What about Arab Nationalism?
Reader comment on article: [The RAND Corporation and] Fixing Islam

Submitted by Jonathan Pfeffer, Apr 6, 2004 at 10:03

Why is the role of Nationalism so easily overlooked in Militant Islam? It is not true that Nationalism in Arabia is melded with religion? The Modernists you describe are easily mistaken for the extreme Nationalists. Khaddafi's moves in the seventies to Arabize Libya was driven by a intense Nationalism more than Islam.

Islam is a very political religion. Islam doesn't only offer spiritual guidance, it offers political and even military guidance to its political leaders. The Koran is full of political elements not seen in Christianity for example. This implies that those Arabs who choose to think about the world in terms of the 7th century, are given justification, if they want it. The question is, why do they want to? Is a modern Arab man so devout that he feels obligated to carry out a Militant 7th century interpretation of the Koran, even aganst what otherwise would have been his inclination? Or is he a militant Nationalist seeking convenient justification?

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