Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Introduction - Coggle Diagram
Introduction
-
Scholarship
Since the 1970s when political Islam emerged as a governing idoelogy in Iran there has been a growth in accedemic interest in the ideology; much of this focus has been aimed to two questions: is political Islam comptable with liberal democracy? and what are the objectives and values of Islamist movements? (Brenner, 2016, pp10-13).
Much of this thinking has been rooted at an analysis of Islamist political ideology instead of an assement of how Islamist groups have governed when they have come to power (Brenner, 2016, p10).
The scholars involved in this study have typically fallen within two dogmatic groups: those that inist that all Islamist groups are screatly Islamic theocrats who aim to shift liberal democracy towards autocracy or they are secular democrats who will have to moderate to win power within democracies (Brenner, 2016, pp17-18).
This methodology, however, is top dogmatic and new frameworks to understnad Islamist movements are needed, in his book Gaza Under Hamas, Brenner proposes a new framework that uses two axis: authoritrian vs democratic and Religous vs secular to create a more fluid space inwhich we can recorginise that Islamist groups may move between spaces and posses a range of ideas (2016).
-
Political Islam is one of the definining political ideologies of both the modern era and espically of the Muslim world (Armajani, 2011), starting in Egypt and the works of Hasan al-Banna (Princeton reading on Islamist thought), the ideology has since spread across the Middle East, inspiring governments and militant groups alike.
In this essay I will focus on the main Sunni Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch Hamas (Princeton reading on Islamist thought) with the goal of exploring why Hamas has pivoted away from the traditional positions of the Muslim Brotherhood and how and why they have devleoped their own form of Islamism.
Hamas can be seen as performing two pivots, the first occuring around the time of the 2004 to 2006 Palestian elections that saw Hamas participate for the first time in national elections and accept a degree of moderation (Gunning, 2023). The seccond pivot occurs very quickly following the elections and is less explored in the scholarship, this pivot sees Hamas move away from democracy and towards a more autocratic and slightly Islamist approach to governing Gaza (Schanzer, 2009).
Why is it important
This needs more:
Europe has had a different relationship to politics and religion compared with the Middle East, talk about the seperation of church and state and why the West struggles with Islamism, talk about the Western perspective of Islam as a regressive.
This essay aims to help support both the broad understnading of Islamism by looking at two of the regions most important Islamist groups and support the understnading of Hamas as a government. this looks very descriptive, the essay is more neunanced then what is set out here, talk about a tendancy to essentialise and that this essay will be a nuanced inerogation
Much of the focus on Hamas has been, understably, on the groups forign policy and its relationship towards Israel, this has meant there has been less focus on understnading its domestic policitcs and its policies towards Gazans. worth talking about the rhetoric around Hamas and where does this rhetoric comes from
Understnading political Islam remains an important process despite the large scale retreat of Islamists from power outside Lebanon and Gaza (Robbins, 2023).
By Arab Barometers 2022 polling only three of the countries that they polled had less then 40% support for religous figures having a sat in politics (Robbins, 2023). Meanwhile there remains support for the impleentation of Islamic law even if this occurs at the expense of democracy with Morocco, Palstine, Jordan and Mauritania having 40% or more of their population willing to sacrficie political rights for Islamic law (Arab Barometer, 2025).
All of this is despite a general trend across the region that views Islamist grous that have won power negertively with on average just 24.8% of people thinking governing Islamist groups have had a postive impact (el-Badway et al, 2024).
Furthermore, within Palestine itself political Islam and autocratic Islam remain popular trends (Robbins, 2023 and Arab Barometer, 2025).
Although most Palestinians reject the idea that religous leaders should sway how people vote, large portions of the Gazan population support increasing the number of reliogus people in public office (50%), expanding the role of clerics in government (44%) and implementing shari'a law (51%) (Arab Barometer, 2019).
Finally Arab Barometer polling suggests that around 43% of Palestinians would be happy with a system in which there were no paties or elections if it was governed by Islamic law (Arab Barometer, 2025).
Political Islam clearly still holds sway among both Arab street and Palestinians, espically those in Gaza.
Therefore it is key to understnad the ideology so as to understand both contempory political systems, but also how the region might look if and when political reforms might occur. Understnading the region and its politics is key to building and improving relationships within the region and supporting a better understanding at home about the Arab and Muslim world so that both regions can develop together (Godwin, 2022).
Structure
Before contuining it is important to outline the structure of the rest of this essay. First the methodology used for the research will be explained and within this a study of the themes that are being explored.
Next there will be a litreature review that will aim to provide an overview of Islamist ideology (add this and discuss some of the key theories and definations used). Here the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas will be explored, providing important context to understanding the laters political changes.
The third section will be an analysis of why we have seen a pivot in Hamas' thinking both towards democracy and moderation and then back to a more autocratic and partial-Islamist position.
-
-