Abstract

The Arab uprisings which began in December 2010 sparked the largest Middle Eastern protests in living memory. People across ideological, social, and demographic spectra took to the streets demanding jobs, justice, and dignity. These social protests were not only diverse, they were also explicitly secular. In the wake of these momentous events, four long-standing dictators were deposed (in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen), while civil war broke out in Syria, and civil unrest continues to fester in Bahrain. Despite the protestors’ achievements, the original secularism of these movements eventually gave rise to new forms of political Islam which quickly filled the regional power vacuums. In the newly “liberalized” countries, voters have empowered Islamists with a mandate to pilot their countries into a new era of political, social, and economic transformation—placing enormous expectations these new leaders. Against this backdrop of rapid political change, questions abound about the nature of Islamic doctrine and how it is affecting, and being effected by, these unfolding events.

The Middle East Institute is hosting three distinguished panelists to explore the contemporary nature of Islamic political thought in the wake of the Arab uprisings with an added focus on its relationship with Southeast Asia. Dr. Ermin Sinanovic will address the question of how the Arab Uprisings have contributed to and influenced contemporary Islamic political thought, as well as how the Muslim scholarly class (‘ulama’) and Islamist actors have respond to these political events. Dr. Al Makin will discuss the defeat of Muslim liberals in the latest “wave of democratization” and highlight lessons from similar conditions in the Indonesian experience. Nazry Bahrawi will then compare between Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s idea of civil state and Robert Hefner’s idea of Indonesian civil Islam as these relate to the idea of post-Islamism.