Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to another episode of It Cora Happen
Speaker 1: here with me Andrew of the YouTube channel Andrews and
Speaker 1: I'm joined today by It's me.
Speaker 2: It's just James today, Just James. That's like a cringe
Speaker 2: from the nineties.
Speaker 1: Really, I was not aware, just sort of curiosity. James,
Speaker 1: do you play any Paradox Games?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know what that is. I don't
Speaker 2: think it's a type of computer game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this was well, it's like a game development company,
Speaker 1: and also they also distribute games as well.
Speaker 2: You've hit an area about which I have very little
Speaker 2: knowledge in.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, this isn't sponsored, it's just uh,
Speaker 1: it's how I ended up stumbling upon this topic. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so just you know, hearing me for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so why the Paradox Games is Crusader Kings three? Right? Right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, I'm already interested to see where this goes.
Speaker 1: So, yes, it's a medieval grand strategy game. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like it's it's a combination of like those classic
Speaker 1: sort of well grand strategy games, I know, also a
Speaker 1: bit of sims flair. You're playing as a character and
Speaker 1: you're also playing as that character's dynasty, so you fit.
Speaker 1: You play as the grandfather, and then the father, and
Speaker 1: then the son, and then the grandson, and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, and so I actually, if you can't tell,
Speaker 1: I play the game sometimes a little bit too much,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate the role playing. The Saturn's it set
Speaker 1: between either eight sixty seven or ten sixty six and
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty three, which is considered the end of the
Speaker 1: medieval era due to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, at a certain point in playing the game,
Speaker 1: after I've played in pretty much every corner of the map,
Speaker 1: I was looking for a new religious movement to spread
Speaker 1: across the map for fun. Of course, this is something
Speaker 1: I do with my free time. And I started reading
Speaker 1: about all these different strands of Islam that they have
Speaker 1: in the game, like the Commissians and the Ebadis and
Speaker 1: the Sufreez. Yeah, and that led me to stumble across
Speaker 1: the move Tasialism and the Naja Dad. And please bailed
Speaker 1: me with the pronunciations of everything about to pronounce in
Speaker 1: this episode, but move Tassilism and the Naja Dad. I
Speaker 1: started digging into this stuff, and that led me to
Speaker 1: make the decision to talk about what I've been learning
Speaker 1: before I begin. I know, even the idea of religious
Speaker 1: anarchisms is somewhat controversial, particularly the discrepancy between the anarchist
Speaker 1: slugan of no gods, no masters, and of course the
Speaker 1: history of various faith based class struggles. MY stance on
Speaker 1: it is complicated, But whatever my stances, I don't think
Speaker 1: we could deny the reality that religious anarchisms have existed
Speaker 1: in the past and still exists today.
Speaker 2: Now I'm really interested in this, I'm I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: working on a book at the minute about anarchists at
Speaker 2: war or I guess how anarchism meets war, and people
Speaker 2: variously sort of defining out anarchism narrowly and widely. I
Speaker 2: grew up in the early two thousands, I guess, with
Speaker 2: the kind of new anarchists, as Greater called it, and
Speaker 2: they were always amongst that broader movement opposed to like
Speaker 2: neoliberal globalization. There were always religious people, and I'm not
Speaker 2: a religious person, And I went to a school where
Speaker 2: there was a priest, and the priest had been a
Speaker 2: member of the anti apartheid movement, in South Africa and
Speaker 2: was wanted them and had left for doing violence to
Speaker 2: get which, like it's pretty based and so like I
Speaker 2: have a lot of time for a lot of religious people,
Speaker 2: it's always been kind of an area of I guess
Speaker 2: interest to me this like religious anarchisms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly it has a very eventful history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to talk a bit about the rather
Speaker 1: interesting history of just one tradition. Although the whole thing
Speaker 1: about the anarchism and I'm going to be discussing is
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't really call it anarchism, not at least
Speaker 1: not by our standards. Yeah, it's more of a distinct
Speaker 1: and notable resistance to centralized authority or a minimization and
Speaker 1: decentralization of that authority. I think it's more into like
Speaker 1: a minarchism than an actual anarchism. Sure, right, but it's
Speaker 1: still interesting to see I guess, the seeds of anti
Speaker 1: authoritarianism through history.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So these particular movements, they have a sort of an
Speaker 1: anti Khalif, Khalif being the religious leader in Islam, they
Speaker 1: have a kind of an anti Khalif action that expanded
Speaker 1: into a broader philosophical and political conclusions. So We can
Speaker 1: start in the city of Basra in Iraq in the
Speaker 1: eight hundreds, where a discussion was taking place recording how
Speaker 1: the Uma or Islamic community should respond to a leader
Speaker 1: of the Abbasid Caliphate would become corrupt and tyrannical. Now,
Speaker 1: the two me and stream opinions were that of the
Speaker 1: activists who believed in stage in a violent revolution to
Speaker 1: install a new legitimate leader, and the quietists who believed impatiently,
Speaker 1: perseverant under attorney or passively resistant. It's funny how we
Speaker 1: see these kind of ideas about change rearing their heads
Speaker 1: again and again and again throughout history, despite various different contexts.
