Society, Politics and Ideologies
in the Modern Arab East
A Trans-Asian Academic Roundtable
Edited by

Ayaka KURODA and Shun WATANABE

Asia-Japan Research Institute
Ritsumeikan University

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

AJI BOOKSSociety, Politics and Ideologies
in the Modern Arab East:
A Trans-Asian Academic Roundtable
Editors
Ayaka KURODA and Shun WATANABE

Asia-Japan Research Institute
Ritsumeikan University
ISBN 978-4-910550-02-2 (Online)
ISBN 978-4-910550-03-9 (Print)iSociety, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East:
A Trans-Asian Academic Roundtable

AJI Editorial Office
OIC Research Office,Ritsumeikan University Osaka Ibaraki Campus (OIC)
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Osaka 567-8570 JAPAN
Email: aji-eb@st.ritsumei.ac.jp

Copyright © 2023 Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University
Note:
Authors’ names in this publication are ordered according to their preference andtheir surnames are capitalized.

ii

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Contents
Editors’ Preface
Ayaka KURODA, Shun WATANABE

iv

Contributors

vi

Chapter 1. Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary
Jordan: Implications from the Process of Decentralization
Shun WATANABE

1

Chapter 2. The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon: Israel,
Hizbullah, and the UN Peacekeeping Forces
Susann KASSEM
19
Chapter 3. Defending Islamic Jerusalem: The Debate over the
Muslims’ Sacred Journey and Arab-Israeli Normalization
Kensuke YAMAMOTO

32

Chapter 4. Questioning Secular Modernity: The Political Visions ofIslamic Intellectuals in Egypt and their Quest for the Civil Society
Ayaka KURODA
48

iii

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Editors’ Preface
This volume is a record of the workshop series entitled,“International Workshop for Trans-Asian Academic Communication,”
held in January and February 2021, organized by Asia-Japan ResearchInstitute, Ritsumeikan University.
The Covid-19 pandemic, which spread rapidly across the worldin the spring of 2020, put many researchers in a challenging situation.
In the area of field science, many researchers had to cancel their fieldsurveys, and were unable to travel to participate in academic conferences
overseas. From the very early stage of the pandemic, the Asia-Japan
Research Institute has been seeking ways to continue research activities
and have academic exchanges with researchers abroad, even whenoverseas travel is impossible. The international workshops held inJanuary and February 2021 are some of the fruits of such efforts.
In this workshop, early-career scholars in Middle Eastern studies
gave their presentations and engaged in lively discussions on how tounderstand politics, society, and ideologies in the Arab East. Coming
ten years after the Arab Uprising, it was the perfect time to discuss thepolitical, social, and cultural transformations in the region. Although
not all the presenters mention the Uprising directly, all the presentations
included in the booklet deal with the transformations that have happenedin this region in the last decade. As a valuable record of our attempt toseek academic exchange under the pandemic, we decided to publish thecontents of the selected presentations.
We organized two workshops under the series of “International
Workshop for Trans-Asian Academic Communication.” The firstiv

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

workshop, “Understanding Political Quandaries in the Modern Arab
East” was held on January 26 and the second one, “Ideologies andSocial Movements in the Modern Arab East” was held on February 2.
Although we cannot list all their names here, we received tremendous
support from many people in organizing the workshop and publishing
the booklet. First of all, we would like to show our deepest gratitude
for those who all participated and engaged actively in the workshop,
especially Dr. Susann Kassem from the University of Oxford, Dr. NateGeorge from SOAS University of London, and Prof. Takuro Kikkawa
from Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University, Japan.
The first workshop was held with the cooperation of Sasakawa
Peace Foundation, Japan. We would like to show our deepest gratitude
to the Director of the Foundation, Ms. Junko Chano. Thanks to thefellowship program provided by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Shun
Watanabe, one of the editors, had an opportunity to engage in researchat the University of Oxford for two years, which later became the basisof this workshop. Our sincere gratitude also goes to Prof. Eugene Roganfrom the University of Oxford, who supported his research life while in
the UK and assisted in organizing this event.
This series of workshops was also supported by the research grantof Asia-Japan Research Institute to organize international academic
gatherings. Prof. Yasushi Kosugi, the director of Asia-Japan ResearchInstitute has been extremely supportive in organizing this workshop.
Prof. Anthony Brewer, Dr. Toshiyuki Takeda, and Mr. Tahei Okamoto
have made enormous efforts to edit and publish this volume. Dr. Ammar
Khashan provided technical support for organizing the workshop online.
At the time of the workshop, we did not know when this difficult
health emergency would end. We have tried to continue exploring new
forms of research as building new friendships was essential in our
research activities, even under the circumstances in which people rarelyvSociety, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

meet face to face and have difficulty in traveling.
After two years, the situation has improved markedly. However,
we are not back in the pre-Covid era but seem to have started livingin the post-Covid one. We must carry the lessons of those pandemic
years, when we tried to establish a new style of research life, into thenext period. We hope that the fruits of our efforts in that era remain
meaningful in the post-Covid era as well.

March 2023
Ayaka KURODA
Shun WATANABE

vi

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Contributors
Dr. Shun WATANABE
Chapter 1: Transformation of the Ruling
Coalition in Contemporary Jordan:
Implications from the Process ofDecentralization
S h u n Wa t a n a b e i s a r e s e a r c h e r o f
JIME Center, The Institute of Energy
Economics, Japan. He was previously avisiting Researcher at Oxford School of
Global and Area Studies, University of
Oxford (Sasakawa Peace Foundation fellow) / Visiting Researcher at
Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research Organization. He holds a Ph.D. in
Area Studies, Kyoto University. His field of expertise includes Middle
East Area Studies, Comparative Politics, and International Relations.
His research interests focus on Jordanian politics and Arab monarchies.
His publications include: Ruling Networks and Resource Distribution
in the Contemporary Arab Monarchies: Quest of a Non-Oil Monarchy,
Jordan (Kyoto: Nakanishiya, 2022, in Japanese); “Challenges for
National Dialogue in the Post-Arab Spring Era: The Case of Bahrain”(Journal of the Asia-Japan Research Institute of Ritsumeikan University,(1), 2019, pp. 56–72); “Political Reflections on Contemporary
Monarchies and Its Typologies in the Global Perspective: An Attempt toAnalyze Arab Monarchical States and Their Genealogical Legitimacy”(Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, (11), 2018, pp. 256–303, inJapanese).

vii

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Dr. Susann KASSEM
Chapter 2: The Struggle for Power inSouthern Lebanon: Israel, Hizbullah, andthe UN Peacekeeping Forces
Susann Kassem is currently a Leverhulme
Early Career Fellow with the Middle East
Centre and the Faculty of Oriental Studies
at the University of Oxford. She waspreviously a Sasakawa Peace Foundation
Fellow and Postdoctoral Research Officer
in Middle East Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies.
She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Graduate Institute ofInternational and Development Studies in Geneva, an M.A in Middle
Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut, and a B.A
in European Ethnology and Area Studies Asia/Africa from Humboldt
Universität zu Berlin. Her research examines the role of international
interventions carried out in the name of peace in the post-Cold War era.

viii

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Dr. Kensuke YAMAMOTO
Chapter 3: Defending Islamic Jerusalem:
The Debate over the Muslims’ Sacred
Journey and Arab-Israeli Normalization
Kensuke Yamamoto is a Senior AssistantProfessor at the University of Shizuoka.
He holds a Ph.D. in Area Studies from
Kyoto University. His specialization is
Middle Eastern Politics and Palestine
Studies. In 2020 he published a bookin Japanese entitled Conflicts over Sacred Spaces and the City ofJerusalem: Palestinians and Israeli Occupation/Annexation Policies(Kyoto: Koyo Shobo, 2020, in Japanese).

ixSociety, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Dr. Ayaka KURODA
Chapter 4: Questioning Secular Modernity:
The Political Visions of Islamic Intellectualsin Egypt and their Quest for the Civil
Society
Ayaka Kuroda is an Associate Professor,
Ritsumeikan Asia-Japan Research
Organization, Ritsumeikan University.
She has a Ph.D. in Area Studies, from
Kyoto University. Her specialties include
Studies of Islamic Political Thought, Middle Eastern Studies, andStudy of Modern Egypt. Among her works are: Moderate Islamic
Thinkers Formulating the Future: In the Midst of Social and Political
Transformation in Contemporary Egypt (Kyoto: Nakanishiya, 2019,
in Japanese); “Modern Statehood, Democracy, and Women’s Political
Rights: The Reconstruction of Political Thought in Egyptian Moderate
Islamic Trend” (Orient: Journal of the Society for Near Eastern Studies
in Japan, (56), 2021, pp. 121–140) ; “Rethinking Discussions on ‘Islam’and ‘State’ in Contemporary Egypt: The Community Based Approachin Ṭāriq al-Bishrī’s Political and Legal Thought” (Annals of Japan
Association for Middle East Studies, 34 (2), 2019, pp. 1–34).

xChapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition inContemporary Jordan: Implications from theProcess of Decentralization
Shun WATANABE
1. Introduction
The question of the Jordanian monarchy’s stability has gathered
academic attention for several decades. This question is becoming
more important today: political and economic liberal reforms areprevalent in the Arab world but authoritarian rulers in the region havebeen holding on to their rule. The liberal reforms will apparently leadto democratization, but it seems not to be the case in the Arab region.
Jordan is one of the first countries among Arab monarchies that started
liberal reforms, which means that the Hashimite monarchy is one of thebest examples in addressing this issue.
This chapter focuses on the case study of decentralization in Jordan,
one of the most recent political reforms in the country. This research isbased on the author’s fieldwork in Jordan in the summer of 2019, under
the fellowship of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
This chapter consists of four parts. The first section will address
the contemporary politics of Jordan. The second section will
describe the social and political backgrounds that decentralization
emerges from. In part three, the author is going to look into the casestudies of decentralization. After a brief introduction of the case ofdecentralization, two issues are examined. One is the function of a newly1Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

created local council named governmental Council, Majlis al-Muḥāfaẓa
in Arabic. The other is the discussion about the amendment to thedecentralization law. The final part will conclusion and implications forthe stability of the Jordanian monarchy in this era.

