More Than the Ummah: Religious and National Identity in the Muslim World D. Jason Berggren Abstract Many scholars argue that Muslims are more likely to identify themselves in religious terms than as members of particular national political communities. As such, since they are more likely to claim a transnational, religious identity, they should con- sistently show weaker claims of national, regional, and municipal identity; be less willing to fight for their country; and show lower levels of national pride, regardless of country, region, and major- ity or minority status. Using data from the 1995-1997 World Values Survey from ten countries, which were supplemented by data from Zogby International and the Pew Research Center, I found that while Muslims tend to be very religious, they do not embrace transnationalism or lack strong national feelings to an exceptional degree when compared with non-Muslims. In fact, many are proud of their country and willing to fight for it. O Mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). (Qur’an 49:13)1 D. Jason Berggren is a Ph.D. candidate and political science instructor at Florida International University. He holds a B.A. from Eckerd College and an M.A. from Florida State University, both in religion. The article’s original version was prepared for presentation at the 2004 meet- ing of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, Fairfax, Virginia. I express my sincerest thanks to Timothy J. Power, lecturer, University of Oxford, for his helpful comments, encour- agement, and criticisms; for introducing me to the issue of comparative political culture; and for making available the 1995-1997 World Values Survey. I also would like to thank John F. Stack, Jr., professor of political science and law, Florida International University, for intro- ducing me to the issue of ethnic/national identity and nurturing my interest to explore it fur- ther. And finally, I would like to thank Mohiaddin Mesbahi, associate professor of interna- tional relations, Florida International University, for introducing me to and encouraging me to explore the role of Islam and Muslims in international relations and American politics. Introduction Like Christianity, Islam is a transnational, global religion. It is also the world’s second largest (behind Christianity) and fastest growing religion. But what is of particular interest here is not Islam’s rise and size, but its transnational, civilization-making potential. Many scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, have ascribed to Islam a transnational capacity that other religions lack. In other words, Muslims are said to be more likely than, say, Christians or Buddhists, to identify them- selves in religious terms than as members of particular national political communities. This is because, as Bernard Lewis explains, “Islam is not only a matter of faith and practice; it is also an identity and a loyalty.”2 Islam, it is said, requires Muslims to make their common faith the highest marker of identity and the ummah Islamiyah (Islamic community of believers) the most important collective to which one can – and ought to – belong.3 As the Qur’an states: “You are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah” (3:110). Or, as Frederick Denny writes: “The ummah itself is the tribe, a supertribe, with God and Muhammad as final arbiters and authorities.”4 By implication, then, Islam is a transnational religion and the ummah is a transnational community bound by ties of faith, rather than by ties of blood or civitas. “Know that every Muslim is a Muslim’s brother, and that the Muslims are brethren.”5 Therefore, intranational and national identities are assumed to be subordinated to, if not rejected in favor of, a pan-Islamic iden- tity that, ideally, will culminate in a world of peace when “all people come under the protection of an Islamic state” – when the whole world is dar al- Islam (house or territory of submission [to God]).6 Mir Zohair Husain writes: “The primary loyalty of Muslim citizens is to the ummah, rather than the [non-Islamic] state, and to the Shariah [Islamic law], rather than the ruler.”7 Nonetheless, the ruler did foster ummatic ties. For many centuries, accord- ing to Lewis, many Muslims lived under the earthly protection and authority of a single ruler, such as the Ottoman sultan, who was viewed as the legiti- mate successor (khalifah) to Prophet Muhammad, “the commander of the faithful” (amir al-mu’minin), and “a potent symbol of Muslim unity, even identity.”8 If there is an “Islamic exceptionalism,” Islamic transnationalism, rooted in the concept of ummah, may be one of its cornerstones.9 Scholars have made this same point in various descriptive and empirical studies. Lewis explains that unlike Christianity, which converted an empire and blended with Greco-Roman civilization, “Islam in contrast created a world civilization, polyethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say 72 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 intercontinental.”10 Moreover, when nationalism emerged in the Middle East and other parts of the Islamic world, Lewis says, it was a European import.11 Mansoor Moaddel and Taqhi Azadarmaki relate that among the Muslim pop- ulations of Egypt, Jordan, and Iran, religious identity was by far a more important source of identity than national origin. James Zogby reports, based on survey data collected in 2002 by Zogby International, that Muslims in sev- eral Arab countries also have very strong Muslim identities.12 The ummah’s purpose is said to be twofold: to reflect God’s oneness and indivisibility (tawhid) on Earth, and to serve as “the vehicle for realizing God’s will on earth.”13 Both instances are ostensibly religious. Not surpris- ingly, many Islamic religious practices are intended to reinforce such ummatic ties, among them reading and memorizing the Qur’an in Arabic, praying five times a day in Arabic while facing Makkah, attending the Friday congregational prayer services, celebrating the annual eids (holi- days), and performing the hajj (pilgrimage) to Makkah at least once in a lifetime, if able to do so.14 For instance, Malcolm X once said that what impressed him most about the hajj was its transnational character: “The brotherhood! