Islamic Political Movements

Catalog description

This course focuses on the proliferation of Islamic political movements in the Middle East in the last century. Islamist movements of many different kinds have occupied center stage within their societies and have been important to both regional and international politics and policy making. These groups have sought to “re-establish” what they see as Islamic moral and political orders through preaching, missionizing, electoral politics, and/or violence. Some have taken to combating nominally Muslim regimes that they consider un-Islamic. Others have waged war against the “West” or fought to redeem formerly Muslim lands. In this course, we will look at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; the Iranian Revolution and its exports; the rise, fall, and rise again of the Taliban in Afghanistan; jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS; and nationalist movements such as Hamas in the West Bank/Gaza and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria. What do the Islamists in these organizations have in common and how do they differ? What are their objectives regarding gender, society, and the state? How do they go about obtaining their objectives?