Figure 1. The Monastery of Ad Deir in Petra
Source: Getty Images

2. Contemporary Politics in Jordan
Jordan is a monarchy whose king has significant political power at
the center of the regional regime. Despite its poor racist conditions, themonarchy has maintained its rule since its birth in the 1920s. It is widely
argued that the monarchy’s durability is supported by its indigenous,
Trans-Jordanian or sometimes called Jordanian-Jordanian population.
In Jordan today, people of Palestinian origin, Palestinian Jordanians,
outnumber the indigenous Trans-Jordanians. Such Palestinian
Jordanians may live in urban areas whereas Trans-Jordanians dominate
the rural areas. Then why is such a minority group, Trans-Jordanians
the key to regional maintenance? Their importance is due to the2Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

historically created divide and rule attitude between Trans-Jordanian andPalestinian-Jordanians, especially after the clash between the Jordanian
government and the Palestinian militia in 1970, the so-called Black
September Organization. Palestinian Jordanians came to be regarded
as a potential opposition to the regime, and under this social distrust
among the population the regime formalized a kind of division of labor,
where Trans-Jordanians dominated the public sector and were provided
with a range of public resources including preferential social welfare,employment opportunities, especially joining the military, and otherforms of social services.
On the other hand, Palestinian Jordanians dominated the private
sector, but they did not have well granted access to public resources.
Besides, this division of labor presupposed the population’s acceptanceof the reigning regime, which meant that such a political economic
contract was accompanied by authoritarian repression of the opposition.
As such the Jordanian regime relied on Trans-Jordanians as a royalsupporting base under the country’s social ethnological divisions in
exchange for the public resources.
However, such a ruling formula reached a turning point at the endof the 1980s. The country’s economic downfall made it impossible forthe regime to sustain the Trans-Jordanian favoring governance. Suchgovernance put high pressures on the state budget. With international
financial institutions support, mainly the IMF and World Bank. The
country started to introduce a series of neoliberal market reforms,
including reducing subsidies to fuels, privatizing the nationally owned
companies and trade liberalization. This precedent was accelerated in theera of the new King Abdullah II from 1999, and a free trade agreementwith the US that was signed in 2000, just a short period after the newking’s succession, is the most prominent example of this liberalization.
It was the first FTA between the US and the Arab countries.
3Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Figure 2. King Abdullah II of Jordan
Source: Getty Images
In pursuing such economic liberalization policies, the king has
recruited business oriented technocratic elites to the region. This
policy inevitably undermined the dominance of the ruling coalition andneoliberal elites in the ruling regime.
Based on these political and economic developments, students of
Jordanian politics have started to question the country’s stability underTrans-Jordanians’ support for the regime. For example, Curtis Ryan
(2011) mentioned a conflict between Trans-Jordanian old guards andneoliberal elites in the ruling regime. However, this research field isstill under development, and thus we need more detailed analysis on
this topic, and this study aims at filling this gap and deepening ourunderstanding of Jordanian politics and Arab monarchies.
Based on this understanding, this chapter aims to address thisquestion: What effect does the transformation of the ruling coalitionof the Jordanian regime from the Trans-Jordanian elites dominatedcoalition to a coalition with newly rising neoliberal elites, have in
4Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

Jordanian politics? Here the words “ruling coalition” derive from thetheory of authoritarianism, which is defined as those individuals who
support the government and jointly with the dictator hold enough power
to be necessary and sufficient for its survival (Svolik, 2009, 478).
The point here is that that ruling coalition is considered as the focal
point of power sharing in the authoritarian regime. The authoritarianregime’s maintenance depends on the region’s ability to keep the rulingcoalition united and prevent an organized revolt against the existing
regime. Here you can see the importance of this study of the courseof Jordanian politics, which not only reflects the characteristics of theauthoritarian rule in Jordan today, but lies at the center of the stability of
the Jordanian monarchy.
Based on this situation, this study examines the decentralization
reform as a case study. This reform is one of Jordan’s most recent
political reforms starting from 2007. The Jordanian state hashistorically been centralized, but the country is attempting to transfer
authority and responsibility to intermediate and local governments.
Dedecentralization is defined by Litvack and Seddon (1999) as thetransfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from thecentral government to intermediate and local governments or quasiindependent government organizations and/or the private sector. As
this definition implies, the process of decentralization covers various
dimensions in society. However, this study concentrates its focus on thedecentralization reform’s political and administrative dimensions andattempts to grasp its influence on the country’s ruling coalition.
Why do the decentralization reforms matter to the ruling coalition?
Because the decentralization process includes the transfer of authority
from the central government to the sub-national governments, it
inevitably concerns elites at the center of the government and othertrans-Jordanian elites in the rural areas. This decentralization could
5Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

affect the stability of the ruling coalition.
Furthermore, this research adopts the perspective of multi-levelgovernance. The point here is twofold. Firstly, this study attempts
to examine the case of decentralization not solely as the issue oflawmaking at the central government level, nor of local politics
independent of the politics of the center, but that of the interaction
between the center and local politics. This is a gap in the current
scholarship of Jordanian studies, which addresses central and local
politics separately.
Secondly, the study takes the decision-making power as the power
able to determine the distribution of state resources. This applies toalmost all political entities in the world, but it significantly applies tothe case of Jordan, where the distribution of state resources has been
extensively employed to gain support from the constituencies, especiallyfrom Trans-Jordanians as mentioned before. Therefore, this chapter
will show an attempt to examine the effect of decentralization on themechanism of state resource distribution in Jordan from the perspectiveof multi-level governance. Before going into details about the caseof decentralization, the following section briefly looks at the current
situation of the ruling coalition Jordan.

3. Ruling Coalition in Jordan: Social and Political
Backgrounds of Decentralization
As was mentioned earlier, there is a political cleavage between
indigenous Trans-Jordanians, for short TJ and Palestinian-Jordanians,
for short PJ. This cleavage was politicized and created a division oflabor, upon which the Hashemite regime kept its stability. However,such a formula has been under pressure since the beginning of neoliberalpolicies.
6

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

Faced with the challenge, the regime had to create a new rulingstrategy to maintain support from the TJ population instead of dependingon generous state resource distributions. The regime subsequently
created a new ruling strategy: competitive clientelism.
This is a term coined by Ellen Lust (2009). The regime maintains
support for TJ deputies and provides the constituencies with a certain
degree of access to state resources. This system is supported by the TJ
favored or rural favored election system, which grants more value to thevotes of rural constituencies than those in the urban areas.
The political development we have seen thus far shows how the
Jordanian regime succeeded in transforming their ruling strategy tomaintain the status quo under the changing conditions that the region
rests upon. However, the regime also introduced a new strategy, different
from the previous formula. It was the active, incremental appointmentof business oriented technical elites to the government or newly createdadvisory organizations through royal appointments.
The recruitment reflects technological technocratic considerations
but was viewed as a potential threat to the TJ elites vested interests. This
rise of business elites created political competition between them andtraditional TJ elites in the ruling coalition, both in the form of conflictand compromise. The rights of business elites in the Jordanian regime
are reflected in the appointment of prime ministers as can be seen in thisfigure. In a democratic Parliament system such as we can see in the UK
or Japan, the prime minister is chosen by the majority in the parliament.
However, in the case of Jordan, the appointment is made at the King’s
discretion.

7

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Figure 3. Pattern of Career Background of the Appointed Prime Ministers
Source: The Author
The Figure 3 illustrates the trends in the appointment of the prime
minister in Jordanian history classified by the appointee’s background.
Though this tells us that the government and other public offices are theprime route to the Prime Ministership, when we have a closer look at
the recent trends since 1989, we can find a significant increase of prime
ministers from the private sector.

4. Case Studies: Decentralization in Jordan
In the following section, I will analyze the case of decentralizationin Jordan, focusing on the conflict and compromise between the twogroups in the ruling coalition namely Trans-Jordanian elites andbusiness-oriented technocrats.
Jordan has a two-tier local administration system with ninety-nine
municipalities (baladiyya) and twelve governorates (muḥāfaẓa), andthree special districts. Roughly speaking, the government is the same asa county in the UK and prefecture in Japan.
The difference between these two types of local administration
8

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordanlies in the degree of autonomy and jurisdiction they are subjected to.
The municipality has some degree of autonomy, having its budget andelected mayor, and it is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of local
administration.
There exists some discussion on the degree of substantial autonomy
in the municipality, but mostly the ministry has enjoyed some degree of
autonomy since the formulation of municipal law in 1954.
Conversely, the governorates have been under substantial controlof the Ministry of Interior, which decides the budget and appoints theadministrator, or muḥāfiẓ in Arabic.
The centrally appointed muḥāfiẓ enjoys his discretion in the decision
making at the governate by utilizing his firm grip on the security
apparatus, which is also governed by the Ministry of Interior.

Figure 4. Parliamentary Elections in Jordan
Source: Getty Images
The decentralized election reform challenges this centralized local
administration in Jordan. Ten years after King Abdullah II announced
the district’s decentralization plan, the decentralization law wasformulated in 2015.
9Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

It strengthened the local autonomy of the municipalities andgovernorates by establishing an elected council for the first time in
Jordanian history at the level of governorate. Its first election was
conducted in 2017, as well as the council’s election at the municipality
level of the mayor and newly elected figures hold office for four years.
The following sections examine the situations of the first term since
the decentralization law was enacted and the election was held and thediscussions over amending the decentralization law. These studies focus
on the multi-level governance and not solely on the politics of centernor on the local politics.
(1) First Term of Decentralization in Jordan
This is an analysis of the first term of decentralization in Jordan
since 2017. Under the decentralization law, there are three levels of
local elections in Jordan: governorate council, mayor, and municipal
and local councils. Despite the difference in the type of elections, theelections’ overall results were the same, that is, the dominance of tribal
figures. One of the most prominent independent newspapers in Jordan
al-Ghad, reported that 85% of the seats are dominated by tribal, regional
and independent candidates. This is no surprise because the election
rules are created in the tribal figures favor, as is the case of the national
parliament. In fact, in the parliamentary elections in 2016, it is reported
that independents won 73% of the seats. In the context of the Jordanianelection, independents are generally composed of conservative pro
regime and tribal figures.
Some opposition figures choose to run as independents, but the
number of such candidates is limited. Similarly, those candidates
who are party affiliated are oppositional in general. There are somepro-regime conservative parties, but most of them are small, poorly
organized and prone to dissolution soon after the election.
10Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

To grasp the challenges of Jordan’s decentralization reform further,
this section also examines the situation of the governorate council.
The governorate council has two main challenges. The first is thecouncil’s legal framework. As explained earlier, the governate council
is a newly created advisory council of the governorate. This reflects
the decentralization law’s aim to strengthen the representation of the
population’s will in the governorate level policies. However, there are
significant legal limitations in the role of the council. All the council
can do is to provide advice to the governorate administration, and it
does not make policy decisions at the governorate. It seems to reflect acompromise between the old-school and the reform initiative. On the
one hand, the establishment of the governorate council reflects the ideaof decentralization to strengthen the input from the local populations,and the idea of planning development projects at the governorate level
itself is a landmark for the local administration in Jordan. However
historically, historically, the governorate has been tightly controlled
by the governor, who is appointed by the Minister of Interior and isroutinely shuffled to another Governorate.
Reflecting the Ministry of Interior’s jurisdiction, one of thegovernment’s prominent roles has been the maintenance of publicorder. In the interviews with members of the various governorates’
councils, the author found that almost all of them internalize the official
explanations of the Council’s role as an administrative advisory bodyrather than autonomous political decision maker. This sounds as if thecouncil members are conservative and prone to maintaining the statusquo and pro-regime figures, but they also share their views with thereformers, the neoliberal technocratic elites. They acknowledge thehistorical state dominance of resource distribution and the prevalenceof clientelistic distribution in the country and argue that the country
needs another mechanism that will promote the balanced distribution of11