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God.”15 But is the ummah merely a religious ideal? The notions of God’s one- ness and the ummah as a “vehicle for realizing God’s will on earth” could be interpreted as having political implications. Several experts contend that even more than the religious rituals that promote the ummatic ideal, Islam indeed promotes a comprehensive, organic unity. Unlike the Christian ten- dency to separate the sacred and the profane, the religious and the political, Islam is said to bring such realms together.16 In Islam, as originally estab- lished by the Prophet, there is to be no separation of mosque and state, God and Caesar, laity and citizenry.17 Lewis writes: “From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”18 In effect, Bassam Tibi states, Islam delegitimizes the secular, or “religiousless,” state.19 Thus, ummah is as much “a political society” as it is “a religious community.”20 In other words, Islam is frequently envisioned as a transnational religio-political project for which individual Muslims, wherever they may be, must strive to realize.21 I explore whether or not the Islamic ideal of transnational, ummatic identity is confirmed empirically at the micro-level. According to James Piscatori, this is a crucial academic task and one that he has tackled qualita- tively.22 It may also be of consequence to policymakers who have tended, in the recent past, to overlook religion’s capacity to provide a political commu- Berggren: More Than the Ummah 73 nity with its ultimate source of identity.23 Far too frequently, the ideal of Islam is taken as a truism without considering what Muslims actually say their primary markers of identity are. But more specifically, I explore whether Muslims are more likely, in multiple national/regional contexts, to identify themselves in transnational, rather than national, terms than non- Muslims. One should discover that Muslims in one country, regardless of region, continent, or status (e.g., majority, plurality, or minority), should express opinions differing from those of non-Muslims and hold opinions resembling those of other Muslims. If this is the case, Islam would deserv- edly be classified as an exceptionally transnational faith, as it is often said to be in descriptive accounts. Beyond just exploring the micro-level opinions of Muslims in Muslim-majoritarian countries,24 the opinions of Muslim minorities will be explored as well. Data and Cases Data for this article come from the 1995-1997 World Values Survey (WVS), which provides a useful and representative geographic sampling of the Islamic world.25 Data are available to examine and compare countries with Muslim majorities and minorities. Specifically, sizeable data are avail- able on Muslim majorities and minorities in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), one sub-Saharan African country (Nigeria), and Muslim majorities and minorities in and around the Balkan-Caucasian region (Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey). In the six countries having a significant Muslim minority, plurality, or a bare majority, three have Orthodox Christian majorities (Bulgaria, Georgia, and Macedonia), one has a Hindu majority (India), one has two major Chris- tian minorities (Bosnia), the four Balkan-Caucasian countries have sizeable secular or non-religious minorities, and one has three major Christian minori- ties (Nigeria). Four of them have Muslim supermajorities (Azerbaijan, Bang- ladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey). Of these, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey are among the five largest Muslim countries in the world, preceded only by Indonesia. In addition, the cases included here reflect an even balance (five each) of industrial and agrarian states.26 The cases here also reflect different periods of independence. Based on Samuel Huntington’s classification scheme, two of these countries (Bulgaria and Turkey) became independent during the first global wave of democrati- zation, four during the second wave (India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangla- desh), and four during the third wave (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Macedonia, and Bosnia).27 74 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 Six of our cases also have member or observer status at the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), an international organization consisting of fifty-seven member states and three observer states committed to strengthen- ing “Islamic solidarity among Member States” and to “pool their resources together, combine their efforts, and speak with one voice to safeguard the interests and secure the progress of and well-being of their peoples and of all Muslims in the world.”28 One major limitation in the 1995-1997 WVS data is that no Arab Muslim countries