LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Islam: Political Islam
built 243 days ago
Islam is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. The word "Islam" means "submission" in Arabic. The followers of Islam are called Muslims, Moslems, or Mohammedans. Muslims follow the teaching of Muhammad, whom they believe to be God's last and greatest prophet. The faith teaches that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him.
Source:
The second grand division of Islamic doctrine is into religious Islam and political Islam. It is surprising how much of the doctrine is political. Approximately 67% of the Meccan Koran and 51% of the Medinan Koran is political. About 75% of the Sira is about what was done to the kafir. Roughly 20% of the Hadith is about jihad, a political act.
Source:
Islam has no basic concept of inalienable rights and does not permit the individual to enjoy the freedoms of action and association characteristic of a democracy. In Islamic states, where there is no formally recognized separation between religion and law, mosque and state, Shari‘a is enshrined and presented (if not always consistently implemented) as the final and ultimate formulation of the law of God, not to be revised or reformulated by mere mortal and fallible human beings. In Egypt, Algeria, and Palestine, the Shari‘a is virtually ignored as a guide to specific legislation or government policy on many vital issues. The remaining Muslim countries, which adopted Western-style legal and political systems under colonial tutelage, enshrine Islamic law in their codes and constitutions to various degrees. These nations range from Pakistan, with its intense political agitation over the interpretation and implementation of Shari‘a, to Indonesia, a self-proclaimed secular nation that is the home to more than 180 million Muslims.
Source:
[W]hat body of Islam has the authority to reform it? There is no such authority. Some group of Muslims might decide to drop all of the violent and oppressive political doctrine, but what authority would they have to tell any other Muslim to follow them?
Source:
In some of the newly independent states, socially conservative interpretations of Islam legitimized monarchies. In Morocco, Jordan, Oman, and Malaysia, these monarchies continued through the end of the century, although monarchies were overthrown by more secular and radical movements in Egypt (1952), Tunisia (1957), Iraq (1958), Yemen (1962), and Afghanistan (1973). In Iran the monarchy was overthrown in 1979 by an Islamic revolution, a major indication of the resurgence of political Islam in the late twentieth century. In other areas older elites were ... overthrown or displaced by newer and frequently more ideologically radical groups. By the 1960s Western-style radicalism was the most dynamic element in the politics of the newly independent Muslim world. The most visible leaders were people like Sekou Toure in Guinea, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, and Sukarno in Indonesia and parties like the National Liberation Front, which spearheaded the war for Algerian independence, and the Ba'th (Arab Socialist) Party in Syria and Iraq.
Source:
Islam's historical development resulted in major political, economic, and military effects inside and outside the Islamic world. Within a century of Muhammad's first recitations of the Qur'an, an Islamic empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. This new polity soon broke into civil war, and successor states fought each other and outside forces. However, Islam continued to spread into regions like Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. The Islamic civilization was one of the most advanced in the world during the Middle Ages, but was surpassed by Europe with the economic and military growth of the West. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Islamic dynasties such as the Ottomans and Mughals fell under the sway of European imperial powers.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Political Islam