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

the resources to the citizens. However, as previously mentioned, theirauthority in decision making is restricted by the law which prevents
them from pursuing this goal.
In addition to the legal challenges, they face practical andpolitical challenges, as they lack negotiation power against the central
government. Because the authority to give licenses and permissions isunder the central ministries, the government has to negotiate with theministers in implementing a project after decisions are made.
If the governorate were to be granted permissions in implementing a
project, they could realize the project smoothly, which would be beneficial
to the local population as the representative of the local population, andas a driver of decentralization. Decentralized governance negotiations
with the central ministry have a lot to do with the governorate council’s
raison d’être and policy decisions. However, the problem is that the
governor council members do not have enough experience or expertise,connections or resources, to smoothly negotiate with the ministers.
Furthermore, legislative power could be beneficial in the negotiations
with the ministry, and this is a case for the members of the Parliament.
In exchange for the cooperation on a specific issue of a ministry’s
administration concern, they could win concessions from them.
However, in the case of governorate council members, they do not havesuch an authority that would be useful in negotiation with the ministry,
which makes the negotiation harder than the case of parliamentarians.
The struggle for the governorate council members is not only
limited to such administrative dimensions, as they are facing politicalchallenges as well. Although they constitute what is officially considered
as an administrative body, as I have mentioned, it represents the local
population as well. The council members have an incentive to provide
benefits to the constituencies to gain votes from them in the upcoming
elections.
12

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

A member of a Governor’s Council showed me a long list of the callhistory on his cell phone and told me that his phone number is open to
anybody, and people do make phone calls to him at any time to ask him
for help. He went on to say that responding to such requests for help isan essential part of his work as a member of the Governorate Council.
This means that structure of competitive clientelism, which was
initially discussed at the level of national politics, has also been applied
to sub-national politics. This predicts that the governing council
members have both administrative and political functions, and, more
importantly what people expect from the governorate council member
is the distribution of state resources, as is the case of parliamentarians.
Parliamentarians and local elected politicians are competing with eachother in providing services to the constituencies.
Moreover, it seems that tribes or political parties do not function asa forum for cooperation among them, but are just competing with eachother to provide resources. Accordingly, the Governorate Council is in adifficult situation both administratively and politically.
(2) Amendment to the Decentralization Law
The latter part of the analytical section looks at the discussion of
the amendment to the decentralization law. At the same time as theimplementation of the decentralization as per the law of 2015, people
had already started to consider reforming it based on their experiencesin the first phase of the project. The discussion has shown us how
people consider the differences of decentralization and how people view
relations between the center and local administrations and politics inthis era.
The decentralization project in Jordan is implemented under the
support of multiple international aid organizations. They provide active
reviews and recommendations to the Jordanian government. In the13Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab Eastcase of discussion of the amendment, a governmental advisory council
named “Economic and Social Council (al-Majlis al-Iqtisadi wa-lIjtimaʿi al-Urdunni),” and a domestic research institute named “Al-Quds
Center for Political Studies (Markaz al-Quds lil-Dirasat al-Siyasiyya),”as well as international agencies, like the USAID and Friedrich-EbertStiftung have provided recommendations.
In this chapter, I focus on the recommendations by the USAID
CITIES project, which is working widely across the country, and has asignificant influence on the government through their close cooperation
with the ministries. “USAID CITIES” is a USAID-funded five-year
project from 2016 for cities, and the name “CITIES” is the acronym of“cities implementing transparent, innovative, and effective solutions.”
It works with the Ministry of Parliament and Political affairs, theMinister of the Interior, and the Ministry of Local Administration,
covering 33 municipalities and all of the 12 governorates. The project
covers different sizes and locations of municipalities. According totheir official document, their task is to support the development of more
inclusive government operations.
In a report named “The National Dialogue for Decentralization,”a summary of the issues was prepared on May 23, 2019. The CITIES
project provides an analysis of the current development of thedecentralization project in Jordan and proposes recommendations forthe amendment of the law (USAID CITIES, 2019).
According to the recommendations, what struck me the most was
the proposal for reorganizing the Governorate Council. Instead of directelections, the plan calls an indirect one when creating the governorate
Council. Specifically, they propose that the governorate council bereorganized as an arena that gathers municipalities and local civilsocieties representatives.
The aim of this proposal is in their view, to reduce conflict in
14

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

elections and promote cooperation in the local administrations. This view
makes sense, but this proposal seems to reflect two additional issues.
The first is the prevalence of the deep-seated distrust for electionsin the country. Generally speaking, abandoning the election process is acostly proposal because it denies the population the opportunity to show
their potential will. Because this proposal was made at such a cost, it
should be fair to expect the people’s frustration at their inability in a
conflict with the administration of the governorate council could exceed
the prohibitive cost of losing their votes.
Secondly, that recommendation seems to reflect an adherence to thedecentralization reforms facet of administrative reform. The proposal
presupposed that the Governorate Council’s had only a limited authority
in policymaking and attempts to strengthen coordination in the Council
within that framework.
Furthermore, two challenges are seen in the amendment proposal.
First, the proposal does not touch upon the central control of local
governments, including the central ministries supremacy on thegovernment administration. I would argue that this reflects the structural
hierarchy in the center-local regions in Jordan.
Secondly, the proposal does not consider the inherently politicalnature of policy making. The proposal regards the governance council
as an administrative body, and its decision making is expected to bemade in a fully technocratic way under the direction of the governorate.
However, it is impossible to avoid any policy advisory judgment inpolicy discussions. Instead, it might be possible that people could
perceive a policy under the governorates as potentially biased and begin
to see the governorate as illegitimate for the population. In other words,
a fundamental but direct election could deepen the cleavage between thelocal administration and the population. This could significantly reducethe ideal of decentralization.
15

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Figure 5. Downtown Amman
Source: Getty Images

5. Conclusion
To summarize the discussion, let me revisit the research question:
What effect does the transformation of the ruling coalition of the
Jordanian regime from conservative to neoliberal one have on Jordanianpolitics?
This study examined the cases of decentralization from theperspective of multi-level governance. That is the interaction between
the central and local administration and politics. The findings of thisstudy are twofold. Firstly, the case of decentralization is an outcomeof a successful compromise between the two groups within the rulingcoalition.
TJ elites maintain their supremacy in access to the state throughtheir dominance in the national and local equity councils. Besides,
they hindered substantial transformation in the process of resource
distribution at the local level. But at the same time, reformers are
16

Chapter 1
Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan

happy, because the proposal for the reform was materialized as aninternationally regarded reform without damaging the interest of theconservatives.
Simultaneously, the project of decentralization is well acknowledgedin the international arena, which is vividly illustrated by the fact thatvarious international aid organizations are committing to the project.
Secondly, the process of decentralization reaffirms central control overthe local society.
This is exemplified by the legal status and actual situation of thegovernmental council and the discussion over the amendment of thedecentralization law. However, it would be too optimistic to say that the
Jordanian government or general regime has successfully resolved thedilemmas of decentralization between the traditional conservative elites
and neoliberal technocratic trends. It could be that such a defensive
response has been achieved at the expense of local autonomy and local
voices, and the substance of the idea of decentralization itself. Thismeans that the legitimacy of the reform in the eyes of local population
is fundamentally weak. We have yet to witness serious dissent from thelocal population to the development of decentralization reform at thistime, but it could still happen considering the continuous demonstrations
and riots in the rural areas since the beginning of labor reforms, which
seem to be gaining strength in recent years.

Bibliography

Ababsa, M. 2015. Jordanie: la décentralisation par décision centraliséeet la démocratie par volonté royale. (In French). In Mona Harb
and Sami Atallah (eds.), Local Governments and Public Goods:
Assessing Decentralization in the Arab World (pp. 139–186).
Beirut: The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies.
17Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Bank, A., and Schlumberger, O. 2004. Jordan: Between Regime
Survival and Economic Reform. In Volker Perthes (ed.), ArabElites: Negotiating the Politics of Change (pp. 35–60). Boulder,
Colorado: Lynne Rienner.
Clark, J. A. 2012. Municipalities Go to Market: Economic Reform andPolitical Contestation in Jordan. Mediterranean Politics, 17(3),358–375.
El-Anis, I. 2010. Jordan and the United States: The Political Economy
of Trade and Economic Reform in the Middle East. London:
I.B.Tauris.
Gao, E. 2016. Tribal Mobilization, Fragmented Groups, and Public
Goods Provision in Jordan. Comparative Political Studies, 49(10),1372–1403.
Litvack, J., and Seddon, J. (eds.). 1999. Decentralization Briefing Notes.
Washington D.C.: World Bank.
Lust, E. 2009. Competitive Clientelism in the Middle East. Journal of
Democracy, 20(3), 122–135.
Ryan, C. R. 2011. Political Opposition and Reform Coalitions in Jordan.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 38(3), 367–390.
Svolik, M. W. 2009. Power Sharing and Leadership Dynamics in
Authoritarian Regimes. American Journal of Political Science,
53(2), 477–494.
USAID CITIES, Decentralization Advisory Unit. 2019. The National
Dialogue for Decentralization: A Summary of Issues. USAID
CITIES.
Yom, S. L. 2014. Tribal Politics in Contemporary Jordan: The Case of
the Hirak Movement. The Middle East Journal, 68(2), 229–247.

18

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon:
Israel, Hizbullah, and the UN Peacekeeping
ForcesSusann KASSEM
1. Introduction
My work in this chapter is a critique of international peacekeeping.
Following the Cold War peacekeeping was increasingly militarized, andthe budget for United Nations peacekeeping missions has been increased
from a total of US $3.6 billion in the year 1994 to US $8.27 billion in theyear 2016. Furthermore, peacekeeping practices are increasingly mergedwith more comprehensive state building and civilian activities, such as
peace negotiation and dispute resolution, community development, andproviding humanitarian assistance and aid in post conflict zones. These
practices are implemented with the goal of winning the trust of thelocal population, in order to facilitate the military goals of the mission.
Linking multinational aid with a multinational army is a new form of
external domination highly reminiscent of colonialism. Despite using
military force, the attempt is to rely on soft power and implementing
peacekeeping. Along the lines of similar studies in the field ofanthropology, such as the anthropology of development, law, and humanrights, my research views the most recent changes to the United Nations
peacekeeping in a neocolonial context.
My research analyzes the conceptualization and practices of theUnited Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), one of the oldest
19Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab Eastand largest peacekeeping forces active today, positioned in the South
Lebanese border zone since the Israeli invasion of 1978. It is basedon ethnographic research that I undertook in the last ten years in rural
South Lebanon. I tracked how UN peacekeeping merges militaryactivities with civilian practices of economic, civic and cultural
engagement in an attempt to implement an idealized political order inthe former colonial world. I especially analyze the role of UNIFIL’s
mission under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,
which followed the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel, after which
UNIFIL was much expanded, moving from about 2,000 soldiers to a
maximum of 15,000. At this time, the mission was largely staffed by
European countries, Italy, France and Spain, which are also leading themission.
UNIFIL after 2006 aimed to eliminate Hizbullah’s political andmilitary activities. Additionally, UNIFIL was much more heavily
armed than the previous force. UNIFIL’s most recent force is aimed
at delimiting the power of Hizbullah, which is largely blamed forthe conflict. In contrast, UNIFIL’s previous mandate was initiallydeployed to ensure the withdrawal of Israel’s foreign occupying
force, which had occupied South Lebanon between 1978 and 2000.
Hizbullah, however, is a locally recognized, democratically elected
powerful political party that has several members of Parliamentand held government ministries in past coalition governments. It is
made up of South Lebanese themselves. UNIFIL is largely led by
the more general and comprehensive peacekeeping approach that I
mentioned before, that combines state building and civilian activities.
UNIFIL’s mandate omits the historical context of Hizbullah’s creation:
Hizbullah’s resistance was largely aimed against the Israeli occupationof South Lebanon.
Geographically my field is mostly encompassing the area of South
20