Speaker 1: The other people were like, yeah, let's go get it,
Speaker 1: and the other people who are like, yeah, let's rock
Speaker 1: back a little bit and take things with more passively.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting right now. Abubaka, the guy who was
Speaker 1: the first caliph, he made it clear in his inauguration
Speaker 1: that obedience is not incumbent upon his followers if he
Speaker 1: contradicts the will of Allah. And for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: Allah is God in the Islamic religion. And yet the
Speaker 1: dominant position in Islam has been the quietest position even
Speaker 1: to this day, the activist position is less popular. Some
Speaker 1: would say some people have this side that the only
Speaker 1: manifestation of Islam can be the one seed in the
Speaker 1: autocracies of Western Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. But even
Speaker 1: back in Islam's heyde there were Muslims willing to resist
Speaker 1: the tyrannical control of even religiously or ordained rulers. So
Speaker 1: back to Bastra in the eight hundreds, there was also
Speaker 1: a third category of solutions proposed, which we can call
Speaker 1: anarchists in the general sense, but not really in the
Speaker 1: actual sense. Most of the Muslim anarchists believe that society
Speaker 1: could function without the caliph. They proposed a kind of
Speaker 1: evolutionary anarchism where private property was not abolished per se,
Speaker 1: but because the ruler was considered illegitimate, the titles of
Speaker 1: property the ruler granted would also be considered illegitimate. They
Speaker 1: also argue that the caliph must be agreed upon by
Speaker 1: the entire community, which is no easy task considering how
Speaker 1: Islam divided between Sunnis and Shia's almost immediately after the
Speaker 1: prophet Muhammad died. However, without this consensus, no logismate clief
Speaker 1: could exist, and it was widely accepted that a law
Speaker 1: did not impose obligations that were impossible to fulfill. So
Speaker 1: then it was reason that then there was really no
Speaker 1: obligation to establish legitimate clief if no consensus could be found.
Speaker 1: So there's a little loopool. Basically, we need full consensus.
Speaker 1: We're never going to get full consensus. Oh well shrug,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah. And then in the time, in the
Speaker 1: context rebe this is, you know, medieval times, you're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot more. You're seeing several different political configurations and
Speaker 1: formations and ways of organizing society. So some of them
Speaker 1: at the time, we were seeing their neighbors, the Bedwinds,
Speaker 1: and the bed Winds were living without rulers like normal.
Speaker 1: So they were like, well, why can't we live without
Speaker 1: rulers like normal? And so they use that as a
Speaker 1: justification as well. And so they also had many proposed solutions,
Speaker 1: ranging from a radical decentralization of public authority to a
Speaker 1: complete dissolution of public authority. One particular genre proposals involved
Speaker 1: replacing the calief with elected officials, either completely independent of
Speaker 1: each other or joined together in a federation, and these
Speaker 1: elected officials would be temporary and only remain in office
Speaker 1: when legal disputes arose or when an enemy invaded. When
Speaker 1: the problem was resolved, they would lose their position and
Speaker 1: society would return to quote unquote anarchy. There was even
Speaker 1: a minority sect which calls for the complete abolition of
Speaker 1: the state, called it Nashda, and they argued that if
Speaker 1: there wasn't sufficient agreement established this in aclief, there can
Speaker 1: never be enough to establish law at all. They wanted
Speaker 1: not just political independence, but intellectual independence, because according to them,
Speaker 1: individuals should be able to reason for themselves and have
Speaker 1: no one above them but Allah. Basically the religious anarchist
Speaker 1: slogan one God, no masters. Yeah, right, but it'll get
Speaker 1: a twisted of course, all this radical stuff applied to
Speaker 1: them within their group alone, So if you weren't part
Speaker 1: of their group, you could still be enslaved or killed.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a selective, Yeah, it's a bit
Speaker 1: selective in their freedom mindedness. Then in eight seventeen, so
Speaker 1: a couple of years later, the center of religious power
Speaker 1: and the Muslim world collapsed with the fall of Baghdad.
