The Islamic leader - imam

 Politics deals primarily about "power issue" . Therefore, everything that is about "power to decide" in society may be of interest to "politics".
One of the most debatable and indeed controversial issues within political debates today is the relationship between religion and politics.
Today, increasingly, we are witnessing an interference of religion and politics.

  Islam is a religion in which it is difficult to distinguish between divine and political messages. In almost all Muslim countries, religion and politics are so interwoven into each other, as in situations it is difficult to distinguish between the spiritual and the political message for example in a fatwa, which is issued by a Muslim "Imam".

  Therefore, a religious leader - imam - in a Muslim society is not only a spiritual leader but also a leader who has political influence and in situations actually crucial role in his own community's political decision-making processes.
I intend to deal with the word " imam " in this article.

  "Imam" is a familiar concept in a fourteen-century history of Islamic societies.

  However, outside the Muslim world, it is an unfamiliar word, so that to many people it is a new concept. Especially in European countries, in recent times, in parallel with expanded immigration from Asian and African countries to European countries, people have had more encounters with the word "imam".

  Today, in Muslim minority communities in some European countries, imams are so influential that for example in Scandinavia some organizations and local authorities ask for help from the Imams and they expect them to cooperate in order to overcome the problems caused by the immigrant youth.

  But "imam" has in fact a wider meaning than that. The simple meaning of this word - if it can be summarized in one word - is "leader".

  In this paper there is intended to give a picture of the social position and role that an "Islamic leader" has in a Muslim society. Therefor I try to describe two characteristic features of the Muslim leaders. According to many researchers the concept of "leadership" is one of the most complex and controversial concepts in Islam. Ali Shariati, a prominent Muslim intellectual in the 1970s believed that "Imamat" (the leadership as one of the five basic pillars of Shiia Muslim) with "Adl" (righteousness) are the whole of Islam! While it has a crucial role in the social and political life among Muslims, it also contains many different and even contrasting meanings and perceptions of the concept. Many aspects of Islam can somehow be connected with the status and role of "the Muslim leader" in the society.

  In this context, I try to describe the main characteristics of "the Muslim leader" and its historical role, focusing on its influence on the Islamic society.

  "Leadership" is one of the basic doctrinal principles in Islam. From the beginning of Islam and the years after the Prophet's death, there has been tried on an induction of a particular attitude about "leadership" among the Muslim "Ummah". In early Islam was deviation from the basic values rather difficult, but through the ages the deviation from the original values was occurred and gradually grew. One of the perversions was perpetuation and legitimization of "the religious leader's" status in the time after Muhammad in the Islamic society. This perception that, "imam" is a person closer to God and thus the implicit view – on the basis of an interpretation of Muhammad's religion - that in God's eyes imam is dearer than other people, became increasingly stabilized in Islam. Imam or "the Sharia leader" became the person who possessed the special properties. These properties could provide the imam a form of monopoly on interpreting the word of God, which "ordinary people were unable to understand" (Mirfetros, 1988: 161).

 Expertise

  "Expertise" in the Muslim doctrinal question related to the concept of "the Muslim leader" is one of the most important issues. With respect to lexical meaning of the title "Ummi" this word is synonymous with ignorant and illiterate people. In Arabic it is used fundamentally in relation to people who cannot read or write.

  In the Islamic culture lot of "ignorant" people are placed in contrast to the elite. The masses are regarded as "ignorant" people, so that only their guides - it means those who belong to the expert group - are fit to lead them. Ali Mirfetros, which takes some similar aspects between "Islam" and "totalitarianism", believes that both Islamic and totalitarianism theorists define and understand "the people" as minors or children, which require supervision and guardianship by the imam or the religious leader ( Mirfetros, 1988: 165)..

  In the Islamic School an ordinary Muslim must obey own leader (imam). If a Muslim wants to know why he or she should have obedience to the imam, he or she should know the jurisprudence (fiqh) and obtain the degree of "ijtihad". So as long as a Muslim individual do not have the Islamic knowledge he or she is obligated to the follow his or hers "imam".

  This is a form of separation between the theoretical and the practical life or in other words a differentiation of the spiritual from the physical affairs, in the sense that the physical issues are related to the ignorant people (crowd), and the questions of spiritual guidance are related to the Islamic clerics and Muslim lawyers, religious teachers and preachers, mullahs and their trainees.