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

Lebanon that lies south of the Litani River, which also defines UNIFIL’s
area of operations. During my fieldwork I lived in Blida, a small Shia
village on the southeastern border with Israel. I stayed there several
times for a duration of several months each time, mostly between 2009–2015.
For a long time, South Lebanon was rather peripheral, abandoned
and neglected by the Lebanese state. The same cannot be said today, asSouth Lebanon after 2006 has emerged as a geostrategic center and hub
for flows of soldiers and experts, and as a place to which humanitarianand development aid are directed. Figure 1 shows the entrance to thevillage of Blida. You can see the standard blue welcoming signs thatevery municipality has, but then in the front you also see one that has
been erected by UN peacekeepers with a Nepalese flag. Then, in the
background, there’s a welcoming poster from the village, showing
Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah’s Secretary-General.

Figure 1. The Entrance to Blida
Source: Author
Figure 2 shows a large Hizbullah flag, on top of the hill in Blida
overlooking the village. Blida is one of UNIFIL’s hotspots where
21

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

UNIFIL often clashes with the local population, which supports
Hizbullah, and which I will talk more about in this chapter.

Figure 2. Hizbullah Flag
Source: Author
South Lebanon, as you maybe have already learned, is the main
operating area of the strongest single political force and movement in
Lebanon, Hizbullah. Additionally, it hosts UN institutions, international
government and development institutions, and a whole range of national
and international NGOs.

2. Historical Overview
To give a brief historical overview, large parts of South Lebanon
were occupied by Israel in the past. Israel first took up positions within
Lebanon during their invasion in 1978, as I already mentioned, andbetween 1982 and 1985, the Israeli army occupied about half of thecountry reaching up to Beirut and laying siege to the capital in the22Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

summer of 1982. In that year alone it is estimated to have killed 20,000
people. The population of South Lebanon inside the occupied area lived
under the arbitrary rule of a hostile foreign military occupation for 22
years. This is also what is largely now UNIFIL’s area of operations,where Blida is also located. Hizbullah emerged in the mid-1980s, toresist this occupation, as I already mentioned, while advancing a Shia
Islamic revolutionary ideology inspired by Iran. (The evolution ofHizbullah’s ideology policies and objectives are beyond the scope of
this chapter, so I am not going to focus on them.)

3. UNIFIL in South Lebanon
In stark contrast to UNIFIL’s mission, the majority of the South
Lebanese population emphasizes Hizbullah’s legitimacy as a resistanceforce that both liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation in thepast, and regards Hizbullah as the only force that stands ready to defend
it when facing Israeli military power in Lebanon. While the last war
between Lebanon and Israel was 15 years ago, the last 15 years did
not pass without confrontations. Israel’s nearly daily reconnaissanceoverflights and frequent smaller confrontations between Israel in
Lebanon create a constant threatening presence in the life of the villages
in this border zone. UNIFIL’s mission requires it to delimit the powerof Hizbullah in a region highly supportive of the organization andwhere it functions as a military force, political party, social movement
and provider of essential services. Figure 3 shows a Hizbullah poster
and a UNIFIL vehicle side by side, which depicts the environment
I am describing. These two politically opposing camps demonstrate
the contrast of the two different social and political orientations,inhabiting a rather a small area of about 1000 square kilometers inSouth Lebanon. Based on this discrepancy regarding Hizbullah’s role,23Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

UNIFIL is generally rejected and distrusted by the majority of theSouth Lebanese population. The distrust of the UNIFIL mission also
results from the fact that UNIFIL is only stationed on the Lebaneseside of the border, thereby subjecting the South Lebanese population tosurveillance by foreign military troops of up to 15,000 peacekeepers,
an international mission highly reminiscent of colonial supervision.
There is no equivalent to UNIFIL’s mission on the Israeli side of theborder from which the most violent attacks have been launched, whichadds to people’s suspicions towards UNIFIL. So how is UNIFIL able
to implement a mission that is largely opposed by the local population?
This is where my research looked at the role of UNIFIL’s civic
engagement activities and public relations campaigns. My researchanalyzes how UNIFIL’s implementation is negotiated daily on the
ground among a population, which regards UNIFIL with suspicion andis unsupportive of its mission.

Figure 3. UNIFIL Vehicle and Hezbollah Poster
Source: Photo by Reuters/Aflo(1) UNIFIL’s Public and Private Transcripts
In its public performance, UNIFIL presents itself as a successful24Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

peacekeeping operation valued by the local population that has been
responsible for the relative peace between Israel and Lebanon since2006. On UNIFIL’s website, and in the public outlets in local TV andradio stations, it advertises its work and good relationship with thelocal population. Pictures and videos of UNIFIL peacekeepers helping
the local population in various undertakings such as assisting during
the olive harvest and teaching children in schools. My research reveals
a different political reality. UNIFIL’s public performance — how thepeacekeepers presented their work to me and in public — was quite
different from what I was able to observe on the ground.
During my research, confrontations between the local populationand the international peacekeeping forces happened very frequently.
Confrontations did not only happen when UNIFIL was actively
searching for Hizbullah weapon depots, but especially in more day to
day occurrences, such as when UNIFIL drove through villages, enteredlocal school buildings, observed the border, or tried to meet villagers
outside of an official setting within the municipality. The cause of
conflicts was rooted in UNIFIL’s goal to contain Hizbullah’s movement
and its power. The majority of the South Lebanese population highly
supports Hizbullah as indicated and opposes UNIFIL’s attempts tocontain it. The population is suspicious of UNIFIL’s behavior, and theyoften view it to be taking Israel’s side in the conflict.
(2) Blue Line Border Confrontations
The borderline between Israel and Lebanon at several places such as
in Blida, has never been fully delineated or enforced. One of UNIFIL’s
goals is to demarcate the border in order to seek to ease tensions
between the two states. UNIFIL began the ongoing demarcation of theborder in 2000, after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, in order to confirm
the withdrawal. UNIFIL refers to the temporary line as the “Blue Line,”25

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

which is supposed to serve as an unofficial and temporary solution in theabsence of mutual recognition and a peace agreement between Lebanon
and Israel. The Blue Line is still disputed, and at places such as in Blida,
highly contested, as it cuts through olive groves and an ancient well.
In opposition to UNIFIL’s view, many villagers in Blida regard theBlue Line as yet another effort in a series of western attempts to control
their land, dating back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and competing
French, British and Zionist claims over Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
After having discussed the confrontations between UNIFIL andthe local inhabitants, I want to now focus on the question, how is
UNIFIL able to establish a basic amount of acceptance among the local
population and present its mission as successful, as we have seen earlier,despite these confrontations? This is where I argue the role of UNIFIL’s“Quick Impact Projects” is important and deserves attention.

4. UNIFIL’s “Quick Impact Projects”
In order to improve support for the UN peacekeeping effort, theso called “Quick Impact Projects”(QIP) became a major subject of myanalysis. QIPs are small scale and quickly implementable short-term
development projects. They cost usually up to US $25,000 each and canconsist of anything from teaching language lessons, yoga courses, toproviding electricity generators to the villages and other infrastructure
improvements. My research examines UNIFIL’s QIPs as one of United
Nations peacekeeping’s key institutionalizations. UNIFIL and its troopof contributing countries’ budget for QIP amounts to approximately US$5 million yearly, which constitutes a considerable amount on a small
territory like South Lebanon.
For example, in Blida, as I briefly mentioned, the villagers wereagainst UNIFIL’s Blue Line demarcation as it cuts through locally26

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

owned olive groves and cuts access to an ancient well, that, if theboundary were to be strictly demarcated, would become off limits
for the villagers and would lie in the Israeli territory. Villagers from
Blida protested this Blue Line demarcation over several months. When
UNIFIL tried to hinder the people visiting the well they would maketheir protest larger and louder.
In order to avoid people’s protest against the Blue Line in Blida,
UNIFIL funded several water-related projects in the village: It improved
the water distribution system by pipelines, built a water tower, wherewater can be connected and stored, and devoted a lot of time andmoney, much more than the usual US $25,000 per village towards
this project, about at least three times this amount. Yet villagers kept
visiting the well and protesting the Blue Line demarcation in this area
ignoring UNIFIL’s attempt to demarcate a new borderline. UNIFIL’s
approach fails to address the historic value and meaning of the borderdemarcation for people in this area. The demarcation should be seen in acontext of previous border demarcations and appropriations of land that
I mentioned before.
While the villagers ignored UNIFIL’s efforts, and kept on visiting
the well, UNIFIL was still able to present this mission as a successful
one, precisely through the funding of the QIPs. When funding projects,
UNIFIL celebrates inaugurations with the local population, invites the
local mayor and leader to inaugurate a project, and takes nice pictures
showing them working happily hand in hand with the local population.
QIP projects primarily serve two essential functions: toinstitutionalize and legitimize UNIFIL’s mission among the local
population, and then as tangible evidence to present the mission asa success to international stakeholders. UN peacekeeping practices
merge development practices with military activities to reach politicalgoals that fundamentally alter the sovereignty of the host state in the27

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

furtherance of foreign-directed political goals. In UNIFIL’s case, thisessentially presents political roles of the European powers leading themission.
The objective of UNIFIL’s CIMIC (Civilian Military Coordination)
and Civil Affairs department is to convince the local population thatUNIFIL’s presence and projects for the region are beneficial for them.
I argue this comprehensive scope of the UN peacekeeping framework,
which includes military practices as well as peace negotiations, dispute
resolution, and community development shows typical characteristics
of a neocolonial government project, on par with a state. My researchshows that while municipalities accept the funding of the QIP, they
resist the implementation of the political goals of the mission, suchas implementing the Blue Line, or letting UNIFIL search houses andenter villages freely or have contact with the local population outside offormal events organized through municipalities.

