Read on Twitter
The terrorist attacks in Nice, Kabul & Vienna, many by post-teenage drug users & criminals claiming to be motivated by religion, are symptoms of the crisis of religious authority in Islamic civilization due largely to the modern state’s destruction of the ulema as a class. 1/
The modern state declares itself the sole authority & source of sovereignty (even when it claims sovereignty lies with “the people”) & it cannot tolerate rivals. 2/
Since the ulema as a class in the pre-modern era were (more or less, depending on time & place) an intermediary & rival authority the modern state had to destroy it. It did so by nationalizing the independent foundations (waqfs) that funded the ulema’s activity, 3/
by codifying Islamic jurisprudence as positive law that could be administered by minimal educated bureaucrats, & by coopting the ulema & turning them into state functionaries. 4/
Much of this destruction was carried out by colonial powers but by no means all; the late Ottoman Empire initiates many of these “reforms.” 5/
The modern state’s destruction of the ulema as a class (due to its claim of monopoly on authority) left a vacuum of religious authority & poverty of intellectual resources within Islamic civilization to address contemporary issues, 6/
just as the anomie of modernity & secularism was creating a profound rupture & crisis of meaning & order (as it did in the West). People began to lose access to the traditional worldview & secular, immanentist ideologies like nationalism, liberalism & Marxism displaced it. 7/
At the same time the stifling tyranny of the hegemonic state (run by petty kleptocrat tyrants) generated resentment, as did failed expectations of prosperity. Religious imposters began to step into the vacuum left by the ulema’s collapse, mostly engineers, lawyers & doctors, 8/
who often adopted the clothing & mannerisms of the ulema. Most had strong backgrounds in Marxism or nationalism. Since they were captured by the modern paradigm, had little to no traditional Islamic education & had no access to traditional modes of thought & notions of order, 9/
the “Islam” that they adopted was a reconstruction along the pattern of modern ideologies. Some of the movements founded by these men gave birth to violent movements (such as the Gihad organization of Muh’d Farag which became Al Qaeda which gave birth to ISIS). 10/
Others were very “progressive” or gave birth to very progressive movements. These movements use the term “Islamist” for themselves to distinguish from Marxists & nationalists on the one hand and Muslims who have managed to hang on to traditional Islam. 11/
In any event these modernists are the primary rivals to the “Islam” propagated by the modern state, which also has sought to co-opt Islamism at various times as it suits their purposes, just as they have co-opted “traditionalists” and other revival movements such as salafism. 12/
This leaves the Muslims caught between the “Islam” of the totalitarian state, and the “Islam” of well-meaning fools, or of narcissists, megalomaniacs, & manipulators, on the other. End.