Monday, February 11, 2013

Explain the goals of Islamic revitalization movements such as Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula and dan Fodio’s movement in West Africa. How were these programs affected by the new world order? What alternative did Islamic revitalization propose?

Both Unman dan Fodio and Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab led conservative, revivalist Islamic movements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Dan Fodio in Nigeria and al-Wahhab in modern Saudi Arabia decried what they saw as a lapse in, or corruption of, pure Islamic principles. Their movements were reactionary, or at least conservative, and they appealed to an idealized past in which people practiced a purer faith. Both men assembled considerable followings in their own time, but their beliefs gained a new relevance in the late twentieth century.
Wahhabism is the official state faith of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and its tenets appeal to many Muslims around the world who decry the influence of Western culture, which many see as sinful and decadent. Wahhabism, or Salafism (the broader fundamentalist movement that it fits into), have influenced many who have called for jihad (holy war) against the West and Muslims who do not agree with its tenets. In Nigeria, fundamentalist groups such as Boko Haram specifically cite dan Fodio as a model for the kind of society they wish to create. They, like Wahhabists, are offended by Western mores and culture and wish to purge it from their society, which they hope to set up as an Islamic caliphate. In this, they hope to emulate dan Fodio. Both Wahhabists and modern admirers of dan Fodio view violence and warfare as legitimate ways to spread and impose their faiths on others.
https://origins.osu.edu/article/all-politics-local-understanding-boko-haram/page/0/1

https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/usman-dan-fodio

https://www.salon.com/2018/09/13/inside-the-saudi-terror-machine-understanding-wahhabism-and-salafism/


The goal of Sunni Islamic revitalization movements like Uthman dan Fodio's and Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab's is to reform Islam from religious innovations and abuses. Dan Fodio criticized Africa's Muslim leaders for deviation from Sharia law, excessive taxation, greed, and paganism and organized his followers to undertake jihad against them in order to overthrow them and establish the Sokoto caliphate.
Al-Wahhab was concerned with religious innovation or heresy and, in particular, the visitation and veneration of Muslim saints which practice he considered to be heretical or even idolatrous. He formed an alliance with Muhammed bin Saud to form the first Saudi state: the Emirate of Diriyah. With the consolidation of Saudi power in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the descendants of al-Wahhab are the guardians of Saudi Arabia's state Salafi religion.
If by the New World Order we mean the globalization of Western political and cultural norms including the secular state (separation of religion and state) it has provoked a backlash among Islamic fundamentalists desiring Muslim theocratic states under Sharia law. The New World Order culture package was also perceived in the Islamic world as advocating moral decline and the denigration of traditional moral standards, especially from the 1960s to the present. This trend of perceived cultural decadence radicalized many young Muslims who had previously idealized the West and had been assimilating to Western cultural norms.
Sunni Islamic revitalization proposed the establishment of Islamic states governed by a strict interpretation of Sharia law.

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