5. Conclusion
As we have seen, in reality, the tensions and the conflict still exist.
UNIFIL, which is supposed to be an “interim” peacekeeping force has
not been able to make itself redundant in over 40 years of its presencein South Lebanon. UNIFIL’s mission portrays the conflict as a Lebanese
problem that is due to the presence of Hizbullah and the unstableeconomic situation. This, however, excludes the long history of conflictfrom the Israeli occupation, as well as land appropriation. The majorityof the South Lebanese population does not support Hizbullah because of
economic underdevelopment, but due to the long-term Israeli occupationand ongoing Israeli violence that the border communities face.
By excluding the regional context, especially any consideration of
Israeli agency in producing the situation, while attempting to contain a28

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

social and political movement that is concerned with addressing Israeliintervention in Lebanon, UNIFIL’s deployment lacks parity. It favors
one side of the conflict — Israel — while subjecting South Lebanon to
an international mission, highly reminiscent of colonial supervision. For
this reason, the local population does not support the aim of UNIFIL’s
mission. They likely never will, as long as disarming Hizbullah along
the border with a historic adversary with one of the most powerful
militaries in the world remains the aim of the mission.
Unlike UNIFIL’s mission, which isolates Hizbullah’s role in South
Lebanon and presents it as primarily responsible for the Lebanon-Israeli
conflict, my descriptions of the research environment and the politicalsituation indicate peace and war in South Lebanon do not exist in a
vacuum, but are a products of regional and international development
and contestations over political power. My research depicts Hizbullah
as only one of the multiple forces in the field, both internal and external,that are vying for power and influence in the region, including UNIFIL
itself. Without a political solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict, any
peacekeeping mission will be able only to survive, but not to solve
the root issue of the conflict, namely the Israeli occupation and thePalestinian refugee question. UNIFIL’s Blue Line initiatives and otheractivities signify the emphasis on a security approach, which is limited
to its own established boundaries. Two decades after the end of Israeli
occupation, and 15 years after the war of 2006, southern Lebanon
remains a stronghold of social, political and military support for
Hizbullah. Little else could more clearly indicate the frustrations or even
failure of UNIFIL’s mission, or more precisely that of its main Western
Security Council sponsors in the aftermath of the 2006 war.

29

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the generous support for thisresearch that I received from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and the
Leverhulme Trust. Also, I would kindly like to thank Dr. Shun Watanabe
for his kind collaboration that we shared especially during our tenure at
Oxford.

Bibliography

De Coning, C. 2010. Civil-Military Relations and U.N. Peacekeeping
Operations. World Politics Review, May 19. (Accessed April 5,2017.) <http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/5553/civilmilitary-relations-and-u-n-peacekeeping-operations>.
Duffield, M. 2001. Global Governance and New Wars: The Merging ofDevelopment and Security. London: Zed Books.
Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making andUnmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Fassin, D. and Pandolfi, M. 2010. Contemporary States of Emergency:
The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions. New
York: Zone Books.
Feldman, I. 2010. Ad Hoc Humanity: UN Peacekeeping and the Limits
of International Community in Gaza. American Anthropologist,
112(3), 416–429.
Ghosh, A. 1994. The Global Reservation: Notes toward an Ethnographyof International Peacekeeping. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 412–
422.
Gonzalez, R. 2007. Towards Mercenary Anthropology: The New US
Army Counterinsurgency Manual FM 3–24 and the MilitaryAnthropology Complex. Anthropology Today, 23(3) 14–19.
30

Chapter 2
The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon

Hourani, N. 2013. Lebanon: Hybrid Sovereignties and U.S. Foreign
Policy. Middle East Policy, 20(1), 39–55.
Loftsdóttir, K. and Björnsdóttir, H. 2010. The ‘Jeep-Gangsters’ from
Iceland: Local Development Assistance in a Global Perspective.
Critique of Anthropology, 30(1) 23–39.
Makdisi, K. and Prashad, V. 2016. Land of Blue Helmets: The United
Nations and the Arab World. Oakland: University of California
Press.
Mamdani, M. 2010. Responsibility to Protect or Right to Punish?
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 4(1), 53–67.
Meisler, S. 1995. United Nations: The First Fifty Years. New York:
Atlantic Monthly Press.
Norton, A. R. 2007. Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
United Nations Security Council. 2006. Resolution 1701. New York:
Official Record S/RES/1701, August 11.

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Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem: The Debate
over the Muslims’ Sacred Journey andArab-Israeli Normalization
Kensuke YAMAMOTO
1. Introduction
In the wake of the Arab-Israeli normalization in 2020, many
analysts have made a huge effort to find out the immediate factors forthat move. However, there has been a tendency to ignore what seems
to be indirect or irrelevant in a quest for a lean description about thetransformation in the Arab-Israeli relationship. In this presentation
I would like to discuss the case of the debate on Muslims’ visits to
Israeli-occupied Jerusalem.
Since 1967, when Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem,
whether Arab Muslims would be allowed to visit their holy sites there
has been a topic of debate. The majority of Arab Muslims believed thatthey should avoid such visits, which might be misinterpreted as theiracceptance of the Israeli authority over occupied Jerusalem. However,in the 2010s, some Muslim thinkers and politicians began initiatives
to urge Arab Muslims to visit Jerusalem’s holy sites in order to giveassistance to the local Palestinians who were oppressed by the Israeli
occupation policies. While initially such callings were heavily criticized,in the middle of the 2010s, the idea of visiting Jerusalem under the
Israeli rule gained status as one legitimate option. By reviewing thedebate of the 2010s, I intend to reveal an overlooked dimension of the32

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

Arab-Israeli rapprochement and attempt to describe the changes in theirrelationship in a broader sense.

Figure 1. Al-Aqsa Mosque
Source: Author
As many of you know, in September 2020, the United ArabEmirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Israel inked a peace treaty at a ceremony
held at the White House in Washington. Following this two morecountries, Sudan and Morocco decided to make peace with Israel too,and it seems more countries will join. Such moves have been explainedby the common factors like the necessity of security cooperation, or aninterest in building a better relationship with the US government, andeven further the need for economic and commercial ties, which havebeen developed covertly since the 1980s.
These are certainly the direct factors toward Arab-Israeli
rapprochement, but on the other hand, these immediate elements
to explain the causes of Arab-Israeli rapprochement may not be
sufficient to understand the changes in the Arab-Israeli relationship in
a comprehensive way. So in other words, there is a risk of narrowing
our perspective and a tendency to ignore the topics that are notevidently relevant to diplomatic rapprochement. For instance, prior to33

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

the governmental rapprochement seen in 2020, Arab-Israeli contacts
in sporting events, for example, started to be seen sporadically suchas in the competitions of judo or bicycle racing. So such a cultural
phenomenon would not be directly linked to or directly related to thegovernmental rapprochement, but it should not be overlooked in order
to identify the transformation in the Arab-Israeli relationship.
Then what is required is not only to find the immediate causes ofArab-Israeli normalization in a sophisticated way, but also to reexaminethat move broadly like a crustal movement or a crustal change of theearth.
In this context, this chapter deals with the debate on whether
Muslims are allowed to visit Jerusalem under occupation. First of all,in Islamic tradition, visiting Jerusalem has been highly recommended
throughout history. But since 1967, when the Israeli Forces occupied theeastern part of Jerusalem, visiting there has long been avoided. becausesuch visits by the Muslims would amount to their recognition of theIsraeli authority.
Nevertheless, the opposition to visiting Jerusalem under Israeli
occupation has diluted or waned in Arab Islamic discourses since the2010s. I will attempt to explain how the opinion about Muslims visiting
Jerusalem was changed, and how such a taboo was broken in the 2010s.
Such a transformation in the Muslims’ way of thinking did not reach to
the Arab-Israeli diplomatic rapprochement directly, but it would deserve
attention as a part of the intra-Arab dynamics. These dynamics indicate
the changes in the Arab-Muslim view or attitude towards Israel, or theirviews about the relationship with Israel. So, through this change in thedebate, the dilution of the boycott can be seen as one symptom of ArabIsraeli rapprochement. This is the main thesis or main argument of thispresentation.

34

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

2. Logic of Opponents: Boycott and Anti-Normalization
In this section, I will use the term “opponents” for those who standagainst the Muslims’ visit to Israeli occupied Jerusalem, and I will callthose who stand for the visit to Jerusalem “advocators.”
Historically, some Azhari scholars expressed their opposition tovisiting Jerusalem under the occupation. The first example is ʿAbd
al-Halim Mahmud (1910–1978) who served as Grand Shaykh ofal-Azhar from 1973 to 1978. When Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt,
visited Jerusalem to make peace with Israel in 1977, Shaykh Mahmud
declined to accompany him. The details of this anecdote are not clear,but many people today regard Shaykh Mahmud as a forerunner of the
opponents to visiting Jerusalem under the occupation.
Additionally, Jadd al-Haqq (1917–1996), who served as Grand
Shaykh of al-Azhar from 1982 to 1996, articulated his opposition to
Muslims visiting Jerusalem under the occupation. He said, “The Muslim
who goes to Jerusalem is guilty,” and a priority for Muslims is to refrainfrom visiting Jerusalem until it is returned to its native people, thePalestinians. This remark came on the occasion of the Oslo Accords in
1993, between Israel and the PLO, when some Muslims began to think
about visiting Jerusalem in a peaceful mood. However, Shaykh Jadd
al-Haqq refuted such an idea.
Further, al-Azhar has repeatedly issued its official statement as an
institution that opposes the visit to Occupied Jerusalem. For example,
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (1928–2010), who was Grand Shaykh ofal-Azhar from 1996 to 2010, declared that visiting Jerusalem will nottake place as long as it remains under Israeli occupation, and he said thisapplied to all Azhari scholars. Sayyid Tantawi considered visiting would
amount to a recognition of the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of35

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Jerusalem. In this way, al-Azhar has persistently been against visiting
Occupied Jerusalem, and this fact seems to have had a huge significancein the Sunni world until today.
The next case is that of Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926-2022), who was
one of the most famous scholars of this time. He opposed visiting
Occupied Jerusalem more harshly than the shaykhs of al-Azhar,
and it was al-Qaradawi who was seen as a staunch enemy by the
advocators.

Figure 2. Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Source: Getty Images
In 1997, in the al-Jazeera television program “Shariah and Life,”
al-Qaradawi expressed his opposition to visiting Jerusalem under the
Israeli occupation. He stated, “As long as Jerusalem remains under the
spears of the Israelis and under its control, the one who visits it musttake permission from Israel. So from the perspective of shariʿa this is36

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

not permissible, because al-Qaradawi said this visit would mean ourrecognition of the Israeli rule.”
And also in his book concerning the question of Muslims visiting
Jerusalem, al-Qaradawi begins his fatwa by stating that it is required for
Muslims to reclaim their usurped lands by sacrificing their fortune andthemselves, and he added that if the Muslims cannot take them back,then Allah imposes on the believers to boycott their enemy. Following
this he finally stated, “the visit to Jerusalem is clearly illegal, even if it
is called religious tourism.”
Here we can see, despite the question being about visiting
Jerusalem, al-Qaradawi started his fatwa by explaining the legal rules
on usurped Muslim lands. This is because he sees it as a political issue
related to war and occupation, rather than a religious issue related to thepilgrimage. This is al-Qaradawi’s understanding which is similar to theunderstanding of all the opponents.

