Transcript Conservative- Saudi Arabia

Turkey --- Saudi Arabia
LIBERAL & CONSERVATIVE
ISLAM
But first, some definitions--• Fundamentalism:
– A form of a religion that upholds belief in the strict,
literal interpretation of scripture.
• Orthodox:
– Accepting and closely following the traditional
beliefs and customs of a religion
• Secular:
– The state of being separate from religion
• …
Comparison…
Conservative- Saudi Arabia
• Conservative:
– holding to traditional attitudes
and values and cautious about
change or innovation, typically
in relation to politics or religion.
– disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, or
to restore traditional ones,
• CIA factbook: Saudi Arabia
• BBC Country Profile: SA
Liberal- Turkey
• Liberal:
– Favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
– Noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive
political reform.
– open to new behavior or
opinions and willing to discard
traditional values.
• CIA factbook: Turkey
• BBC Country Profile: Turkey
The Women…
•
Unshackling themselves:
– http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21602249saudi-women-are-gaining-ground-slowly-unshackling-themselves
•
Huffington Post Blog:
– http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/saudi-arabia-women
•
Wadjda:
– http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/16/wadjda-oscars-saudiarabia
•
Women will vote:
– http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/world/middleeast/women-tovote-in-saudi-arabia-king-says.html?pagewanted=all
•
Women who dared to drive:
– http://www.ted.com/talks/manal_al_sharif_a_saudi_woman_who_da
red_to_drive.html
• Wahhabi:
Wahhabi
– a member of a strictly orthodox Sunni Muslim sect from Saudi
Arabia; strives to purify Islamic beliefs and rejects any innovation
occurring after the 3rd century of Islam; "Osama bin Laden was
said to be a Wahhabi Muslim"
• The Wahhabi Ulama reject reinterpretation of Quran and Sunna in
regard to issues clearly settled by the early jurists. Wahhabi jurists also
reinterpret areas not decided by the early jurists.
• By rejecting the validity of reinterpretation, Wahhabi doctrine is at odds
with the Muslim reformation movement of the late 1800’s and early
1900’s.
– The Muslim reformation movement sought to reinterpret parts of the Quran and
Sunna to conform with standards set by the West, most notably standards
relating to:
• gender relations
• family law
• participatory democracy
• Ulama: a body of Muslim scholars recognized as having specialist
knowledge of Islamic sacred law and theology
How popular? (Stephen Schwartz on Islam and Wahhabism.
)
• ARABIAN PENINSULA:
– Wahhabism is official in Saudi Arabia.
– It is influential in Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
– It has a substantial following in Yemen, which also has many
Shia Muslims.
– It is unpopular in Bahrain and irrelevant in Oman.
• Outside the Peninsula:
– Wahhabism is generally unpopular. But where trouble is found,
Wahhabism may thrive. Hamas in Israel represents pure
Wahhabism. Forms of neo-Wahhabi or Wahhabized ideology
have been powerful in Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood) and in
Pakistan — in both countries neo-Wahhabis lead attacks on
other Muslims and other faiths. But in both countries mainstream
Muslim scholars continue to struggle against Wahhabism.
Wahhabi aggression was defeated in Algeria and Tajikistan.
Frontline: Saudi Time Bomb?
•
For more than two centuries, Wahhabism has
been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. It is an
austere form of Islam that insists on a literal
interpretation of the Qur’an. Strict Wahhabis
believe that all those who don't practice their form
of Islam are heathens and enemies. Critics say
that Wahhabism's rigidity has led it to misinterpret
and distort Islam, pointing to extremists such as
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
•
Wahhabism's explosive growth began in the
1970s when Saudi charities started funding
Wahhabi schools (madrassas) and mosques from
Islamabad to Culver City, California. Here are
excerpts from FRONTLINE's interviews with Mai
Yamani, an anthropologist who studies Saudi
society; Vali Nasr, an authority on Islamic
fundamentalism; Maher Hathout, spokesperson
for the Islamic Center of Southern California; and
Ahmed Ali, a Shi'a Muslim from Saudi Arabia.
