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Abstract
Islamist movements have grown persistently in the last few decades and became major actors in the politics of various Muslim nations, receiving attention in numerous popular studies. Many of those studies, however, focus their attention solely on the religious agenda of these actors, despite the fact that economic interests are highly influential in shaping the agendas of them. In contrast to popular studies that focus on the “ideologues” in Islamist parties, this article emphasizes the role of “pragmatists,” especially Islamist businessmen in Islamist politics. By comparing and contrasting the transformation of Islamist parties and institutions in Turkey, Indonesia, and Sudan, this article suggests that contemporary Islamist movements in these countries are not solely concerned with “Islamizing the society” but often seek an economic mobilization against established economic elites and to transfer wealth to their constituencies. It then explores whether Islamist businessmen can serve as a moderating influence in Islamist politics and, if so, under what circumstances.
Notes
1Andreas Ufen, “The Evolution of Cleavages in the Indonesian Party System,” GIGA Research Programme: Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems, Working Paper 74 (April 2008): 18; Bima Arya Sugiarto, “Entrepreneurs are Transforming Political Parties,” Inside Indonesia 87 (July–September 2006), http://www.insideindonesia.org/content/view/75/29/.
2Roderic Camp, Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth Century Mexico (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Ayse Bugra, State and Business in Modern Turkey (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994).
3Amartya Sen, “Democracy as a Universal Value” in The Global Divergence of Democracies, eds. Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 3–17; Abdou Filali-Ansari, “Muslims and Democracy,” in ibid., 37–51.
4Vali Nasr quoted in Mohammad Ayoob, Many Faces of Political Islam (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 95.
5Sugiarto, “Entrepreneurs are Transforming Political Parties,” 1.
6Interview with Ali Bayramoglu, 2005.
7Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (New York: Routledge, 1993).
8Serif Mardin, “Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?,” Daedalus 102, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 169–190.
9Ayse Bugra, “Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation by Two Turkish Business Associations,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 30 (November 1998): 521–539.
10Mardin, 179–187.
11Tahire Erman, “The Politics of Squatter (Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey: The Changing Representations of Rural Migrants in the Academic Discourse,” Urban Studies 38, no. 7 (2001): 983–1002.
12Omer Demir, Mustafa Acar, and Metin Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers or Islamic Capital: Prospects and Challenges,” Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 6 (November 2004): 166–168.
13John Waterbury, “Export-Led Growth and the Center-Right Coalition in Turkey,” Comparative Politics 24, no. 2 (January 1992): 127–145.
14Ibid., 142.
15Hootan Shambayati, “The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy: State and Business in Turkey and Iran,” Comparative Politics 26, no. 3 (April 1994): 307–331.
16Ibid., 316.
17Henri Barkey, “Turkey, Islam, and the Kurdish Question,” World Policy Journal 13, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 43–52.
18Seda Demiralp,“The Rise of Islamic Capital and the Decline of Islamic Radicalism in Turkey,” Comparative Politics 41, no. 3 (April 2009): 315–335.
19Ibid., 16–18.
20Ibid., 14–16.
21Ibid., 13.
22Yavuz Selim, Gul'un Adi (Istanbul: Kim Yayinlari, 2002).
23Ufen, 19; Thee Kiwan Wie, “Policies for Private Sector Development in Indonesia,” ADB Institute Discussion Paper No. 46 (April 2008), 28; Muhammed Ali, “Islam and Economic Development in New Order's Indonesia (1967–1998),” East-West Center-International Graduate Student Conference Series 12 (2004).
24Ufen, 19.
25Ibid., 16; Thomas Timberg, “Islamic Banking and It's Potential Impact,” Paving the Way Forward for Rural Finance An International Conference on Best Practices, 3, http://www.ifisa.co.za/Articles/Islamic%20Banking/Islamic%20Banking%20&%20its%20Potential%20impact%20%20Risk%20Man%20-Thomas_Banking.pdf.
26Wie, 12.
27Ali, 7.
28Wie, 13.
29Ufen, 7.
30Ibid., 16.
31Ali, 12.
32Ufen, 11; Timberg, 3.
33Robert Heffner, “Islamizing Capitalism: On The Founding of Indonesia's First Islamic Bank,” in Toward A New Paradigm: Recent Development in Indonesian Islamic Thought, ed. Mark R. Woodward (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1996); Ufen, 8.
34Timberg, 5.
35Ibid., 8.
36Ali, 19–20.
37Ufen, 13; Wie, 11.
38U.S. Department of State-Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, (March) 2009, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2748.htm.
39Ali, 21.
40Ibid., 22.
41Ayoob, 103.
42Carole Collins, “Colonialism and Class Struggle in Sudan,” MERIP Reports 46, no. 3 (April 1976): 3–17.
43Michael Kevane and Leslie Gray, “Local Politics in the Time of Turabi's Revolution: Gender, Class and Ethnicity in Western Sudan,” Africa 65, no. 2 (1995): 271–296.
44Collins, 6; Kevane and Gray, 274; Dunstan M. Wai, “Revolution, Rhetoric, and Reality in the Sudan,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 17, no. 1 (March 1979): 71–93.
45Collins, 3.
46Ibid., 6.
47Ibid., 6.
48Ibid., 6–7.
49Ibid., 8.
50Ibid., 9; Gabriel Warburg, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan: From Reforms to Radicalism,” The Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (Prism)-Global Research in International Affairs (Gloria) Center: Islam in Africa (August 2006), available at www.e-prism.org.
51Wai, 93.
52Endre Stiansen, “Interest Politics: Islamic Finance in the Sudan, 1977–2001,” in The Politics of Islamic Finance, eds. Clement Henry and Rodney Wilson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 155–167; Warburg, 2–4.
53Collins, 15–17.
54Warburg, 3.
55Stiansen, 155.
56Abbas Abdelkarim, Abdalla El Hassan, and David Seddon, “From Popular Protest to Military Take-over: An Analytical Chronology of Recent Events in Sudan,” Review of African Political Economy 12, no. 33 (August 1985): 82–89; John S. Henley, Vassilis Droucopoulos, Mohamed A. Ibrahim, “Foreign Capital Inflows, Domestic Savings and the Price of Political Stability in the Sudan,” Managerial and Decision Economics 1, no. 3 (September 1980): 138–149.
57Stiansen, 157.
58Warburg, 4.
59Abbashar Jamal, “Funding Fundamentalism: Sudan,” Review of African Political Economy 19, no. 52 (November 1991): 103–109; Stiansen, 165.
60Stiansen, 162.
61Ibid., 159–160.
62Abdelkarim et al., 82–89; Stiansen, 165.
63Eva Bellin, “Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-Developing Countries,” World Politics 52, no. 2 (January 2000): 175–205.