3. Birth of the Advocators: Individual Callings andDawn of Heated Controversy
Already since the 1990s, though sporadically, some figures havecalled for visiting Jerusalem, but these were pushed to the margins
in the past. However, since the 2010s, the longstanding stance in
opposition to visiting Jerusalem has been reexamined in the ArabIslamic world. The debate over the permissibility for Muslims to visit
Jerusalem began with the remarks made by Mahmud ʿAbbas (1935–),
the President of the Palestinian Authority since 2004, and Mahmud
al-Habbash (1963–) who was their religious advisor. In February 2012,
in an international conference about Jerusalem, ʿAbbas urged Arabs andMuslims worldwide to visit Jerusalem in order to support the resistanceof the local Palestinians. He expressed, “Visiting the prisoner is a37

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

support for him, it does not mean normalization with the prison guard.”
So he compared Occupied Jerusalem to the prisoner and Israel to theprison guard.
ʿAbbas made these claims based on his own religious and historical
understanding. He stated that it’s not forbidden to visit Jerusalem. He
said there is no word either in the Quran or the Hadith today to prohibit
the visit, so no one prohibited the visit throughout history, even when
Jerusalem had fallen under foreign occupation, such as to the Crusaders.
On this point, he issued a quasi-fatwa and this received much criticism.
Also, totally agreeing with ʿAbbas, Mahmud al-Habbash played amajor role in building a rationale for advocating the visit to Jerusalem
even under the Israeli Occupation, and he explained his stance fromboth religious and political points of view.
Concerning the religious basis, al-Habbash considered the visit toJerusalem as a command by the Prophet and expressed it as a legitimate
religious right. So, in his understanding, no one can prevent the visit toJerusalem except an oppressor.
Regarding the political context, al-Habbash claimed that the Muslim
visit would confirm Arab Islamic rights over Jerusalem and contribute toreviving the local Palestinian economy through the visitors’ purchasing
activities. In order to justify the visit to Jerusalem under the occupation,
al-Habbash referred to some historical evidence. He used the exampleof the Hadith about when Prophet Muhammad asked to visit Jerusalem.
At that time Jerusalem was under the authority of the Roman Empire,
but the Prophet did not impose any condition on Muslims visiting
Jerusalem. So al-Habbash confirmed it by such an example, and histhesis is that visiting Jerusalem is permitted or remains permitted, evenunder the Israeli occupation today.
Appeals to visit Jerusalem by ʿAbbas and al-Habbash in 2012
received a great deal of attention, chiefly because, coinciding with38

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

their appeals, two internationally renowned religious figures visited
Jerusalem. In April 2012, a famous Sufi leader, al-Habib ʿAli al-Jifri(1971–), visited Jerusalem, and two weeks later ʿAli Jumʿa, the Grand
Mufti of Egypt at that time, followed him. Their visits had a major
impact on the Arab Islamic world, which brought about a heatedcontroversy.

Figure 3. ʿAli Jumʿa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt
Source: Getty Images
First, ʿAli al-Jifri visited Jerusalem escorted by a Jordanian Prince,
and according to his statement, al-Jifri visited Jerusalem with longing
for the Holy City. He explained, “I asked Allah for guidance whether
or not to visit al-Aqsa mosque and my heart became delighted for thisdecision.” Against the critics, he justified his visit by citing the historicalevidence similar that of al-Habbash, and further, he emphasized theneed to show solidarity with the Palestinians, and espoused the politicaland economic benefits for them by visiting Jerusalem.
Then, two weeks later, ʿAli Jumʿa visited Jerusalem, and this time
he was invited and accompanied by the Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin
Muhammad, the religious advisor of King Abdullah II. His visit sparked
39Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab Easta controversy widely. Al-Qaradawi once again issued a statementbanning the visit to occupied Jerusalem, while on the other hand,
al-Habbash and ʿAli al-Jifri praised the visit of ʿAli Jumʿa, and after
he came back from Jerusalem, Jumʿa recounted that his visit was an
informal one and did not represent his official position as a Grand Mufti.
He stated that he did not consider his visit to be an act of normalization
because he said, Jordanian authorities arranged all his visit and there
was no Israeli hand involved in his visit.
Further, he justified his visit by saying that by our failure to visit
Jerusalem and by leaving it to the Israelis, the Israelis consider the cityis theirs. So such are the claims by ʿAli al-Jifri and ʿAli Jumʿa, and also
Mahmud al-Habbash and Mahmud ʿAbbas. These are the starting ideasof the advocators.

4. Growth of “Advocators”: Consensus-Building andEndorsement of an Official Body
After these callings, there was a growth of advocators throughconsensus building sentiment and the endorsement of official bodies.
The move to break the traditional taboo to visit occupied Jerusalem
gained more force by the conference entitled “Road to Jerusalem”“al-Tariqa ila al-Quds” in Arabic, which was held in Amman in 2014.
There were over 150 Islamic scholars and politicians, as well as
lawyers from Jordan, and al-Habbash also participated, with most of theparticipants being from the advocators block, with only a few opponents
present.
The final resolution of this conference was issued as a form ofcollective consensus building like a collective fatwa. Firstly, thisresolution sets out some segments among the Muslims who are
specifically encouraged to visit Jerusalem. The resolution said that there40

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

is no difficulty for the following people to visit al-Aqsa mosque. The
first segment is Palestinians, regardless of their nationalities, and thesecond is Muslims with passports from countries outside the Islamic
world. There is no further explanation about these words, but it may
mean Muslims living in the US or Western countries. So this resolution
did not necessarily encourage the Muslims to visit on a full scale. Suchan idea of segmentation was unprecedented in the previous individual
campaigns.
Secondly, this conference made some conditions to be followed
when visiting Jerusalem. For instance, the resolution urged the Muslims
to go shopping and stay in hotels sponsored by Palestinian or Jordanian
tour groups, and the underlying idea was that visiting Jerusalem can bepermitted insofar as it serves the public interest of the local Palestiniansociety and thus clarified by this point, the visit will not become a formof normalization from their perspective.
Therefore, it was a remarkable breakthrough, in that a fatwa
to permit Muslims visit to Jerusalem was issued in the form of acollective consensus by an academic conference, making this a hugeaccomplishment by the advocators. Such consensus building on thepermission to visit Jerusalem was eventually developed into an official
endorsement and Islamic tourism promotions by the Organization ofIslamic Cooperation (OIC).
Firstly, in November 2014, Iyad Madani, the Secretary General of
OIC declared that Jerusalem was selected as the Islamic tourism capitalfor 2015. Then, as early as January 2015, he himself visited Jerusalem
and al-Aqsa Mosque. There, Madani called for cooperation between
the tourism ministers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Palestine, in order
to connect the Umrah, the minor pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia,
with the visit to Jerusalem. Madani wanted to connect Muslim travelers
through religious package tours; he also famously stated in Jerusalem,
41

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

“Coming to al-Aqsa Mosque is a right for me as well as every Muslim.”
Madani’s controversial visit was followed by a fatwa in 2015, issued
by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy affiliated to OIC, which
declared that a legal verdict on the visit to Jerusalem is recommended
and desirable, but it also stated that there was a debate on the interestsand disadvantages that would be incurred by the Muslims’ visits, andthat the academy would leave such evaluation to the politicians ofMuslim countries.

Figure 4. OIC Journal
Source: OIC Website <https://issuu.com/oic-journal/docs/oic_journal_
issue_28_en>

42Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

So this fatwa did not prohibit the visit, but the statement in the
fatwa was used as the advocators’ fatwa for Muslims to visit Jerusalem
under the occupation. We can see how binary the controversy is. Thereis no middle point stance in this debate, only “for” or “against.”
Additionally, OIC held several promotional activities to encourage
Muslims to visit Jerusalem in the framework of Islamic tourism. In
November 2015, OIC organized a workshop on the religious tourismof Jerusalem, in which the main participants were the Palestinianand Jordanian ministers for tourism and religious affairs. The final
recommendations based on the fatwa of the Fiqh Academy encouraged
the Muslims to visit, especially those who had no visa problem
when entering Palestine, such as European residents. Further, it wasrecommended to visit Jerusalem through Jordan as part of one’s Hajj
or Umrah, and to visit for the intention of benefitting the Palestinian
economy. So these decisions are apparently similar to the fatwa of theRoad to Jerusalem Conference in 2014.
Consequently, from the conference in Jordan and related activities,
or from OIC, visiting Jerusalem, even under the Israeli occupation,
suddenly obtained a position as one of the legitimate options, if not themainstream, and so 2015 can be seen as a watershed for the advocators.
Here, I’d like to add a few words concerning the resistance towards
Muslim tourism. The government of Israel did not state its specificopinion on this debate, but the government may welcome the advocators
as far as they seem to remain just as tourists and not as political activists,
because in many cases, this very government has tried to depict Israel
as a religious tourism country. Additionally, the mayor of Jerusalem
had once expressed his wish to have the city become a destination for
religious tourism by members of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, of course under the Israeli sovereignty.
In reality, there have not been many Muslim tourists coming to Israel
43

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

until today. Indeed, since the 2010s, the number of Muslims has graduallygrown, but they are mainly coming from Indonesia or Malaysia, or someWestern countries. The number of Arab tourists in particular still remains
comparatively small, which implies that the idea of visiting Jerusalem has
never taken root in the public domain, even after the advocators’ bloc got
some support in the sphere of Arab Islamic discourses.

5. Persistent Stance and Partial Compromise of“Opponents”
The advocators have enjoyed significant momentum since the 2010,
and their ideas are no longer seen as strange nor heretical, so in this lastsection, I would like to discuss a sign of partial compromise among the
opponents block.
One remarkable example is Ahmad al-Raysuni (1953–), who serves
as the head of IUMS (International Union of Muslim Scholars), which
was founded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Figure 5. Ahmad al-Raysuni
Source: Official Website <https://raissouni.net/>

44

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

In 2019 Ahmad al-Raysuni suddenly called on Muslims aroundthe world to visit Jerusalem and support the Palestinian Jerusalemites
financially and morally. He stated that not everyone who visits Jerusalem
is a normalizer, and he pointed out that the important thing is the intention
and the objective of the Muslim visitor to Jerusalem.
Al-Raysuni thought that the visit to occupied Jerusalem itself was
not equal to normalization, a way of thinking similar to the advocatorsand quite the opposite to the traditional understanding of IUMS and
al-Qaradawi, so the callings made by al-Raysuni surprised his followers
and caused a serious controversy among them.
However, his remarks did not appear out of nowhere. Already in2016, among the scholars of IUMS, there had been a momentum torevise the fatwa. Some scholars are inclined to allow Muslims in general
to visit Jerusalem and try to limit the ban to just public figures. The aim
is to provide the Palestinians with economic support and make theirlives sustainable. This move can be seen as a sign that the idea of the
advocators was gaining support to some extent, even among the longest
standing opponents.
And another example is the statement of ʿAbbas Shuman, the deputy
Shaykh of al-Azhar, which showed a sign of changes in al-Azhar’slong standing position of opposing the Muslims visiting Jerusalem. In
2018, there was an international conference on Jerusalem organizedby al-Azhar, and Shuman confirmed that there is no dispute about thereligious virtue of visiting Jerusalem, and he also clearly affirmed thatthe official stance of al-Azhar is to refuse the visit to Jerusalem under theoccupation, because there is no benefit in that. However, following these
remarks, interestingly, Shuman also stated the benefits and disadvantages
that would be made by a Muslim’s visit should be assessed by the local
Palestinians and the political leaders of other Islamic countries. Further,he emphasized the need for more discussions and studies on the topic of45

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Muslims visiting occupied Jerusalem.
In other words, Shuman did not permit the Muslim visit to Jerusalem
right away, but he indicated that al-Azhar’s stance could be changed
at some point after discussion. He did not see the opposition stance ofal-Azhar as a fixed one and he left the final opinion open ended. This may
be a slight but remarkable change in the position of al-Azhar that has long
firmly and categorically opposed to Muslims visiting occupied Jerusalem.

