Ali Al-Madan – Iraqi writer and researcher
Summary:
This article presents, based on historical methodology, an analytical monitoring of the thinking of Iraqi Shiite Islamists in political action and their definition of their political identity within the state, and their transition from internationalist Islamic thinking in the utopia of the Islamic State to identity thinking in the national state. It asks a set of questions: How Shia Islamists viewed their first political activism What are the foundations of their political project for the state they want to achieve What are the circumstances that accompanied their transition to political thinking identities And what are the features of this last reflection Did the Shiites before the stage of political Islam ever think or represent themselves about my identity, or did this thinking not exist and then arose later Are there any problems that the Iraqi state and society could face with this latest transfer The paper concludes that the Shiite Iraqis did not think politically about their religious identity, despite their recognition of the existence of a Shiite sectarian identity, as is the case with the rest of the Islamic sects, and that their first Islamic political activity The religiosity of politics arose until the events of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the Islamists in exile re-understood the problem of the state and governance in Iraq as a “sectarian problem” and then escalated with this new understanding the definition of their political activity based on transnational identities, and that this thinking led to the division of Iraqi society and the weakening of the national state, and that the more this thinking of influence and domination decreased the chances of Iraq’s survival as a unified state or at least a successful unified state.
First: the concept of political Islam
Not so long ago, the term “political Shiism” was widely used in the literature of writing and political analysis to describe the Shiite Islamic political forces acting on the Iraqi scene, which led many to question the meaning of this term and the justifications for its use or even the need for it in characterizing the contemporary Iraqi political scene. In some of our published research and articles, we have already used this term in the context of analyzing the presence and development of the religious issue in the Iraqi public sphere intellectually and politically, but some objectors to the use of the term did not combine those introductions that have already been explained with the result that follows. What we are trying to do here is to clarify the term and explain the justifications for its use without going into the many details that we have discussed in detail in those previous writings. Since the term ” political Shiism “is an evolution in the system of Shiite Islamic political thinking, understanding the conceptual change it implies on that system will not be possible unless it is preceded by a clarification of the concept of” political Islam ” as adopted by Shiite Muslim political groups.
The term political Islam refers to the idea that Islam as a religion is an intellectual system consisting of Sharia and the state, that the state cannot be separated from Sharia, and that this Sharia is not just jurisprudence related to society, but also a “political vision” that calls for the establishment of a political system emanating from it, founded on it and bearing its name, namely the Islamic political system. When we think of Islam as a religion, it is not enough to talk about its belief in God, its moral qualities and values, or even the legislative principles that it believes in, but we also need to form a “political system” that governs in the name of Islam, and without this political system our thinking about Islam is incomplete. Not only that, but any other political system that is not based on this Islamic law is a “kafir” system that Muslims may not accept, but their religious duty is to oppose it and revolt against it to overthrow it and replace it with the Islamic political system.
