A Dream of Divine Sovereignty, Realized

Becca Iliffe, School: School of History

A Dream of Divine Sovereignty, Realized: Pakistan, The Jamaat-e-islami, and The Iranian Revolution
Date: 16/11/2020
Speaker: Dr Simon Wolfgang Fuchs 

I attended this guest lecture on recommendation of my special subject tutor as the topic that we are covering relates to South Asia in this period. I therefore went into this event with more background knowledge than I have had previously and found that it was extremely relevant to concepts I am currently studying, including the placement of specific themes into a global context. Dr Simon Fuchs is a lecturer of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and this event- looking at the engagement of Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in the Iranian revolution- fits into his ideas of considering the Iranian revolution from a global perspective. Before this event began, I investigated terms in the abstract I had not come across before, outlining the main points about the JI as well as Abu ‘l-A la Maududi and the concept of Hakimiyya. During his lecture, Fuchs also expanded on this, providing background and making the content very accessible. His main argument was that the Iranian revolution was seen as the reassertion of divine sovereignty by the JI which is why they supported it. By investigating Maududi and the concept of divine sovereignty with his audience, Fuchs created the opportunity to clearly see where his ideas originated.  

He cemented this further through the use of case studies in the form of Tehran travelogues, each written by someone associated with the JI that visited Iran in the years following the revolution.  

He also used the case study of the Lahore seminar in 1989 to demonstrate the fleetingness of this connection. Iran did not have a representative at this worldwide seminar of Muslim leaders and in speeches, many asserted that there were no living examples of how having an Islamist state could be put into practice thereby invalidating the existence of Iran as Islamist. Fuchs suggests that this is because of how the JI realised that people in Iran had very different ideas of revolution, as they wanted non-violent, gradual change not an overthrow of the government. 

Alongside his main ideas, Fuchs examined Maududi’s place in theological and Islamic history, suggesting that he is often acknowledged but not taken very seriously because his influence was so fundamental in theory that his ideas are now seen as self-evident. He also spoke about how people who have looked at relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the past have been too focused on their conflict to identify shared ideas, especially in the press. By looking at the JI- who are Sunni- supporting the Iranian revolution- which was Shia led - he argued that they put the concept of divine sovereignty above this difference. This creates further fuel for the idea of looking at Islam in a global context.  

This lecture was extremely useful for expanding my ideas on the globality of certain themes. During recent seminars we have been discussing how issues relating to partition in India should be considered on an international level, in particular with certain groups like the Muslim League and the All India Women’s Conference. Fuchs helped build on these ideas, conveying a unity in international affairs between certain affiliations that I would like to investigate further in my studies, particularly relating to the creation of Pakistan. I also thought this lecture was an excellent example of how to make academic studies accessible, providing clear background for those who may not have looked at the topic in detail before, and displaying interesting primary sources as case studies to really support a point.