(Also see the Links and Readings section of this
site for more analyses of Wahhabism and Saudi
Arabia.)
Turkey
Comparison…
Liberal- Turkey
Conservative- Saudi Arabia
• Liberal:
• Conservative:
– Favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
– Noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive
political reform.
– open to new behavior or
opinions and willing to
discard traditional values.
• CIA factbook: Turkey
• BBC Country Profile: Turkey
– holding to traditional
attitudes and values and
cautious about change or
innovation, typically in
relation to politics or religion.
– disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, or
to restore traditional ones,
• CIA factbook: Saudi Arabia
• BBC Country Profile: SA
2013: Protests
•
•
•
•
•
What Happened?
What started as a peaceful sit-in over
plans to demolish a park (GEZI PARK)
in central Istanbul has grown to become
the biggest protest movement against
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan since he was elected more
than 10 years ago.
The police crackdown on the park
demonstrators set off the wider unrest.
Now, the scope of the protests shows
there is a bigger issue, about freedom of
speech and accusations of heavyhanded government, at stake.
Elected to power than a decade ago,
Erdogan is the most powerful
politician Turkey has seen in
generations, but his approach to
leadership doesn't sit well with all Turks.
WON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN
2014
What’s next?
–
–
CNN (with pictures)
Live Protests via Social Media
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
• “Concerns at creeping
Islamisation spilled over into
mass protests in various cities
in the summer of 2013, to
which the police responded
with violence and the
government with a confusion
of bluster and apology. For the
first time in his decade in
power, Prime Minister
Erdogan began to look
politically vulnerable.”- BBC
Country Profile
• Alcohol banned:
• End to Turkey’s Headscarf
• White Turks/ Black Turks
– The Story
Turkey Today…
Riots and protests have
highlighted an underlying
schism in Turkish society
reaching back to the 1920s
when
Mustafa
Kemal
Ataturk forged a secular
republic from the ruins of
an
Ottoman
theocracy.
He banished Islam from
public life, replaced Arabic
with
Latin
script
and
promoted Western dress
and women's rights.
”the path”
• Islamic Code of Laws based on: No separation between
Church and State!
• 4 Main sources of Sharia
– The Qur’an
– Sunna: teachings of Muhammad
– Ijma- Perceptions of religious Scholars
– Qiyas- methods that arose when jurists agreed on new legal
principles
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS
SHARI’A PRACTICED???
• Government under God. In those Muslim countries where Islam is the
official religion listed in the constitution, Sharia Law is declared to be a
source, or the source, of the laws. Examples include:
– Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, where the
governments derive their legitimacy from Islam.
– In Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, among others, it is also forbidden to enact legislation
that is antithetical to Islam.
– Saudi Arabia employs one of the strictest interpretations of sharia. Women are
not allowed to drive, are under the guardianship of male relatives at all times, and
must be completely covered in public. Elsewhere, governments are much more
lenient, as in the United Arab Emirates, where alcohol is tolerated. Non-Muslims
are not expected to obey sharia and in most countries, they are the jurisdiction of
special committees and adjunct courts under the control of the government.
• Completely Secular. Muslim countries where the government is declared to
be secular in the constitution include:
– Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tajikistan, Chad, Somalia, and Senegal. Islamist parties run
for office occasionally in these countries and sharia often influences local
customs. Popular Islamist groups are often viewed as a threat by existing
governments.
– Turkey: Under the suspicion that the majority party, the Islamist Justice and
Development Party, was trying to establish sharia, Turkey's chief prosecutor
petitioned the constitutional court (Economist) in March 2008 to bar the party
from politics altogether. One of the politicians indicted, Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, told Newsweek, "Turkey has achieved what people said could
never be achieved--a balance between Islam, democracy, secularism and
modernity."