing never was and never will be the problem, the problem
is claiming to have it and, at the same, contradicting it in action (lriere, 1vvs 1c.). Taking on a name, Muslim
and anardist, will never be what it is about. lt is about the set of commitments that should have arrived by
taking on those signiers. Besides that, one is always destined in the shadow of the name. let me also not that
lonely is not being alone. Te former denotes is a state of catatonic loneliness a neuroticism, revolving around
the absence of a profound connection with another like a friend, a community or a lover without having to stuuer
or talk to this other. Tat is, the incessant yearning for communication through an aesthetic meditative type of
silence, as opposed to moving ones tongue or speaking to the other. Tat is loneliness. lveryone should be
ne being alone. No one should be ne being lonely. And the pain l feel is worse than Ovid, an ostracized poet
two millennia ago, who wrote in Tristia, describing the cultural hostility alienation[and] bodily pain that
reect his mental anguish as an immigrant (Hron, zccv !!) l onen weep when writing soteardrops overow
to wet the page [and] cold sorrow drops in the heart like rainas [every waking moment] old fresh wounds feel
fresh again (Hron, zccv !!). But in my case and beyond using Ovids words, l cannot even begin to describe
my pain and in a language, lnglish, that is not mine to begin with. l cannot begin to describe, when l am len
feeling every time like a suerer try[ing] to describe a painand then language runs dry (Woolf, 1vze s.),
as described in Virginia Woolfs essay On Being Ill (1vze) and llaine Scarrys e Body of Pain (1vs) when it
comes to the ineability of translating pain through language and especially in lnglish. lnglish will never be
my mother tongue, Arabic.
vc
My early investigations indicate that dierent auitudes prevail in lslamic interpretations
of sexuality, whid conceive of it not only as necessary for reproduction but also for worthy
experiences of pleasure and enjoyment. Yet, onen, the same texts auempt to limit, disci-
pline, and punish non-heteronormative sexual practices. liule has been done to theorize
this contradictory evidence. However, sdolarship has begun to document lslamic legal and
medical discussions of sexuality and to consider the cultural valence of same-sex desire in
poetry and historical accounts (See, AbdelWahab Bouhdibas Sexuality in Islam, 1v, Amr
Shalkanys Comparative Law as Araeology: On Sodomy, Islamic Law and Human Rights
Activism, zcce, Joseph Massads Desiring Arabs, zcc and Midel loucaults Discipline and
Punishment, 1v).
To this end, l will take up cases like that of Sayyid-Sally, a transsexual medical student
at Al- Azhar University in 1vsz, a pre-eminent institution for lslamic religious studies, in
Cairo, lgypt. ln this instance, l will be examining the role that two psydoanalysts and a
surgeon played in judging Sayyid-Sally prior to Al-Azhars involvement. l will be show-
ing that the psydoanalytic practices that Sayyid-Sally underwent represented an embodied
and an interpersonal authoritarian and capitalist voice of an lastern form of post-colonial
psydoanalysis, inherited from the West, whid l argue constituted an auempt at silencing
Sayyid-Sallys voice. Because even aner the revelation of Sayyid-Sallys identity, her sex
dange operation and the fact that Al-Azhar later admiued the existence of the category of
the Hermaphrodite, according to certain lslamic legal interpretations, heteronormative gen-
der orientations were re-established and re-worked to correspond to a new logical order with
the sub-categories Natural Vs. Un-natural Hermaphrodite.
ln my future work, anardism will provide a political and philosophical orientation that
l argue can help to move lslam, beyond a practice of mere tolerance to developing a doctrine
of acceptance of queer identities. l will then use this as a basis for an exploration of the
possibility of a new radical politics and an ethics of friendship that might emerge between
these two traditions. l will suggest that Muslims and anardists can negotiate relations of
friendship, appreciating the similarities that bring them together, as well as the dierences
that drive them apart. l will auempt to partially delineate the circumstances under whid
these kinds of compromises might take place, intellectually, politically, and practically, by
developing an ethics of disagreement between and for Muslims and anardists.
v1
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Author Mohamed Jean Veneuse
Title Anarca-lslam
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A thesis submiued to the Department of Sociology. Qeens University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (August,
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