Islamic revival

Islamic revival (Arabic: ‫ تجديد‬tajdīd, lit., "regeneration, renewal"; also ‫ الصحوة اإلسالمية‬aṣ-Ṣaḥwah l-
ʾIslāmiyyah, "Islamic awakening") refers to a revival of the Islamic religion. The revivers are
known in Islam as Mujaddids.

Within the Islamic tradition, tajdid has been an important religious concept, which has
manifested itself throughout Islamic history in periodic calls for a renewed commitment to the
fundamental principles of Islam and reconstruction of society in accordance with the Quran and
the traditions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (hadith).[1] The concept of tajdid has played a
prominent role in contemporary Islamic revival.[1]

In academic literature, "Islamic revival" is an umbrella term encompassing "a wide variety of
movements, some intolerant and exclusivist, some pluralistic; some favorable to science, some
anti-scientific; some primarily devotional, and some primarily political; some democratic, some
authoritarian; some pacific, some violent".[2]

Since the 1970s, a worldwide Islamic revival has emerged, owing in large part to popular
disappointment with the secular nation states and Westernized ruling elites, which had
dominated the Muslim world during the preceding decades, and which were increasingly seen as
authoritarian, ineffective and lacking cultural authenticity.[2] It is also motivated by a desire to
"restore Islam to ascendancy in a world that has turned away from God".[3] The revival has been
accompanied by growth of various reformist-political movements inspired by Islam (also called
Islamist),[2][4] and by "re-Islamisation" of society from above and below,[5] with manifestations
ranging from sharia-based legal reforms[5] to greater piety and growing adoption of Islamic
culture (such as increased attendance at Hajj[6]) among the Muslim public.[1][7] Among
immigrants in non-Muslim countries, it includes a feeling of a "growing universalistic Islamic
identity" or transnational Islam,[8] brought on by easier communications, media and travel.[9] The
revival has also been accompanied by an increased influence of fundamentalist preachers[5] and
terrorist attacks carried out by some radical Islamist groups on a global scale.[9]

Preachers and scholars who have been described as revivalists (Mujaddids) or mujaddideen, by
differing sects and groups, in the history of Islam include Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah,
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, Ahmad Sirhindi, Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, Muhammad ibn Abd al-
Wahhab, and Muhammad Ahmad. In the 20th century, figures such as Sayyid Rashid Rida,
Hassan al-Banna, Abul A'la Maududi, Malcolm X, and Ruhollah Khomeini, have been described as
such, and academics often use the terms "Islamist" and "Islamic revivalist"
interchangeably.[10][11] Contemporary revivalist currents include Islamic liberalism, which seeks
to reconcile Islamic beliefs with modern values; neo-Sufism, which cultivates Muslim spirituality;
and neo-fundamentalism, which stresses obedience to Islamic law and ritual observance.[2]

Earlier history of revivalism

The concept of Islamic revival is based on a sahih hadith (a saying attributed to the Islamic
prophet Muhammad),[12] recorded by Abu Dawood, narrated by Abu Hurairah, who reported that
Prophet Muhammad said:

Allah will raise for this community at the end of every 100 years the one
who will renovate its religion for it.

— Sunan Abu Dawood, Book 37: Kitab al-Malahim [Battles], Hadith

Number 4278[13]

Within the Islamic tradition, tajdid (lit., regeneration, renewal) has been an important religious
concept.[1] Early on into the Islamic era, Muslims realized that they have not succeeded in
creating and maintaining a society that truly followed the principles of their religion.[1] As a
result, Islamic history has seen periodic calls for a renewed commitment to the fundamental
principles of Islam and reconstruction of society in accordance with the Quran and the traditions
of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (hadith).[1] These efforts often drew inspiration from the
hadith in which Muhammad states: "God will send to His community at the head of each century
those who will renew its faith for it".[1] Throughout Islamic history, Muslims looked to reforming
religious leaders to fulfill the role of a mujaddid (lit., renewer).[1] Although there is disagreement
over which individuals might actually be identified as such, Muslims agree that mujaddids have
been an important force in the history of Islamic societies.[1]
The modern movement of Islamic revival has been compared with earlier efforts of a similar
nature: The "oscillat[ion] between periods of strict religious observance and others of devotional
laxity" in Islamic history was striking enough for "the Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun to ponder its
causes 600 years ago, and speculate that it could be "attributed ... to features of ecology and
social organization peculiar to the Middle East", namely the tension between the easy living in
the towns and the austere life in the desert.[14]

Some of the more famous revivalists and revival movements include the Almoravid and
Almohad dynasties in Maghreb and Spain (1042–1269), Indian Naqshbandi revivalist Ahmad
Sirhindi (~1564–1624), the Indian Ahl-i Hadith movement of the 19th century, preachers Ibn
Taymiyyah (1263–1328), Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1702–1762), and Muhammad ibn Abd al-
Wahhab (d. 1792).

