Political Islam” has been adopted and used by many scholars to identify the seemingly unprecedented irruption of Islamic religion into the secular domain of politics and thus to distinguish these practices from the forms of personal piety, belief and ritual conventionally subsumed in Western scholarship under the unmarked category Islam (Achilov, 2016). Political Islam gained serious attention from the United States in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution in Iran when the US embassy in Tehran was seized by Islamic revolutionaries and fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. The Revolution resulted in the fall of the monarchy, that led to the establishment of an Islamic republic. Other events that led to the establishment of political Islam include the capture of the American embassy in Tehran, the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Saudi militants, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the Afghan Mujahideen, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization program in Pakistan, and the growing prominence of the Muslim Brotherhood movement (Hashemi, 2021). Forty years ago, political Islam did not have direct experience with political power nor any control over state institutions. Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Gaza, Sudan, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Malaysia have all experienced religious-based political movements contesting political power and obtaining control of the state (Cesari, 2021). The issue with political Islam is the structural and ideological bias debate on violence. There are some acts of violence that are condemned by Western government and there are some that are not. When a nonstate actor with a religious identity engages in violence against a pro-Western target, the charge of terrorism is levied, followed by condemnations.
Policies, Actions, and the Rise of Political Islam
Oil is the chief natural resource in the Middle East; therefore, the United States and its quest for oil in the Middle East has vamped the rise of political Islam (Taylor & Swanson, 2019). The Middle East relies heavily on Marxist principles to inform their perceptions of and reactions to the unwelcome advances of a capitalist nation. American politicians have claimed that the Middle East was a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history (Taylor & Swanson, 2019). The Middle East scholars believe that the access to oil has been the driving force behind every United States action in the region. United States policies throughout the twentieth century including the Israeli partition, the support of the Shah in Iran in the 1950s, the involvement in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and other recent military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan have been suggested to add an effect to the rise of Political Islam (Taylor & Swanson, 2019). Due to the United States’ support of Israel and the presence of their military forces near Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, radical Islamic groups placed attack on the U.S on September 11, 2001. The 9/11 attacks were inspired by a political ideology that has its foundation in Islam, specifically its formative period in Medina.
Biblical Integration
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:31-33, King James Bible, 2017).