Speaker 1: The chaos of civil war ensued, but in the absence
Speaker 1: of public authority, they would naturally emerge an order out
Speaker 1: of the chaos without central planning. As we've seen it
Speaker 1: again and again and again throughout history, people self organized
Speaker 1: to protect themselves and their positions collectively in times of
Speaker 1: natural disaster, in times of crisis, people come together without
Speaker 1: having a state, having without a state having to organize
Speaker 1: them and tell them what to do and how to
Speaker 1: do it. Such has been the case for centuries. And
Speaker 1: speaking of centuries, we're going to jump ahead a little
Speaker 1: bit to the twelfth century where we could see a
Speaker 1: sort of a pseudo nihilist anarchist movement called the Kalandaria,
Speaker 1: a movement of wandering ascetic Sufi dervishes from Andalusia and
Speaker 1: Spain to Iran, Central Asia, India and Pakistan. Many of
Speaker 1: the Khalandaria had body persins and tattoos in explicit defiance
Speaker 1: of Islamic traditions. They regarded such practices as haram. Here's
Speaker 1: a bit of an interesting story. One of the earlier
Speaker 1: divisions of the Manatimir was once being followed by a
Speaker 1: crowd of admirers, and then reactions to their praise, he paused,
Speaker 1: pulled out his pep i urinated on the ground. So
Speaker 1: as a sort of a radical it's almost like what
Speaker 1: seems that Greek guy.
Speaker 3: Oh, the one who like dies because of the d diogenies, right,
Speaker 3: so he kind of like a Muslim dirogenies.
Speaker 1: A sort of a rejection of society and rejection of
Speaker 1: its values. As a lot of people, a lot of
Speaker 1: these devices, they chose voluntary poverty and nudism as a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: They were reject civilization. They would have a sort of
Speaker 1: an active nihilism and director of society. One of them
Speaker 1: has been quoted in saying an effect that money is well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could say that before he
Speaker 1: crossed that out. Yeah, I think we I think we
Speaker 1: get we get the get the idea of course, again
Speaker 1: not really anarchism in the classical sense or in an
Speaker 1: actual sense, but manifestation of one trend within or one
Speaker 1: streak within an anarchist movement. Steak jump ahead against the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Now with perhaps the first anarchist to convert
Speaker 1: to Islam. Ivan Agrelli born in Sweden in eighteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: Aguilli was interested in philosophy, spirituality, ideology and literature, and
Speaker 1: he explored new ideas ravenously. He joined the Theosophical Society
Speaker 1: in France, and he met anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin in
Speaker 1: London in eighteen ninety one. He also began reading the
Speaker 1: Quran around eighteen nine too, and converted to Islam in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven. And GWELLI wrote about Islam and anarchism
Speaker 1: fairly frequently, but he didn't really connect them together. However,
Speaker 1: there was another one, another anarchist to convinced Islam, Isabelle Everhart.
Speaker 1: She Grubb in Geneva and converted to Islam around eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety six or ninety seven, and she challenged both Eastern
Speaker 1: and Western norms through her writings and practice practice, pursuing
Speaker 1: a nomadic lifestyle in Nigeria, joining a Sufi order and
Speaker 1: expressing her unconventional spirit by dressing as a male when
Speaker 1: she felt like, taking on a male name, and pursuing
Speaker 1: a lifestyle of purported promiscuity journalism, smoking Kief and Junian
Speaker 1: across the North African desert by horse. I think she
Speaker 1: would also be considered a figure of queer anarchist history.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find anything about how she identified personally,
Speaker 1: but apparently so. I don't know if she was a
Speaker 1: cross dresser or if she was trans or something else entirely.
