1st Edition

Muslims and Communists in Post-Transition States

Edited By Ben Fowkes, Bulent Gokay Copyright 2012

    Popular uprisings have taken many different forms in the last hundred or so years since Muslims first began to grapple with modernity and to confront various systems of domination both European and indigenous.The relevance of studies of popular uprising and revolt in the Muslim world has recently been underlined by shattering recent events, particularly in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Libya.

    The book consists of a close analysis of the problématique of the Qur’an, showing the openness of the text to Islamic reform and renewal; the role of Islam in creating a specific form of communism in Albania and Kosova; the Chechen revolts against Russian rule after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the short-lived period of alliance between communism and Islam in the early 1920s; the history of alliances between British Muslims and socialists since the 1950s. The book also traces the evolution of the Muslim-Communist alliance during the twentieth century, analyses the driving forces behind it, looks at the new situation created by the democratic revolts of 2010-11 in the Middle East and attempts a prognosis for future relations between these and existing communist groups.

    This volume contributes to the debate over the aims and methods of these popular uprisings.

    This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

    1. An Unholy Alliance against the Common Enemy: A History of Communists' Relations with Muslims  Ben Fowkes and Bülent Gökay  2. The Imperial Reification of the Qur‘an  Vassilis K. Fouskas  3. ‘Enverists’ and ‘Titoists’ – Communism and Islam in Albania and Kosova, 1941–99: From the Partisan Movement of the Second World War to the Kosova Liberation War  Stephen Schwartz  4. Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism  Cerwyn Moore and Paul Tumelty  5. Uneasy Alliances: British Muslims and Socialists since the 1950s  Farzana Shain  6. A Bibliographical Essay on the History of Communism and Communists in the Muslim World  Ben Fowkes

    Biography

    Ben Fowkes has lectured at a number of universities in the course of his career, including Sheffield University and London Metropolitan University. He is a specialist in studies of Soviet, East European and communist history, and the author of several publications in these areas.

    Bülent Gökay is Professor of International Relations at Keele University. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, and the author of many publications in this area, as well as in the fields of Middle Eastern and international politics.