In the late 19th century, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, "one of the most influential Muslim reformers"
of the era, traveled the Muslim world, advocating for Islamic modernism and pan-Islamism.[15]
His sometime acolyte Muhammad Abduh has been called "the most influential figure" of
Modernist Salafism.[16]

Syrian-Egyptian Islamic scholar Muhammad Rashid Rida would be the first modern Islamic
revivalist to “rediscover” Ibn Taymiyya's ideas and apply his famous 13th century Fatwa of Takfir
on the Mongol rulers; on the present day secular rulers of the Islamic world. Rida argued that
Muslims should return to the values of the Salaf for an Islamic solution to the twin problems of
modernity and foreign domination. Influenced by Rida, his protege Hassan al-Banna would
establish the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen in 1928, the first mass Islamist organization. Despite him
being influenced by Rida and his drawing of ideas primarily from Islamic sources, Al-Banna
nevertheless was willing to engage with modern European concepts like nationalism,
constitutionalism, etc.[17]

In South Asia, Islamic revivalist intellectuals and statesmen like Syed Ahmad Khan, Muhammad
Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah promoted the Two-Nation Theory and the Muslim League
established the world's first modern Islamic republic, Pakistan. Abul Ala Maududi was the later
leader of this movement who established Jamaat-e-Islami in South Asia. Today it is one of the
most influential Islamic parties in the Indian sub-continent, spanning three countries (Pakistan,
India, and Bangladesh), although the different national parties have no organisational link
between them.[18]

Whether or not the contemporary revival is part of an historical cycle, the uniqueness of the
close association of the Muslim community with its religion has been noted by scholar Michael
Cook who observed that "of all the major cultural domains" the Muslim world "seems to have
been the least penetrated by irreligion". In the last few decades ending in 2000, rather than
scientific knowledge and secularism edging aside religion, Islamic fundamentalism has
"increasingly represented the cutting edge" of Muslim culture.[19]

Contemporary revivalism

Causes

A global wave of Islamic revivalism emerged starting from 1970s owing in large part to popular
disappointment with the secular nation states and Westernized ruling elites, which had
dominated the Muslim world during the preceding decades, and which were increasingly seen as
authoritarian, ineffective and lacking cultural authenticity.[2] It was also a reaction against
Western influences such as individualism, consumerism, commodification of women, and sexual
liberty, which were seen as subverting Islamic values and identities.[2] Among the political
factors was also the ideological vacuum that emerged after decline of socialist system and
related weakening of the liberal (Western) ideology [20] Economic and demographic factors, such
as lagging economic development, a rise in income inequality and a decline in social mobility,
the rise of an educated youth with expectation of higher upward mobility, and urbanization in the
Muslim world also played a major part.[21] In general, the gap between higher expectations and
reality among many in the Muslim world was an important factor.[21] Gulf oil money was also a
huge factor, in a phenomenon known as Petro-Islam.

The above reasons are generally agreed to be the ultimate causes of the Islamic revival. There
were also specific political events which heralded the revival. Major historical turning points in
the Islamic revival include, in chronological order:

The Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War helped to convince many Muslims that pan-Arabism
failed to deliver on its promises. According to a common assessment offered at the time, "the
Jews had deserved victory by being truer to their religion than the Arabs had been to theirs".
After a period of introspection and rise of religious discourse, the Yom Kippur War of 1973
was fought in the name of Islam rather than pan-Arabism and the greater success of Arab
armies was seen to validate the change.[22]

The energy crisis of the 1970s, which led to the formation of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the quadrupling of global oil prices. At first, this led to an
expectation that the oil wealth would lead to a long-awaited resurgence of the Islamic
 civilization, and when this failed to materialize, the mounting frustration with secular regimes
made the public more receptive to religious fundamentalism.[23][24] Scholar Gilles Kepel,
agrees that the tripling in the price of oil in the mid-1970s and the progressive takeover of
Saudi Aramco in the 1974–1980 period, provided the source of much influence of Wahhabism
in the Islamic World, in the aforementioned phenomenon of Petro-Islam.

