CC BY
54
УДК 297.1
Daria V. ZHIGULSKAYA Institute of Asian and African Studies Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow, Russia daria.zhigulskaya@rambler.ru
GLOBALIZATION AND NEW FORMS OF RELIGIOSITY (AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE)
This paper focuses on the relationship between globalization, on the one hand, and religion and its institutions, on the other. Modernity and globalization are exerting major influences on religion, in some extent diminishing the role of its traditional institutions. However, this does not signify a weakening of religion itself, because globalization has driven the emergence of new forms of religiosity - a phenomenon known as revitalization of religions. Indeed, one of the most prominent political concerns of our time is religious fundamentalism, which is assumed to be a response to globalization. Ironically, fundamentalism is a by-product of globalization and the global society, as well as an instrument of globalization. The article discusses primarily the correlation between religion, its institutions and globalization, and tries to demonstrate that new forms of religion are going global and creating new boundaries, breaching the old frontiers of nation, culture and ethnicity. The paper provides a general description of the different approaches to the relationship between religion and globalization and considers, in particular, the problem of Muslim fundamentalism in its various manifestations. The article demonstrates that the key role in expressing new forms of religiosity is played by transnational religious movements and could be explained by the phenomenon of "deculturalization" of religion, meaning that it is not attached to a particular culture or nation. The proliferation of fundamental Islam (not only amongst Muslims, but also amongst people of other confessions) may, therefore, be explained by the fact that it has no territorial boundaries: it is an abstract identity, which may appeal to everyone. The paper ends with the conclusions on this issue.
Keywords: globalization, Islam, revitalization of religions, religious fundamentalism, Muslim fundamentalism, Islamic resurgence, transnational religious movements, institutional isomorphism, script of modernity, decoupling
DOI: 10.17748/2075-9908-2017-9-1/1-104-107
ЖИГУЛЬСКАЯ Дарья Владимировна Институт стран Азии и Африки Московский государственный университет имени М.В. Ломоносова г. Москва, Россия daria.zhigulskaya@rambler.ru
ГЛОБАЛИЗАЦИЯ И НОВЫЕ ФОРМЫ РЕЛИГИОЗНОСТИ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ
ИСЛАМА)
В статье рассматривается взаимосвязь процесса глобализации и развития религиозных институтов. Глобализация оказывает существенное влияние на религию, в некоторой мере уменьшая роль её традиционных институтов. Вместе с тем, это не означает ослабление религии как таковой, поскольку глобализация привнесла с собой новые проявления религиозности. Этот феномен обозначается термином "ревитализация религии". Одним из самых серьезных политических вызовов современности является религиозный фундаментализм, который, как принято считать, являет собой ответ на глобализацию. Примечательно, что фундаментализм, с одной стороны, - "побочный продукт" глобализации, с другой стороны, - "инструмент" этого процесса. В статье приводится описание различных подходов к оценке взаимосвязи и взаимовлияния глобализации и религии, в частности, рассматривается проблематика исламского фундаментализма в его различных проявлениях. Ключевую роль в распространении новых форм религиозности играют транснациональные религиозные движения. Отчасти это объясняется феноменом "декультура-лизации" религии, когда её традиционные культурные и национальные грани становятся размытыми.
Ключевые слова: глобализация, ислам, ревитали-зация религии, религиозный фундаментализм, исламский фундаментализм, мусульманское возрождение, транснациональные религиозные движения, институциональный изоморфизм, "сценарий современности"
The term "globalization" was first proposed in 1944 by Reiser and Davies, and became widespread among various researchers across a broad range of academic disciplines after the collapse of the bi-polar world and the end of the Cold War in the last decade of the 20th century [12, p.212, p. 219].
Globalization is an umbrella term that describes increasing global integration and interdependence through trade, investment, travel, popular culture, and other forms of interaction in various spheres. It leads to experience of everyday life becoming standardized around the world, so that local and regional phenomena are being transformed into global ones. This process is giving rise to debates on new actors in the global order and assertions that the Westphalian norm of sovereignty is no longer operative.
According to some researchers, however, the massive expansion of nation-state structures, bureaucracies, agendas, revenues and regulatory capacities since World War II indicates that the assertion that globalization diminishes the "sovereignty" of the nation-state is incorrect [3, 11, 15].
According to the Meyerian approach, globalization certainly poses new problems to states but does not make them weaker: "the modern state may have less autonomy than in the past, but it clearly has more to do than in the past as well, and most states are capable of doing more now than they ever have been before" [9, p.157].
In addition to the key actors in global integration, which are still believed to be states, there is a large number of other actors such as supranational organizations, IGOs, NGOs, ICSOs etc. Various
interactions in the global sphere are driving the emergence of different institutions that prescribe and authorize the behavior of the actors. Despite the very diverse features of these institutions, all of them display an identity of form, or institutional isomorphism.