6. Conclusion
In conclusion, visiting Jerusalem under the Israel occupation, which
was once taboo, gained a certain status as one of the legitimate optionsin just a few years during the 2010s. Among the circle of advocators,
two things were emphasized. The first was the necessity of supporting
the local Palestinians economically and morally, or politically, or by
any means necessary, and the second point was the religious importanceof visiting Jerusalem, which is very apparent from the arguments of
Mahmud al-Habbash.
The process of the advocators gaining power was formed asshown in Figure 6. Firstly, it was initiated by individual campaigns or
callings, and soon it became known around the world by the visits ofinternationally famous figures like ʿAli al-Jifri and ʿAli Jumʿa.

Figure 6. Advocators Gaining Power
Source: Author
46

Chapter 3
Defending Islamic Jerusalem

Secondly, in the form of international conferences, these individual
efforts were transformed into a collective consensus building, andeventually the idea to visit Jerusalem was endorsed and promoted by
the official body, the OIC. While the opponents of this idea are still
persistent, some of them have started to show a partial compromise or
self-criticism.
Thus, while the idea of visiting Jerusalem has certainly never been
popularized in the streets of Arab countries because there have not been
so many Arab visitors coming to Israel, it has taken its own place inArab Islamic discourses, and the long standing collective norm of the
Arab boycott to visiting occupied Jerusalem has certainly waned sincethe 2010s.
In this author’s opinion, this may show a tendency for Arab
Muslims to be less hesitant to get involved with Israel, and such adilution of the boycott can be seen as one symptom of Arab Israeli
rapprochement in a broader sense, even if it has no direct relation to amove of governmental or diplomatic rapprochement.

Bibliography

al-Habbash, M. 2012. Ziyarat al-Quds: “Fadila Diniyya wa-Darura
Siyasiyya”. Amman: Dar al-Usama.
Hammami, I. 2012. Ziyarat al-Quds wa-l-Aqsa tahta al-Ihtilal. London:
Markaz al-Shuʾun al-Filastiniyya.
Jones, C. and Guzansky, Y. 2019. Fraternal Enemies: Israel and the
Gulf Monarchies. London: Hurst.
Kailani, W. 2012. Why Should Muslims Visit al-Masjid al-Aqsa?
MABDA English Monograph Series No.17. Amman: The Royal
Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.
al-Qaradawi, Y. 2003. Fatawa Muʿ asira (al-Juzʾ al-Thalith). Beirut:
al-Maktab al-Islami.
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Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernity: The Political
Visions of Islamic Intellectuals in Egypt andtheir Quest for the Civil Society
Ayaka KURODA
1. Introduction
After its defeat in the June/Six-day war in 1967, Egypt witnessed a
drastic change in its intellectual landscape. In the process of examining
the roots of the Arab’s defeat by Israel, some intellectuals abandoned thesocialism they had espoused. The theme of the relationship between thereligion, society, and politics has been a heated point of contention sincethen.
Coupled with this point, today, the need for a reformist interpretationof Islam has been advocated by different actors: by religious bodies, by
independent scholars, or by some governments. In the Egyptian context,
such a trend became visible after the Nasserist era. Not limited to thereligious or intellectual circle, the discourse of moderate Islam gained
its influence in the political discourses in the Egyptian public sphere.
Through the articulation of the idea concerning contemporary religious
issues, the intellectuals espousing this idea tackled problems such associal inclusion, national unity, and democracy.

2. The Emergence of the Moderate Islamic Trend as
a Visible Tide: The Compilation of the Contemporary
Islamic Vision48

Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernity

In the early 1980s, Kamal Abu al-Majd, a constitutional lawyer,compiled a booklet entitled Toward a New Islamic Trend. The booklet
was secretly circulated among about 150 Islamic intellectuals and edited
in collaboration with some of them at that time, and then publishedformally in 1991, nearly 10 years after its compilation, under the newtitle, the Contemporary Islamic Vision: Declaration of Principles. Thisbooklet gave political, social, and economic visions from the Islamic
perspective which these intellectuals concurred with.
In the preface of the booklet, Abu al-Majd pointed out the failureof two major currents that had failed in the Arab world: First, liberalcapitalism, which had caused economic injustice, disparities, social
unrest, and second socialism, which suppressed many people andmovements in order to achieve the revolution (Abu al-Majd, 1992, 37–40). Instead, he shed light on the growth of “the Islamic tide” those days
and located it as an alternative to the two ideologies.
As the motive for compiling the booklet, he finds three elements:
First, the need to criticize the ambiguous slogan of an “Islamic solution,”
which many Islamists chanted at that time (Abu al-Majd, 1992, 24–25).
Clearly, it refers to the famous slogan used by the Muslim Brotherhood
when it entered parliamentary elections in the 1980s. Second, the senseof crisis toward the rise of radical thought, which attempted to separate
itself from “the general current in human history.” Third, the spread of
misunderstandings against Arabs and Muslims due to some Islamist
movements raising the banner of Islam from the inappropriate politicaland social standpoints (Abu al-Majd, 1992, 25–30). Abu al-Majd pointed
out that a “tide of anger” that ignored the social reality and paralyzed
young people was growing in the society. Nevertheless, at the sametime, he argued that the intellectual current that correctly understood the
purpose of Islam was steadily gaining followers in the streets of the Araband Islamic world day by day, and named it as the “moderate Islamic
49

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

trend (tayyār al-wasaṭiyya al-Islāmiyya)” (Abu al-Majd, 1992, 27).
For examples of the visions shown in the booklet, it stipulated
the political principles from the Islamic perspective as follows: (1)the principle of Shura (consultation) concerning social issues; (2)accountability of the rulers; (3) the rule of law binding all powers,
which is derived from the Islamic sources; and (4) respect for the rights
and freedoms of the people. Abu al-Majd’s writing not only contained
Islamic tones but an aspiration for political freedom. The description of“the rule of law derived from Islamic sources” appears to be an appeal
for the restraint of power rather than the enforcement of Islamic law.
The scholars and intellectuals of the moderate Islamic trend clearlyrecognize themselves as the inheritors of the reformist movement in
the early twentieth century, represented by prominent scholars like
Muhammad ʿAbduh and Rashid Rida. Although nationalism andsocialism became prevalent in the mid-twentieth century, some scholars
and activists continued to seek the reform of Islamic thought. For
example: Muhammad al-Ghazali, who later strengthened his reformist
attitude in his later years, Hasan al-Hudaybi, the second supreme
guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had more progressive view incomparison with al-Banna in some issues and was against the idea of
takfīr (accusing other Muslims of being infidels). Fathi Osman, wholeft the Brotherhood in the mid-1950s, showed a progressive view on
women’s political and economic freedom in the early 1960s. Jamal
al-Din ʿAtiyya launched an academic magazine entitled with theContemporary Muslim Magazine (Majallat al-Muslim al-Muʿ asir), assoon as the restriction on the Muslim Brotherhood got loosened andcalled for the Ijtihād in contemporary issues. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who
moved to Qatar in the 1960s, became a vocal voice of the moderate Islamand made the slogan of the moderatism (al-wasaṭiyya) renowned, relying
on the method summarized as tawāzun (balance), ʿi tidāl (moderation),
50

Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernity

jamʿ (unison), wāqiʿ iyya (realism), and maydāniyya (pragmatism) (Krämer,2006, 198). And then, the intellectuals gradually came to the fore as avisible intellectual trend from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, under the
expansion of the religious violence.

3. The Moderate Islamic Trend and the Egyptian
Political Development in the Last Decades
The moderate Islamic trend itself is composed of intellectuals,
academics, and political activists from different backgrounds; someof them enjoyed a traditional religious education, some were from anationalist background, some belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, andso on. They just form a loose platform and do not necessarily agree withthe others on social matters or religious interpretations.
What is important is, although this trend connotes Islamists, it also
contains a critical perspective to the conservative and ambiguous aspectof the Islamist ideologies, going beyond merely chanting “moderate
Islamic understanding.” The scholars and intellectuals of this intellectual
trend contributed to the maturing of some significant political concepts
such as “citizenship” or “civil state.”

Figure 1. Salim al-ʿAwwa
Source: Author
51

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

Figure 2. Tariq al-Bishri
Source: Author
Over the last decade, I have been focusing on two intellectualsfrom the camp of the moderate Islamic trend. Salim al-ʿAwwa (1942–),an international attorney, and Tariq al-Bishri (1933–2021), a retired
judge, the latter of whom I will focus on later. They are independent
intellectuals who have never belonged to a religious body or politicalorganizations. It is worth paying attention to the fact that they bothenjoyed a modern secular education and are legal professionals. They do
not speak with the language of traditional religious education but withmodern vocabularies. Moreover, they maintain the familiarity with bothwestern law and Islamic law through their profession.
Many younger members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1990s
and 2000s were heavily influenced by their ideas. In particular, somemembers who left the Muslim Brotherhood to launch a political party
against the policies of the organization, heavily relied on their ideas
when they drafted the party platform. Their party was entitled “theCenter Party (Hizb al-Wasat)” from 1996, but its establishment was met
with obstacles from the Mubarak regime as well as the Brotherhood. It
was finally established after the January 25 revolution.
Then, how did the idea of these intellectuals contribute to the52Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernity

refinement of the Islamist discourse?
One of their contributions is the idea of equal citizenship(muwāṭana). They believe that the state that their society seeks is not
a Caliphate but a modern democratic state, based on the equality of
all citizens regardless of their religion or biological sex. Although the
Muslim Brotherhood was often divided over the availability of a higher
position in a state for women and Christians, they have consistently
claimed that equal citizenship should be the basis of the democratic
state, based on their relatively modernist approach without abandoning
their commitment to Islam. Al-ʿAwwa has been an advocate of the ideaof an Islamic civil state based on democracy and constitutionalism,
which does not enact laws contrary to the general principles of Shariʿa.
Al-Bishri does not espouse the idea of the Islamization of the state or
the overall enactment of Shariʿa. Rather, he pays special attention to theheritage of Islamic sentiment in the Egyptian nation and the influenceof the culture of Islamic jurisprudence on the Egyptian legal mind, eventhough Western law was imported in the modern period. In his words,“Shariʿa exists in our lives.”
At the same time, they and their followers in the Islamist
movements cooperated with the intellectuals from the secular liberalist
camp and have protested against the authoritarian rule in Egypt. They
were involved in the Kefaya movement, a protest movement against the
fifth term of Hosni Mubarak. They engaged in dialogue with secularliberalist camp as public intellectuals, monitored elections, worked incollaboration with NGOs, and so on.
The moderate Islamic trend in Egypt has developed into three
dimensions: the criticism of the conservative or radical aspect ofIslamist ideology, the pursuit of democracy and aspiration for bridging
the secularism and Islamism in the nation. In the following part, I will
focus on the idea of Tariq al-Bishri and explore such dimensions stated53

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

above in his idea.