The opening of the first Islamic bank in Dubai.[21]

The rise of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the late 1970s.[21] The Mujahideen were a major
beneficiary of Petro-Islam, and would ultimately lead to the rise of Al-Qaeda.

Zia-ul-Haq introduces Islamic legal system in Pakistan.[21]

The return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran in 1979 and his establishment of an Islamic republic.

The Grand Mosque Seizure of 1979.

The establishment of many Islamic banks in Turkey in the mid 1980s and the government
recognition of these banks.[21]

Manifestations

The term "Islamic revival" encompasses "a wide variety of movements, some intolerant and
exclusivist, some pluralistic; some favorable to science, some anti-scientific; some primarily
devotional, and some primarily political; some democratic, some authoritarian; some pacific,
some violent".[2]

The revival has been manifested in greater piety and a growing adoption of Islamic culture
among ordinary Muslims.[25][7] In the 1970s and 80s there were more veiled women in the
streets. One striking example of it is the increase in attendance at the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage
to Mecca, which grew from 90,000 in 1926 to 2 million in 1979.[6]

Among revivalist currents, neo-fundamentalism predominates, stressing obedience to Islamic

law and ritual observance. There have also been Islamic liberal revivalists attempting to
reconcile Islamic beliefs with contemporary values and neo-Sufism cultivates Muslim
spirituality;[2] Many revivalist movements have a community-building orientation, focusing on
collective worship, education, charity or simple sociability.[2] Many local movements are linked
up with national or transnational organizations which sponsor charitable, educational and
missionary activities.[2]

A number of revivalist movements have called for implementation of sharia.[2] The practical
implications of this call are often obscure, since historically Islamic law has varied according to
time and place, but as an ideological slogan it serves "to rally support for the creation of a
utopian, divinely governed Islamic state and society".[2]

According to scholar Olivier Roy,

The call to fundamentalism, centered on the sharia: this call is as old as

Islam itself and yet still new because it has never been fulfilled, It is a
tendency that is forever setting the reformer, the censor, and tribunal
against the corruption of the times and of sovereigns, against foreign
influence, political opportunism, moral laxity, and the forgetting of sacred
texts.[26]

Contemporary Islamic revival includes a feeling of a "growing universalistic Islamic identity" as

often shared by Muslim immigrants and their children who live in non-Muslim countries.
According to Ira Lapidus,

The increased integration of world societies as a result of enhanced

communications, media, travel, and migration makes meaningful the
concept of a single Islam practiced everywhere in similar ways, and an
Islam which transcends national and ethnic customs.[9]

But not necessarily transnational political or social organisations:

Global Muslim identity does not necessarily or even usually imply

organised group action. Even though Muslims recognise a global
affiliation, the real heart of Muslim religious life remains outside politics –
in local associations for worship, discussion, mutual aid, education,
charity, and other communal activities.[27]

Scholarship and fiqh

Islamic revivalist leaders have been "activists first, and scholars only secondarily", emphasizing
practical issues of Islamic law and impatience with theory.[3] According to Daniel W. Brown, two
"broad features" define the revivalist approach to Islamic authorities: distrust of Islamic
scholarship along with "vehement rejection" of taqlid (accepting a scholar's decision without
investigating it); and at the same time a strong commitment to the Quran and Sunnah.[3]
Political aspects

Politically, Islamic resurgence runs the gamut from Islamist regimes in Iran, Sudan, and Taliban
Afghanistan. Other regimes, such as countries in the Persian Gulf region, and the secular
countries of Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan, while not a product of the resurgence, have made
some concessions to its growing popularity.

