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Saunders - The Ummah as a Nation: A reappraisal in the wake of the 'Cartoons Affair'

Tags: papers, Nationalism and Outsiders in the Middle East,islamic political thought

“Cartoons” affair from Dutch newspaper Jyllands-Posten caused riots to break out against the Dutch embassies worldwide and lead to halted exports.

  • Saunders attempts to debunk the notion that the Ummah is not a political identity
  • Muslims living in a disapora constitute a “nation on the move”
  • This is somewhat unconvincing when he uses the “American immigrant experience”
  • Rather than trying to dominate a place defined by physical territory (e.g. Leeds, Pakistan, or the Middle East), these elites are seeking influence over a space conceived around human beings (i.e. the Muslim world including its exclaves in the West), although there are certainly some groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir that would like to see the black flag of the caliphate flying over London.
    • This seems out of place and ignores history, Muslims in the past have seen distinct people as focal points
  • Anderson - Imagined Communities’s description of “nations on the move”
  • Notably unqualfied assertions of economic impact
  • Through internet-enabled virtuality and diasporic marginalisation, the ummah – more so than at any time in the past – is functioning as an ersatz nation.