From Fitnah to Thaura: The Metamorphosis of the Arab-Muslim Protest Movements
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 9
Abstract
Since 2011, the Arab world has entered a period of political turbulence accompanied by widespread growth of protest activity. The events that were metaphorically called the “Arab Spring” referring to the “Spring of Nations” of 1848, affected virtually all countries of the Middle East and North Africa. In Libya, Syria, and Yemen, antigovernment demonstrations led to almost complete destruction of statehood raising the question of the existence of these political entities in their former borders. Egypt and Tunisia ended up with a change in the ruling regimes that repeated many times. The ruling elites of other Arab countries, having experienced the wrath of the Arab streets to varying degrees, managed to stay in power. The “Arab Spring” events should be more adequately viewed in the framework of “fitnah”, a form of protest traditional in the Arab-Muslim political culture. Indeed, since the emergence of Islam, fitnah was one of the most common forms of protest activity in the Middle East. However, in the last two centuries, it was replaced by “thaura” or the “revolution,” much more common in the European mentality. While the term "fitnah" has mainly negative connotations, “thaura” has been praised in every possible way and even became the basis for commemorative practices. This paper makes an attempt to compare these two forms of protest in the Muslim world.
Authors and Affiliations
Alisa Shishkina and Leonid Issaev
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25784
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8090193
- Views 304
- Downloads 10
Chögyal Namkhai Norbu — The Master Who Revealed Dzogchen to the Western World
Chögyal Namkhai Norbu is one of the last great masters of Dzogchen to have been born and fully educated in Tibet, before the Chinese takeover. He was soon recognized as a great reincarnated lama. This short biography i...
Teaching Augustine—Introduction
This introduction to the Special Issue “Teaching Augustine” summarizes the volume’s essays and discusses the conference at which they were initially presented.
Transcultural Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of Portuguese Version of the Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ) Among HIV Positive Patients in Brazil
The Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ), originally written in the German language, was translated and validated into 11 languages, but not Latin languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese. This study aimed to determine...
Measures of Spirituality/Religiosity—Description of Concepts and Validation of Instruments
Why do we need some more questionnaires to measure aspects of spirituality/religiosity when we already have so many well-tried instruments in use? One answer is that research in this field is growing and that new resea...
The Catholic Bishops in the U.S. Public Arena: Changing Prospects under Pope Francis
The public profile of the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States results not simply from their own interventions in political life, but from the broad array of actions and actors within “public Catholicism” broadl...