In reaction to Islamist opposition during the 1980s, even avowedly secular Muslim states
"endeavoured to promote a brand of conservative Islam and to organise an `official Islam`".[28]
Official radio stations and journals opened up to fundamentalist preaching.[5]

In 1971, the constitution of Egypt was made to specify (in article 2) that the sharia was "the main
source of legislation".[5] 1991 the Egyptian Security Court condemned the writer Ala'a Hamid to
eight years in prison for blasphemy.[5] By the mid 1990s, the official Islamic journal in Egypt – Al-
Liwa al-Islami – had a higher circulation than Al-Ahram.[5] The number of "teaching institutes
dependent" on Al-Azhar University in Egypt increased "from 1985 in 1986–7 to 4314 in 1995–
6".[28]

In Pakistan, a bill to make sharia the exclusive source of law of the state was introduced after
General Zia's coup in 1977, and finally passed in 1993 under Nawaz Sharif's government. The
number of registered madrassas rose from 137 in 1947 to 3906 in 1995.[28]

In Sudan, the sharia penal code was proclaimed in 1983.[5] South Yemen (formerly the People's
Democratic Republic of Yemen) made polygamy legal with a new Family Code in 1992.[5]

In Algeria, the leftist secularist FLN government made Friday an official holy day in 1976.[5] The
family law of 1984 "re-introduced some sharia elements"[28] such as Quranic dissymmetry
between men and women,[5] and the official policy of Arabisation led to a de facto Islamisation of
education.[28]

In secular Turkey, religious teaching in schools was made compulsory in 1983. Religious
graduates of İmam Hatip secondary schools were given right of access to the universities and
allowed to apply for civil service positions, introducing it to religious-minded people.[28]

Even the Marxist government of Afghanistan, before it was overthrown, introduced religious
programs on television in 1986, and declared Islam to be the state religion in 1987.[5]

In Morocco, at the end of the 1990s, more doctorates were written in religious sciences than in
social sciences and literature. In Saudi Arabia, the absolute majority of doctorates were in
religious sciences.[28]

In Syria, despite the rule of the Arab nationalist Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party,

For the first time, the regime celebrated the Prophet's birth with
greater fanfare than the anniversary of the ruling party. Billboards
once heralding 'progressiveness and socialism' were also being
replaced with new admonitions: 'Pray for the Prophet, and Do not
forget to mention God.' President Bashar Assad had recently approved
Syria's first Islamic university, as well as three Islamic banks. And
Mohammed Habash, the head of the Islamic Studies Center, had been
invited to speak on Islam at Syria's military academy – where praying
had been banned 25 years earlier. ... In the 1980s, a distinct minority of
women in Damascus wore hejab, or modest Islamic dress. In 2006, a
distinct majority in Syria's most modern city had put it on.

— Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle

East[29]

In many Muslim countries, there has been a growth of networks of religious schools. "Graduates
holding a degree in religious science are now entering the labour market and tend, of course, to
advocate the Islamization of education and law in order to improve their job prospects."[28]

In Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr criticized Marxism and presented early ideas of an
Islamic alternative to socialism and capitalism. Perhaps his most important work was Iqtisaduna
(Our Economics), considered an important work of Islamic economics.[30][31]

Criticism

One observation made of Islamization is that increased piety and adoption of Sharia has "in no
way changed the rules of the political or economic game", by leading to greater virtue. "Ethnic
and tribal segmentation, political maneuvering, personal rivalries" have not diminished, nor has
corruption in politics and economics based on speculation.[32]

See also
 International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism

Petro-Islam

Ahmadiyya

Contemporary Islamic philosophy

Islamistan

Islamization of knowledge

Islam and modernity

Notes

1. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck (1991). The Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography (h
ttps://books.google.com/books?id=9wsH2c7mYm8C&q=islam+revival+tajdid&pg=PA24) . Greenwood
Publishing Group. pp. 24–25. ISBN 9780313247194.

2. Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition).
pp. 521–523. ISBN 978-0-521-51430-9.

3. Brown, Daniel W. (1996). Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought (https://www.scribd.com/docum

ent/116836545/Rethinking-Traditions-in-Modern-Islamic-Thought-Daniel-w-Brown) . Cambridge
University Press. p. 109. ISBN 0521570778. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

4. Lapidus, Ira M. (1997). "Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical
Paradigms". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 40 (4): 444–460.
doi:10.1163/1568520972601486 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F1568520972601486) . JSTOR 3632403 (h
ttps://www.jstor.org/stable/3632403) . "The terms commonly used for Islamic revival movements are
fundamentalist, Islamist or revivalist."

5. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: pp. 126–27

6. Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: on the Trail of Political Islam, Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 75

7. Lapidus, p. 823

8. described by the French Islam researchers Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy

9. Lapidus, p. 828

10. Lapidus, Ira M. (1997). "Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical
Paradigms". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 40 (4): 444–60.
doi:10.1163/1568520972601486 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F1568520972601486) . JSTOR 3632403 (h
ttps://www.jstor.org/stable/3632403) . "The terms commonly used for Islamic revival movements are
fundamentalist, Islamist or revivalist."
11. R. Habeck, Mary (2006). Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. London: Yale
University Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-300-11306-4.

12. Neal Robinson (2013), Islam: A Concise Introduction, Routledge, ISBN 978-0878402243, Chapter 7, pp.
85–89

13. Sunan Abu Dawood, 37:4278 (https://web.archive.org/web/19700101010101/http://cmje.usc.edu/religio

us-texts/hadith/abudawud/037-sat.php#037.4278)

14. " "September 11 and the Struggle for Islam" by Robert W. Hefner" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070502
070322/http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/hefner.htm) . Archived from the original (http://www.ssrc.o
rg/sept11/essays/hefner.htm) on 2007-05-02. Retrieved 2007-05-10.

15. Sohail H. Hashimi, "Afghani, Jamal Al-Din" Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Thomson Gale,
2004

16. The New Encyclopedia of Islam by Cyril Glasse, Altamira, 2008, p. 15

17. R. Habeck, Mary (2006). Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. London: Yale
University Press. pp. 27–29. ISBN 0-300-11306-4.

18. Jamaat-e-Islami (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/pakistan/ji.htm)

19. Cook, Michael, The Koran, a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 43

20. Leonid Grinin, Islamism and Globalization (https://www.sociostudies.org/journal/articles/2440956/) ,

Journal of Globalization Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2019), pp. 21–36

21. Jean-Paul Carvalho. "A Theory of the Islamic Revival" (http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/TheoryIslamicR

evival.pdf) (PDF).

22. Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam By Robin Wright, pp. 65–66

23. Wright, Sacred Rage, p. 66

24. interview by Robin Wright of UK Foreign Secretary (at the time) Lord Carrington in November 1981,
Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam by Robin Wright, Simon and Schuster, (1985), p. 67

25. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck (1991). The Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography (h
ttps://books.google.com/books?id=9wsH2c7mYm8C&pg=PA24) . Greenwood Publishing. p. 24.
ISBN 0313247196. Retrieved 17 December 2014.

26. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: p. 4

27. Lapidus, p. 829

28. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: pp. 92–93

29. Wright, Robin, Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East, Penguin Press, 2008, p. 245
30. The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf, and the Shi'i International (http://www.me
forum.org/article/825)

31. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza (1993). "Reviewed work: The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias, Joyce N. Wiley".
International Journal of Middle East Studies. 25 (4): 718–719. doi:10.1017/S0020743800059560 (http
s://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0020743800059560) . JSTOR 164565
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/164565) .

32. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: p. 26

Roy, Olivier (1994). The Failure of Political Islam (https://archive.org/details/failureofpolitic00

royo) . Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674291409. Retrieved 2 April 2015. "The Failure
of Political Islam muslim world league."

Further reading

Rahnema, Ali ; Pioneers of Islamic Revival (Studies in Islamic Society); London: Zed Books, 1994
[1] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1856492540)

Lapidus, Ira Marvin, A History of Islamic Societies (https://books.google.com/books?id=I3mVU

Ezm8xMC&pg=PA814&lpg=PA814&dq=lapidus+islamic+revival&source=web&ots=0UAYT2vhj
P&sig=P34ggZQe5JEBbR1RCABdAsd9pFc) , Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (August
26, 2002)

Roy, Olivier; Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (CERI Series in Comparative Politics
and International Studies); 1994 [2] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231134991/)

Vali, Nasr (2006). The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=a-QH_CxIFTEC&q=The+Shia+Revival%3A+How+Conflicts+Within+I
slam+will+Shape+the+Future) . W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393066401. Retrieved
23 December 2015.

External links

The Islamic revival in Egypt (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/special/islam/3136154.

stm)

Islamic revival in Jordan (http://countrystudies.us/jordan/41.htm)

Africa and Islamic Revival: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (http://www.uga.edu/isl

am/hunwick.html)
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