This phenomenon is strongly influenced by a "script of modernity", which encodes the world polity's rules and demands "enactment of a discernible package of values, goals, institutions and behaviors on the part of all actors" [6, p. 7]. Notwithstanding their dramatically different historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as external factors and contexts, all the actors behave and are structured in a similar way. They "establish their existence by adopting common forms and supporting the creation of such common forms" [8, p. 160]. This "artificial similarity" between institutions partly explains their relative ineffectiveness in realizing their stated goals: instead of focusing on problem solving, they assert their identity through "myth and ceremony" [10] - a phenomenon referred to by the term "decoupling", used to underline the mismatch between stated aims and actual achievements.
Religion, in its various manifestations, has been a carrier of globalizing tendencies in the world for a very long time. Christianity succeeded as a globalizing force hundreds of years before the phenomenon of "globalization" emerged. However, there is still a lack of systematic study of globalization and its influence on religion and vice versa.
There are at least three dramatically contradictory approaches to the relationship between religion and globalization today. According to the first approach, religion in a globalized world is a matter of personal choice, experienced through institutions controlled by the state. Religious doctrines and organization are discussed and rationalized like almost every aspect of social life. Thus, religion becomes "a universalized and secularized project developed from older and somewhat parochial religious models" [9, p.163]. Globalization flattens out cultural differences, erodes local customs and beliefs, and spreads a secular way of life that has less to do with religions of all kinds. In our time, the old belief that one cannot find salvation outside the "church" is no longer valid. "That postulate has been replaced by the belief among almost all elites that salvation lies in rationalized structures grounded in scientific and technical knowledge - states, schools, firms, voluntary associations, and the like. The new religious elites are the professionals, researchers, scientists, and intellectuals who write secularized and unconditionally universalistic versions of the salvation story, along with the managers, legislators, and policymakers who believe the story fervently and pursue it relentlessly" [9, p. 174].
According to the second approach, religion is one of the greatest sources of resistance to globalization. In one sense, this overlaps with the third approach, which states that various forms of religion are themselves active globalizers. In accordance with this third approach, religions draw new boundaries and violate cultural, ethnic and national frontiers. Globalization and the development of concepts such as civil society have undermined traditional religious institutions and led to their decoupling. Today, we are witnessing other forms of religious expression, which are both an outcome and a tool of globalization. The second and the third approaches therefore deal with the same phenomenon (new forms of religiosity), the former viewing it as an outcome and the latter as an instrument of globalization.
The key role in expressing new forms of religiosity is played by transnational religious movements. These movements have no territorial base and are devoted to purely politico-religious causes. Amongst them, one can find all forms of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, as well as of Orthodox Judaism. What all fundamentalist movements have in common is that they appeal to "pure" religion with no reference to geographical and cultural borders. Thus, globalization of religion in one sense demonstrates its "deculturalization", meaning that it is not attached to a particular culture or nation. This "deculturalization" of religion helps to meet the needs of groups who feel deprived of their cultures, which explains why they have been so successful in terms of proselytism and conversion [13].
Meanwhile, one of the most pertinent questions concerning the relationship between Islam and modernity is what lies behind the Islamic resurgence in the 20th century?
According to S. Hunter, in the West there are two scientific approaches to that question - the "Neo-Orientalist" and the "Neo-Third Worldist". The former attributes "the emergence of the Islamist phenomenon mainly to Islam itself rather than to the social, economic and cultural dynamics of Muslim societies and the mutations caused by economic development and growing interaction with the outside world". This means that the Islamist phenomenon is a consequence of Islam's inherent characteristics and cannot coexist with Western ideas [4, p. 71]. Thus, Samuel Huntington's hypothesis argues that Islam originated among "warring Bedouin nomadic tribes" and this "violent origin is stamped in the foundation of Islam [...] a concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice" [5, p. 263].
The "Neo-Third Worldists", on the other hand, consider Islam to be capable of change and a d-aptation. Francois Burgat, one of the most distinguished scholars of this school, argues that the Islamic resurgence is the third cultural phase of the process of decolonization, and scholars of this school tend to view "the latest wave of Islamic resurgence not as a consequence of Islam's characteristics,
but rather as a combination of economic deprivation, social alienation and political disfranchisement" [4, p. 73].
The outcomes of the relationship between Islam and globalization may be classified as following:
i) "Islam as a subject of globalization" may be examined using the example of the Muslim European diaspora. As a result of several waves of Muslim immigration to Europe, a diverse community has been "implanted on European soil", resulting in: 1) the adaptation and westernization of Islam and the formation of a moderate Euro-Islam; many Muslims adapt easily to life in Europe: they confess their faith through the prism of Christian values; and they defend the family, gender differentiation and a strict moral code, opposing abortion and divorce while preserving their religious identity. Here, globalization works to "diminish" the role of tradition. 2) the emergence of a traditionalist Euro-Islam; This occurs in the context of the triangular relationship between the European host societies and the Muslim-majority countries of origin; traditionalist Euro-Islam usually forms "ghettos" and mirrors the mutual rejection between the European majority and Muslim cultures; here, globalization works to "reinforce" tradition, because in order to renew social habits resistant to a Western way of life, religious leaders, wives and husbands can be brought from the country of origin.