Speaker 2: Right, Like you get especially in that period, like like
Speaker 2: misogyny is is so rampant that like it could be
Speaker 2: necessary to like, I guess, to present as male even
Speaker 2: if if you weren't like trans in you and gender identity,
Speaker 2: just to have access to things that were constrained I
Speaker 2: don't know, or like delimited as male.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, exactly makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I think it's why it's to just be like,
Speaker 2: we don't know, rather than to necessarily like like claim
Speaker 2: to someone's identity stuff when what we know is their
Speaker 2: presentation stuff.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Also during this time in the Ottoman Empire, there
Speaker 1: was a not insignificant population of European anarchists, mostly Italians.
Speaker 1: In Alexandria alone, there were approximately twelve thousand Italians living
Speaker 1: and working offer in the building sector. By in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six anarchists they had organized a branch of the
Speaker 1: Syndicalist International Workers Association, and the early eighteen hundreds at
Speaker 1: the Comana Testa and other Italian anarchists joined the Urabia
Speaker 1: Prize in against the British, and this was perhaps the
Speaker 1: first time that Muslims anarchists fought a military campaign side
Speaker 1: by side other uprising was squashed. Anarchists were less harassed
Speaker 1: in the Octoband Empire than in many other parts of Europe.
Speaker 1: Later on, in nineteen oh one, anarchists co founded a
Speaker 1: free popular university, the University Popularity Libre or UPL, in Alexandria.
Speaker 1: It provided free courses on subjects like tool stories and
Speaker 1: Cunan's ideas, the arts, pragmatic topics like working negotiation strategies,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. However, common if you
Speaker 1: were indigenous to the region, tough luck. Indigenous muslim and
Speaker 1: indigenous Muslims and Arabic speakers went really part of the
Speaker 1: UPI's program went really included pretty much marginalized from the
Speaker 1: education entirely, and the UPL crash became more and more
Speaker 1: aimed toward and controlled by upper class interests. So that sucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fair yeah, lame, very lame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of disappointments in this episode, people who
Speaker 1: are like nearly there and then kind of fair of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's that's that's part of history, right, jumping head
Speaker 1: even more in the twentieth century, we got to see
Speaker 1: the fall of the caliphate in nineteen twenty four and
Speaker 1: two new influential currents of Salafiism or Slafism, the Muslim
Speaker 1: Brotherhood which is known for their social democratic lenans, and
Speaker 1: the Saudis, who are known for their monarchic venus.
Speaker 2: To put it likely, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as possible, Yeah, I mean even so late on
Speaker 1: a sort of an Islamic liberation theology developing that dismissed
Speaker 1: bin Ladin and senseless and lifted up the examples of
Speaker 1: the revolutionary Barbi movement of the eighteen hundreds, Malcolm X
Speaker 1: and Ali Shariati's quest for a just and classless society.
Speaker 1: Then there's also a neo Sufi group known as the
Speaker 1: Mura Bhutin, the Mura Bhutun and the Inclusive Mosque Initiative
Speaker 1: in London as other examples of you know, how Islam
Speaker 1: could be used to resist some Islamic traditions. And there
Speaker 1: were also several individuals today who have explicitly and publicly
Speaker 1: self identified as Muslim anarchists, not Muslim and anarchists, but
Speaker 1: specifically Muslim anarchists, including ab Dinner Pradu and Mohammad jan Venus.
Speaker 1: That's cool. So that's a sort of a basic rundown.