Figure 3. Egypt Divided After First Round Referendum Vote
Source: Getty Images

4. The Case of Tariq al-Bishri: The Search for Cultural
Authenticity and Advocation of the Basic Current(1) An Intellectual Career
Tariq al-Bishri is a retired judge, and one of the most renowned
Islamic thinkers in contemporary Egypt. Although he hardly uses
the term “al-wasaṭiyya” or moderate Islam in his work, he is widely
recognized as a representative figure of this trend in Egypt.
Born in 1933, when the influence of the British occupation
remained in the society, he developed an interest in the independenceof the nation. While he deepened his interest in Western philosophy andthe episodes of western history such as the French revolution during
his student days, he started to espouse socialism and secularism in the
1950s. He at that time believed that the independence of the nation was
to be achieved through economic independence. He recalls himself at
this period as “a pure secularist,” although he maintained his familiarity
54Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernity

with Islamic jurisprudence as a judge in the Egyptian court and felt theblessing (rizq) of the God in his reason and heart in his daily life (Kuroda,
2017, 33). In his intellectual career, he was influenced by modernist
scholars like ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri and ʿAbd al-Wahhab Khallaf aswell as renowned scholars closer to the Islamist trend like Muhammad
al-Ghazali.

Figure 4. World War Two North Africa 1940
Source: Getty Images
However, after the defeat of 1967 war, he started to consider that anation’s independence should be not only achieved through economic
factors, but also through building a national identity concerning its
own civilization. Thus, he realized the role of Islam as a fundamental
identity in his society. Though he abandoned socialism and secularism,his main interest in national independence has never changed. Suchintellectual transformation was a very common phenomenon among theArab intellectuals at that time. In Egypt, Hasan Hanafi, a philosopher
who advocated the “Islamic Left (al-yasār al-Islāmī),” ʿAdil Husayn, a
representative voice of the socialist labor party, and Muhammad ʿImara
are the typical cases of such intellectual transformation.
55

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

(2) Support for Democracy
Not only his unique idea of the state-religion relationship which I
will explain later but his ardent support for democracy has located him
in a distinguished position in the Egyptian society.
His professional background is very unique. While he served asa judge in the Egyptian administrative court until his retirement age,
he sometimes issued a judgement against the government’s will. In
the latter half of 2000s, while the Egyptian government strengthened
its authoritarian tendency, the country experienced the emergence ofsocial movements across different actors such as opposition parties andhuman rights activists. He strengthened his commitment to the protest
movements together with the other intellectuals.

Figure 5. Egyptian Voters Go To The Polls
Source: Getty Images
In October 2004, al-Bishri published an article entitled with “I callupon you for civil disobedience (Adʿukum ila al-ʿisyan)” and criticized
the fragmentation of the state function under the Mubarak regime. Someanalysts found the partial influence of this article on the formalization
56

Chapter 4
Questioning Secular Modernityof the Kefaya movement (El-Ghobashy, 2005; Hirschkind, 2012).
Although participants of the Kefaya movement unanimously saw him asa potential presidential candidate according to some Egyptian sources,
he seems to have refused this proposal (Howeidy, 2005; Shehab, 2005).
Furthermore, he became internationally known in the processof transition after the Arab Uprising. The Supreme Council of theArmed Forces, which was in charge of the transition process after the
resignation of Mubarak, appointed him as the head of the committee
for the constitutional amendment. His appointment was seen as theresult of the Egyptians army’s consideration for both the Islamist andsecular-liberal camp. While in charge of amending the constitution, he
supported the idea of drafting a new constitution after the completionof the democratic transition, which hampered the Egyptian army’s
intention to maintain its power under the former constitution amended at
a minimal level (Suzuki, 2013, 87–88). His remarks and activity during
this period can be seen as an attempt to make the democratic transition
substantial.
(3) Perspective for the Egyptian Modernization and its Political Future
Al-Bishri describes himself as “a person who advocates theimportance of citizenship, who emphasizes the role of political groups
with a religious base, and who stands at the intersection of all national
currents, especially the Islamic current and the ethno-national current”(al-Bishri, 2012, 41). In such a manner, his idea inherits and integrates
the three mainstream ideologies witnessed in the Egyptian nation:
Egyptian nationalism, Arab nationalism, and Islamism (Kuroda, 2017,34).
As an Islamic thinker, he has been seeking the establishment of apolitical community with cultural authenticity. Unlike typical Islamists,
he does not necessarily seem to espouse the idea that “Islam is a religion
57

Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab Eastand a state” ardently and he has hardly used the term “Islamic state/
government” in his writings. Instead, he finds a firm connection between
culture, morals, and law in a society. He believes that every society
has its own value system and a person should judge what is right andwrong according to it. Such ethical standards formulate the country’s
legal culture and give legitimacy to a set of laws to be enforced. Thus,
he attaches importance to Islam as a culture inherited in the Egyptian
society for centuries (Kuroda, 2019, 8–10).
It is worth noting that his recent political ideas aim at the settlementof the ideological and political conflicts in Egypt. In my personalcommunication with the Egyptian academics since the revolution, someof them pointed out the polarization of the Egyptian society. Before
the revolution, activists and intellectuals with different ideologicalorientations could collaborate with each other in their resistance to theauthoritarian rule. However, after the revolution, since the common goal
had been achieved, they became polarized.
In his book in 2008, Toward a Basic Current for the Community(Nahwa Tayyar Asasi li-l-Umma), al-Bishri called for the formation of “abasic current” that devotes itself to the common goals among different
social and political forces, based on his reflections on modern Egyptian
history (al-Bishri, 2011).1
He seeks to solve two issues found at the root of every problem in
the Egyptian society for the last 150 years up to the present: fear of theforeign enemy and of colonialism, and how to run the state and society
in an effective way (al-Bishri, 2011, 18).
In connection with the latter issue, the centrally administered
government takes on too many functions and does not realize thepolitical will held by the public. He attaches importance to secondary
1 The introduction of al-Bishri’s idea on “a basic current” in this section below
is extensively based on the author’s past article (Kuroda, 2017).
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Questioning Secular Modernity

groups and forces in a society, consisting of journalists, parties, or
private organizations, in order to put pressure on the state to get rid of
this imbalance (al-Bishri, 2011, 26–27).
In this context, his evaluation of the modernization process inEgypt is notable. According to him, there were many social units people
belonged to in the pre-modern Egyptian society. Some of them werebased on blood relations such as tribes and clans, others on a sharedvocational or territorial bond, and still others on religious affiliations,sects, Sufi orders or school of thoughts. He maintains that religion plays
a significant role in the formation of many social units in the society(al-Bishri, 2011, 25–26, 45). However, Muhammad Ali’s modernization
reform toward the centrally governed state destroyed such traditional
ways of organizing the society and the people’s sense of belonging. For
example, he criticizes the abolishment of Waqf and the control over Sufi
Tariqas in the modern Egypt. The Egyptians still live under the legacyof unbalanced modernization and colonialism, and they are split overthe inherited, indigenous values and imported alien values.
Based on such critical reflection, he supports the resurgence andunity of various socio-political movements and social groups, includingones with religious characteristics, in order to revive the Egyptian nation.
However, these political and social forces have to overcome theconflicts and differences among their opinions, which they inevitably
face when they try to come together. According to him, such conflicts
have to be reconciled through dialogue. The concept of dialogue inal-Bishri’s ideas is much broader than an exchange of opinions innewspapers, symposiums and even in an assembly. He sees dialogue not
only as the means to mutual understanding but as a negotiating process
to integrate the claims brought up by different groups. Therefore, hefinds a path to dialogue in the activities of social movements, looking
for a point of consensus in the nation (al-Bishri, 2011, 32–33).
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Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East

In the summer of 2014, he told me, “the stream of the middle
ground (tayyār al-wasaṭ) is a comprehensive current, under which all
the currents could come together. The Egyptian revolution broughtpolarization [to our society]. If there is no conversation among thepeople, intellectual wars (ḥarb fikriyya) occur. However, dialogue must
be conducted before all the intellectual wars. We are always seeking theintersection between all the positions. This is the stream of the middle
ground, which unites all the streams. As intellectual wars prohibit theuniting of different streams, they lead to the polarization … the tidewhich would be attacked first in this war is the middle road (al-wasaṭ).
However, it is the idea which the Egyptians would finally join. I think
this tide has a promising future.”2
Al-Bishri passed away in February 2021, about seven years after
this interview. Not only al-Bishri, but many intellectuals who were theadvocates of this trend have passed away in recent years or have reachedan advanced age. Therefore, some might wonder what role this trend
plays in the Egyptian society today and how it will continue to evolve.
In my last fieldwork in January 2020, however, I found that acompilation of al-Bishri’s interview had been published. This work of
500 pages had been compiled by the Egyptian academics in order topreserve and deliver his wisdom and admonition to the next generation(Ghanim and Mustafa, 2019).3 In this way, the intellectual attempts toinherit his idea survive in the current Egyptian society. As is shown in
his idea, the idea of the moderate Islamic trend became intertwined with
2 Interview conducted by the author, July 24, 2014, Cairo.
3 According to the information I obtained during my fieldwork, the editors
asked al-Bishri to write an autobiography at first. As he declined their requests,
however, they decided to conduct a series of interviews. The interviewer visited his
house for around two years to listen to his life story and collect his opinions on thecontemporary social, political, and cultural issues. For the detail of this voluminous
work, see my book review (Kuroda, 2020).
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the themes such as national unity combining the different intellectual
camps and the need for democracy in accordance with the politicaland social development in the last decades. These intellectual projects
remain as a challenge for the future generation in the coming decades.

Figure 6. The compilation of al-Bishri’s interview,
Dialogues with Tariq al-Bishri (Hiwarat maʿa Tariq
al-Bishri), sold at Cairo International Bookfair in
2020. Some compilations of al-Bishri’s past articles,
which were newly published in the last few years,
were also displayed on the lowest shelf along withthe other new releases from the publisher.
Source: Author

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Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University

Edited by Ayaka KURODA and Shun WATANABEONLINE ISBN 978-4-910550-02-2
PRINT ISBN 978-4-910550-03-9