Another phenomenon is the development of radical Islam, which is assumed to be a response to globalization as a threat to Islamic identity. Fundamentalist organizations speak a language which is decidedly global: they are in pursuit of "global Umma1", a utopia rooted in modernity, removed from its historic lands and "deculturalized".
ii) Fundamental Islam as a globalizing power. Before addressing the key issue in this section, it is vital to focus on some basic terminology. The term "fundamental Islam" is widely used. Some researches consider it misleading, however, because the term fundamentalism "dates back to about 1910, when certain Protestant churches who wished to differentiate themselves from the mainstream churches published a series of pamphlets called The Fundamentals. There were two things to which they objected: one was liberal theology, and the other was Bible criticism. Whereas in the 1980s it became customary to use the word fundamentalism for certain Muslim groups. So, the word has been re-semanticized. Muslim fundamentalists are concerned about what they call as de-Islamization of Islamic countries. They want to restore Shari'a and to remove legal codes which have been imported from abroad" [7, p. 256-257].
In general, fundamental movements in Islam are called Wahhabism or Salafism (Salaffiya). These terms have distinct historical roots, but they have been used interchangeably in recent years, especially in the West. Today, the term "Wahhabism" is broadly used to refer to a Sunni Islamic movement that seeks to purify Islam of any innovations or practices that deviate from the 7th century teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers. This is partly misleading. Because the word "Wahhabism" literally refers to the conservative Islamic creed emanating from Saudi Arabia, whereas the term "Salafism" refers to a more general puritanical Islamic movement that has developed independently at various times and in various parts of the Islamic world [1].
The process of Islamic revival began in the second half of the 20th century, although its roots can be traced back to the 1920s. The crisis of authority brought about by massive social change in the 20th century started with the founding of two lay organizations that gave birth to Islamic fundamentalism. One of these was the Muslim Brotherhood2, founded in Egypt in 1928 by its leader Hasan alBanna to promote an Islamic revival to rival and resist the West after the decline and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Twenty years later, the movement had nearly 2 million adherents and had spread throughout the Muslim world. The Brotherhood called for the revitalization of the Umma [2, p. 274-275]. Another movement is Jama'at -Islam3 - it is similar to the Muslim Brotherhood and was founded in India in 1941. Its leader, Abu l'Ala Maududi, believed that politics as a whole is God's domain and on that basis, he denounced all other political systems.
Today, various offshoots of these "classical models" of Islamic fundamentalism are called neo -fundamentalist movements and represent a real threat to society. They do not express traditional cultures, but rather an abstract identity without roots in any society. According to Olivier Roy, neo-fundamentalism "rejects culture, philosophy, and even theology to favor a literalist reading of sacred texts and an immediate understanding of truth through individual faith. The irrelevance of traditional culture explains the growing number of converts. They are the product not of western or Middle Eastern history, but the fusion of all histories, of globalization" [14].
1 Ummah (Arabic: ^J) is a word meaning "nation" or "community".
2 Terrorist organization banned in Russia.
3 Terrorist organization banned in Russia.
Therefore, it is possible to conclude, that globalization and the formation of non-territorial identities are exerting a tremendous impact on all societies around the world. They are changing the way in which people think about the religious revival.
Perhaps the most explicit manifestation of the emergence of new religious expressions is Islamic neo-fundamentalism, which poses a serious threat to the security and stability of many countries, regions and indeed the world as a whole and should be fought with an integrated approach by an international community.
REFERENCES
1. Blanchard, C.M., The Islamic traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya, CRS Report for Congress, 2008; available at https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21695.pdf
2. Chaliand, G., Blin, A., The history of terrorism from antiquity to al Qaeda, University of California Press,Berkeley Los Angeles London, 2007.
3. Duchacek, I. D., Latouche, D., Stevenson, G., Perforated Sovereignties and International Relations: Trans-Sovereign Contacts of Subnational Governments, New York: Greenwood, 1988.
4. Hunter, S.T., The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence?, Westport. Connecticut. London: Praeger, 1998.
5. Huntington, S., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, London: Touchstone, 1998.
6. Jupille,J., Joliff, B., Wojcik, S., Regionalism in the World Polity, 2014.
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Information about the author
Daria V. Zhigulskaya, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Department of Central Asia and the Caucasus, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Lo-monosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia daria.zhigulskaya@rambler.ru
Received: 07.01.2017
For citation: Zhigulskaya, D. V., Globalization and new forms of religiosity (an islamic perspective).
Istoricheskaya i sotsial'no-obrazovatelnaya mys'l = Historical and Social Educational Idea. 2017. Vol . 9. no. 1. Part. 1. Pp. 104-107. doi: 10.17748/2075-9908-2017-9-1/1-104-107. (in Russian
Информация об авторе
Жигульская Дарья Владимировна, кандидат исторических наук, кафедра стран Центральной Азии и Кавказа, Институт стран Азии и Африки, Московский государственный университет имени М.В. Ломоносова, г. Москва, Россия daria.zhigulskaya@rambler.ru
Получена: 07.01.2017
Для цитирования: Жигульская Д.В., Глобализация и новые формы религиозности (на примере ислама). Историческая и социально-образовательная мысль. 2017. Том. 9. № 1. Часть 1. с. 104-107.
doi: 10.17748/2075-9908-2017-9-1/1-104-107
