"Seek knowledge, even unto China" - Prophet Muhammad
As-salamu alaykum, chapos!
After consulting with the cyber Ulama we have decided to create an open thread where curious posters can take a break from the great posting jihad and ask questions on the nature of Islam or the Muslim experience. So long as they are asked in good faith, from a position of truly wanting to learn, these questions will be answered without judgement.
As for Muslims, all of us are free to answer any of the questions, even ones that have already been answered. This is an open thread, and the input of different Islamic perspectives is valuable to getting a big picture.
To all those reading this, remember: No one person is an authority on Islam. This is why it traditionally the din never had its own clergy. Always have this in mind when researching on Islam.
Alright, now GET TO ASKING!
I was pretty anti-Christianity until I met some Christian anarchists / Catholic Workers.
Does Islam have anything similar?
Of course, I mean you are talking to an Islamic Marxist Leninist right now. But if you mean any organized movements, there was the MEK. They were a party in Iran during the revolution who married communism with Islam, back when the revolution was a bigger-tent alliance of anti-imperialists, but the MEK and many other groups were ousted by the Ayotollah's regime once their power was secured. The MEK was widely popular with the masses because most other communists in Iran were quite detached from the rhetoric of the average worker, and they knew how to use Islamic philosophy and rhetoric to communicate a message of communism. They constituted the largest opposition group in Iran, although over time after finding themselves in the outskirts of political power they got paranoid, basically turned into an insular cult ,and much of their original communist rhetoric was lost, and now they're essentially neocons with ties to American intelligence. It's pretty sad, but the fact that they existed and were going strong shows that there is the potential for a healthy Islamic workers movement.
Of course there was Gadaffi and the Third Internaional Theory, which married Islam, socialism, Pan-Africanism and Arab nationalism in an anti-imperialist struggle. It was the main framework that Libya was run on for four decades. Unfortunately, some parts of Gadaffi's theory is lacking in coherency, specifically because he himself ruled in a contradictory fashion throughout his regime. And he condemned communism, yet still called himself a socialist, which is bizarre to me, but whatever.
Most of the people in Rojava are Muslims, they also practice a unique form of anarchism. I don't know too much about the exact anarchist theory of Rojava, and though I doubt it has zero influence on the Islamic values of most of its population, I think they use more secular theory to engage in the struggle (especially since Rojava has a large Christian minority) - which is fine of course, but I don't know if what you're asking is for Muslim leftists or Islamic leftism, which aren't the same thing.
Thanks for all that information. I probably should have been more specific: I’m interested in whether there’s a branch of Islam specifically interpreted in a leftist manner, so an Islamic leftism.
I’ve also heard of Islamic banking as a cool concept. Is that at all socialist adjacent or something you’re able to infodump on?
Of course - in that case yeah, Gadaffi and the MEK are the two big ones that come to mind - the MEK was part of a grander movement during revolutionary Iran that had a lot of syncretism between communism and Islam present in it, Ali Shariati is a good example of a thinker during the revolution who espoused that. There are also all the black Muslim movements and many of them identified themselves as Islamic left, Malcolm X for example believing in a staunchly anti-capitalist Islam. The NoI has some beliefs I dislike but the movement as a whole that it is a part of is pretty based in general. There's the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, who considered themselves Islamic socialists when they ruled for a decade and a half with Soviet support. Those are some of the big ones I can think of.
Islamic banking sucks. The Qur'an condemns usury, that is, the concept of loaning with interest, and claims that the object of banking should never be for profit, but to provide a community service. "Islamic banking" today is literally just finding obscure loopholes to charge interest without calling it interest. They're basically capitalists in a shemagh, they suck lmao. The only real way to express "Islamic banking" as it was intended would be to overthrow capitalism first and establish a community vault.
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