  Ali Shariati as a neo-minded Muslim claimed that under Muhammad's time there was not such separation between the practical work and the thinking work, but all the Muslims in the time of Muhammad were both the working people and thinking people. "Specialization" in understanding "God's commandments" had not yet arrived in Islam.

 The relationship between the terms " Islamic leader " and " rational justification"

  A rational-aversion and logic-resistant nature is one of the most common features among Muslim leaders. This Intrinsic property is so obvious that it can today be considered as part of the culture of Islamic societies. This is why many Muslim conquests in other (non - Muslim) countries have been accompanied by the burning of books and libraries. Michael Harris in his book " History of      Libraries in the Western world " mentions examples of this bad tradition (Harris, 1995: 84).

  It is neither usual nor customary for a senior person in a hierarchical Islamic society that the person in relation to its decisions feel obliged to give the subordinate persons a logical or rational explanation. Through the centuries it has also affected the family culture and the upbringing manner in the Islamic societies. Many families consider convincing explanations to be unnecessary and improper for their children so that the parents do not want to give the children the right to receive logical and convincing answers.

  As it's not usual in the religious culture that an ordinary person wants explanation from the "imam", children also in line with the religious structure have not right to want explanation from their parents. 

  It is one of the most important similarities between the inter-human relationship in the religious structure and the family / upbringing conditions in the homes of an Islamic society.

  Muslim clerics do not prefer the "logic" in dealing with their followers, but their relationship with the followers are rather based on those people's feelings and thus using populist sentiments.

  That is why that an ordinary Muslim may not discuss the content of the religious fatwas and recommendations, or require rational explanations behind rituals, orders, and interdictions, but that he or she is only required to perform them. In the Islamic culture, the external facades have very important meaning, but in turn the content is an area, which the "ignorant" people do not have a special access to. There are few Muslims who question the meaning and the purpose for all too many practices and rituals, but the most important is that they respect the customs and practices in a visible manner.

Resistance to modernism and liberalism

  Since a social change can create an opportunity to promote the liberty and to spread intellectual growth, any change in the traditional structure of an Islamic society for Islamic clerics can lead to loss of dominance and control over people's affairs. Therefore, Muslim leaders have so conservative attitudes towards western manifestations and to almost everything that relates to the Western culture.

  Samuli Schielke, who stresses a juxtaposition of Islam and liberalism looks at this compilation and concludes that one can think differently and look at religious identities from a different angle than the usual. After all, he cannot reject the contrast between Islam and the liberalism (Schielke, 2010).

  Intransigence and intolerance among Muslim leaders today also comes from a totalitarian nature and their attempts to achieve "whole of the power". I therefore believe that the global conflict between West and Islam today has not a cultural cause, but it has a political cause.

  In the years after World War II, the West and Islamic forces for several decades have more or less been allies. However after the Soviet collapse, significant political changes occurred, which led to the West's full domination so that it emerged as an undefeated winner.

  The Western world ignored its former ally, but it spoke instead about "The New World Order," "globalization," "democracy", "The End of History ..." (Fukuyama, 1992), etc. It was obvious that it could lead to reaction from "the former ally". Li Xing, a researcher at Aalborg University mentions three powerful forces in the march, which the world since the Cold War's end has witnessed. He believes that political Islamism - as one of the three forward marches - is starting to transform itself from being an opposition movement and a marginalized political project to being a counter-hegemonic movement, which fighting on the frontline between the West and the "Rest" (Information, 4 April 2011).

  Therefore, I believe that the conflict between the West and the Islamic world today, which in a way Samuel Huntington talks about (Huntington, 1996), has among others rooted in the fight for political dominance between two expansionist powers, the Western huge economic machine on one side and Muslim leaders' power and influence on the other.

Bibliography

·        Harris Michael H (1995): History of Libraries in the Western World, Scarecrow Press

·        Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York,

      Simon & Schuster, 1996

·        Information, April 4, 2011

·        Mirfetros Ali (1988) Remarks on Iran, Islam and the "true Islam", Publishing Culture

·       Schielke Samuli (2012): Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam, or how to make sense of grand schemes in everyday life, ZMO Working Papers 2, 2010