Militant Islam and Its Critics: The Case of Libya

Abstract

The main thrust of this study is to explain why Libya has not witnessed a militant Islamic opposition movement like, for instance, Al-Nahda in Tunisia, Al-Jabha al-Islamiyya lil-Inqadh (FIS) in Algeria or, on a somewhat lower scale, Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya in Egypt, and Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Syria. I maintain there are five major determinants that are dialectically interrelated and that could shed light on this phenomenon. The first two determinants are the “given” on the eve of the revolution, or the Hegelian thesis. The first of these is the Islamic legacy of the Sanusiyya in prerevolutionary Libya, that is, the relationship between religion and the state under the monarchy; the second consists of the salient characteristics of Libyan society that have inhibited the rise of a dominant militant Islamic movement. The third and fourth determinants constitute the antithesis: what Qadhafi has imposed on Libya as a political and a socioeconomic system that is at once nonmonolithic and egalitarian; and the way Qadhafi has interpreted the relationship between Islam and politics in two more or less distinct periods, 1969 to 1974 and 1975 to 1981. Both of these determinants have made the emergence of a militant Islamic movement more difficult. The fifth determinant is a synthesis that is still in the making, namely the Libyan opposition and its vision of the post-Qadhafi era.