Speaker 1: But I think inevitably with these sort of topics you
Speaker 1: sort of fraught ideas, something like an Islamic anarchism, they're
Speaker 1: going to be some challenges and criticisms, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would like for one, you know, it's a fairly new concept,
Speaker 1: the idea of Islamic anarchism. Like I went over, there
Speaker 1: were certain trends that can be described as anarchic, amphibian, generous,
Speaker 1: but the idea of Islamic anarchism as in something born
Speaker 1: out of the after development of anim schism and through
Speaker 1: anarchism as a political philosophy, it's fairly new and it
Speaker 1: challenges a lot of the traditional Islamic teachings on authority
Speaker 1: and governance. So some scholars practitioners have pointed out that
Speaker 1: with the emphasis of social order, the emphasis of authority
Speaker 1: of the state and the role of law, this idea
Speaker 1: of rejecting hierarchy and authority as advocated by Islamic anarchists
Speaker 1: is you know, heretical practically. There's also some criticism that
Speaker 1: with Islamic anarchisms rejection of all forms of authority in hierarchy,
Speaker 1: it undermines the concept of tweed, which is the belief
Speaker 1: in the oneness of God, and by you know, rejecting
Speaker 1: that by undermining that concept and promoting individualism and self rule,
Speaker 1: it sort of goes against that teaching. Of course, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, there's also this challenge to the idea
Speaker 1: that is anarchism or Islamic anarchism could be compatible because
Speaker 1: of the slogan and no cause, no masters right. Of course,
Speaker 1: Islamic anarchists and other Islamic socialists would argue that Islam
Speaker 1: should be seen as a liberating force that can help
Speaker 1: individuals achieve freedom from a Prussian exploitation. The same argument
Speaker 1: is made with a lot of other strands of religious
Speaker 1: anarchisms as well, and so to bring things to a
Speaker 1: sort of a close, I'd say that, you know, like
Speaker 1: every religious anarchism, like every political philosophy, like every religion,
Speaker 1: like everything. Honestly, people pick and shooes. You know, in
Speaker 1: Islam you can find elements of quietism as well as
Speaker 1: activism detached to mysticism, as well as pragmatic daily concerns,
Speaker 1: traditions of violence and traditions of non violence, moderation and
Speaker 1: extremism in anarchism, tensions exist between pacifism and insurrectionism, cyndicalism
Speaker 1: and individualism, nationalism and anti nationalism, collectivism and individualism again.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a Muslim, I'm not a religious anarchist
Speaker 1: of any variety. But I think that there is room
Speaker 1: for even if I may not agree with it in
Speaker 1: all cases the conclusions some people draw. I think there's
Speaker 1: room for these sorts of dialogues to be had. I
Speaker 1: think there's a room for exploration to the history of
Speaker 1: all sorts of historical movements and ideologies and religions and ideas,
Speaker 1: because I mean, there's a whole legacy of billions of
Speaker 1: people who have lived and died long before us, and
Speaker 1: I think I find it interested, at least as a
Speaker 1: thought exercise, to see how they came to their conclusions
Speaker 1: as well. So I hope this episode was start provoking,
Speaker 1: enlightening and interesting to those who tuned in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good. It's always interesting to see these Yeah, like,
Speaker 2: we don't have to agree with all of it, but
Speaker 2: it's interesting to see where people come at these things from.
Speaker 2: It was I was wondering if you were going to
Speaker 2: get to or not. But like one of the things
Speaker 2: that you saw in the Spanish like not really the
Speaker 2: Civil War as much, but in the Second Republic was
Speaker 2: the socialists and and like left liberals explicitly selling out
Speaker 2: like Moroccan Muslim people and North African people more generally
Speaker 2: whatever their faith, and anarchists being like, no, we should
Speaker 2: express solidarity with these people, like even if we if
Speaker 2: they are aren't and some of them were part of
Speaker 2: like they were anarchists in Spanish North Africa of course,
Speaker 2: but like even if they weren't, being like, we should
Speaker 2: have post colonialism, and when every other kind of left
Speaker 2: stripe didn't, it's kind of one of the failing sort
Speaker 2: of public not to So, yeah, they've been these conversations,
Speaker 2: I guess for a long time. It was interesting to
Speaker 2: hear about those Sufi's in Spain and think about how
Speaker 2: long those conversations have been going back and forth, you.
Speaker 1: Know, exactly exactly. I think the whole Iberian Peninsula's really
Speaker 1: interesting reagion in terms of the confluence of cultures. I
Speaker 1: did miss that particular historical instance in my research A
Speaker 1: thousand points and it's out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no worries big nerd for that stuff. Is there
Speaker 2: anything you'd like to plug before we get Andrew.
Speaker 1: Sure sure, so you can find me on YouTube at
Speaker 1: andrewism On, patuon dot com slash Saint Drew, and I've
Speaker 1: logged off of Twitter, but if you want to get
Speaker 1: updates what I do, decided to log in to foost
Speaker 1: updates he and there. You can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at underscore same true. Thank you, Andrew, Take care everyone peace.
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