were surveyed. To a certain degree, however, this limitation will be overcome by providing the relevant findings from Zogby International and the Pew Research Center. For six of the ten countries examined here (Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Georgia, Macedonia, and Pakistan), the 1995-97 wave was the first time they were included in the WVS project. In fact, for Azerbaijan, Bos- nia, Georgia, Macedonia, and Pakistan, this was the only time they were included; they were not included in the 1999-2001 wave. Consequently, no time series analysis could be provided for them. Only four of the ten coun- tries (Bulgaria, India, Nigeria, and Turkey) were included in previous sur- veys, the 1990-93 wave, and only Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Nigeria, and Turkey are available in the 1999-2001 survey. The samples for each country are as follows: 2,002 Azeris (November 1996), 1,525 Bangladeshis (August 1996), 1,200 Bosnians (April 1998), 1,072 Bulgarians (December 1997), 2,593 Georgians (December 1996), 2,040 Indians (1995-96), 995 Macedonians (December 1997), 2,769 Niger- ians (fall 1995), 733 Pakistanis (March-September 1997), and 1,907 Turks (December 1996-January 1997). For the six heterogeneous or minority Mus- lim states, the Muslim samples consisted of 326 Bosnians (27% of the national sample), 126 Bulgarians (12%), 102 Georgians (4%), 245 Indians (12%), 239 Macedonians (24%), and 310 Nigerians (11%). Based on the religious percentages for each country provided by the CIA World Factbook 2002, Bosnia is 40% Muslim, Bulgaria 12%, Georgia 11%, India 12%, Mac- edonia 30%, and Nigeria 50%.29 As such, in four of these six cases the Muslim samples are undersampled. Method For basic comparisons, similar to the 2002 Zogby study, the individual WVS data are reported by country and by Muslim or non-Muslim status using fre- quencies or percentages. Such comparisons, based on the available data, may show, to some extent, whether or not Muslims in one part of the Islamic world hold unique religious attitudes and sources of identity. Further, by Berggren: More Than the Ummah 75 reporting figures for both Muslims and non-Muslims, the data may pro- vide some insight as to whether or not there is something truly and uniquely transnational and religiously exceptional about Islam. The year of national independence is also presented for the Muslim countries, since a plausible explanation for identity variability could be associated with the length of independence, namely, a greater national identity being associated with a longer period of independence, and a weaker national identity being associ- ated with a shorter period of independence. I explore this aspect as well. Common Assumptions about Muslim Identity According to various scholars, Muslims have historically been less likely to identify with non-Islamic entities, such as the state or nation, than non- Muslims. This implies that Muslims are more likely to identify with Islam than with more secular entities. Based upon the 1995-1997 WVS survey’s data, the following commonly held assumptions are presented below: 1. Since Islam is an exceptional source of identity, Muslims are more likely than non- Muslims to claim a religious identity. 2. Due to Islam’s transnational character, Muslims are more likely than non-Muslims to claim a transnational, religious identity than a national, regional, or municipal identity. 3. Due to Islam’s transnational character, Muslims are more likely to be less willing to fight for their country than non-Muslims. 4. Due to Islam’s transnational character, Muslims are more likely to express lower levels of national pride than non-Muslims in multi-religious states. To measure individual religio-political identity, four variables were selected: religious identity, primary and secondary geographic identity, pride in national identity, and willingness to fight for one’s country. For religious identity, the specific question was: “Independently of whether you go to [religious services] or not, would you say you are … (1) a religious person, (2) not a religious person, (3) a convinced atheist.” For primary geographic identity, the specific question was: “To which of these geographical groups would you say you belong first of all? (1) Locality or town where you live, (2) state or region of the country where you live, (3) [country] as a whole, (4) [continent (to which) country belongs], (5) the world as a whole.” Following up this question, respondents were asked to name their second geographic identity. For pride in national identity, the specific question was: “How proud are you to be [nationality]? (1) very proud, (2) quite proud, (3) not very proud, (4) not at all proud.” For willingness to fight for one’s coun- try, the specific question was: “Of course, we all hope that there will not be another war, but if it were to come to that, would you be willing to fight for 76 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 your country?” For this question, respondents could answer “yes,” “no,” or “don’t know.” If these common assumptions are true, the frequency data reported here should show that Muslims are more likely to consider themselves religious, less likely to identify with the nation and show significant levels of trans- national identification, less likely to be willing to fight for their country, and express low or lower levels of pride in their country. Muslim Identity Data from the 1995-1997 WVS reveals that Muslims, regardless of status (majority or minority) or geographic location (Europe, Africa, or Asia), overwhelmingly considered themselves religious. In fact, they were more likely to express a personal religious identity than a national identity (table 1). In the nine countries where the religious identity question was asked, more than three-quarters of Muslims said they were religious; in eight coun- tries, less than half of the respondents claimed the nation as their prime geo- graphic identity. Of those eight countries, less than 20 percent of Muslims in four of them (Bangladesh, India, Macedonia, and Nigeria) claimed national identity as their prime geographic identity. Conversely, in only one case (Turkey) did a majority of respondents claim ties to the nation as being their prime geographic identity. In three cases (Azerbaijan, Bosnia, and Georgia), however, sizeable numbers chose the nation as their principal geographic identity: 46%, 48%, and 42%, respectively. Interestingly, these four coun- tries are all located in and around the Balkan-Caucasian region. TABLE 1: MUSLIM IDENTITY: RELIGIOUS VERSUS NATIONAL. Country’s Muslims Ranked Country’s Muslims Ranked By Religious Identity By National Identity Nigeria 93.4 Turkey 52.2 Azerbaijan 90.8 Bosnia 48.1 Macedonia 90.8 Azerbaijan 46.4 Georgia 88.7 Georgia 41.6 Bulgaria 88.2 Bulgaria 28.2 India 87.4 Macedonia 15.8 Bangladesh 84.9 Nigeria 14.0 Bosnia 81.1 India 7.7 Turkey 77.4 Bangladesh 2.7 SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. Data not available for Pakistan. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 77 To some extent, table 1 confirms the findings of Moaddel and Azadar- maki and other prominent survey reports that Muslims decidedly consider religion “a more important basis of identity than nationality.”30 However, it should be noted that the precise measure employed by Moaddel and Azadar- maki could not be used here because the 1995-1997 WVS survey did not ask respondents to choose between being religious above all or being national- ist above all. Nevertheless, the measures used here do show that Muslims in these nine cases clearly and overwhelmingly cited some sort of personal reli- gious identity as opposed to a national identity. But this is not the whole story. If we were to stop here, it would appear that the conventional wisdom on Muslim attitudes toward the state and national identity are weak and tenuous, that Islam is seemingly inimical to non-Islamic sources of identity. However, the findings below show that Muslims have a healthy attitude toward the state and nationality, regardless of their majority-minority demographic status. If, for instance, we combine the two national identity results (viz., variables that asked respondents to name their first and second geographic identity), one finds that many Muslims consider the nation an important, although not necessarily the most important, source of identity (table 2). TABLE 2: MUSLIM IDENTITY: RELIGIOUS VERSUS AGGREGATED NATIONAL. Country’s Muslims Ranked Country’s Muslims Ranked By Religious Identity By Aggregated National Identity* Nigeria 93.4 Bosnia 84.5 Azerbaijan 90.8 Turkey 83.6 Macedonia 90.8 Azerbaijan 81.2 Georgia 88.7 Georgia 79.6 Bulgaria 88.2 India 76.3 India 87.4 Bulgaria 63.2 Bangladesh 84.9 Nigeria 37.6 Bosnia 81.1 Macedonia 30.5 Turkey 77.4 * NOTE: Combines first and second responses. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. Data not available for Pakistan, aggregated data not available for Bangladesh. In two cases (Bosnia and Turkey), more Muslims identified themselves with the nation than considered themselves personally religious. In three other cases (Azerbaijan, Georgia, and India), more than three-fourths of Muslims claimed national identity. Interestingly, of these five cases, Mus- 78 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 lims are only a supermajority in two (Turkey and Azerbaijan). In the others (Bosnia, Georgia, and India), they are either a plurality or a distinct minor- ity. Consequently, majority-minority status, in and of itself, does not appear to affect identity responses. Only in Macedonia and Nigeria did less than one-third and less than one-half, respectively, of all Muslims identify with the nation. At least among these cases, Muslim and national identity were, on the whole, compatible. Only in Macedonia and Nigeria was the conven- tional wisdom upheld. In uncovering Muslims’ ties to the nation-state, two additional measures are useful: the level of one’s national pride and the willingness to fight for one’s country. Table 3 compares the percentage of those who claimed to be religious, who said they were “very proud” to belong to their respective nationality, and the percentage of those willing to fight for their country. Again, Turkey stands out. In fact, more Turks were “very proud” of being Turkish than claimed to be religious, and 97 percent said they would fight for their comparatively more secular state. Furthermore, more Azeri, Bang- ladeshi, Bosnian, and Indian Muslims were willing to fight for their country than claimed to be religious, and nearly as many Pakistanis expressed national pride (85%) as those who claimed a religious identity (90%). It is also interesting that more than two-thirds of Muslims in Bosnia (83%), Bulgaria (77%), Georgia (68%), India (97%), and Nigeria (78%) were will- ing to fight for their non-majoritarian Muslim countries. Once more, Mace- donian Muslims were the most likely to confirm the conventional wisdom; barely one-half said they would fight on behalf of their country. Table 3 also shows that the length of a country’s independence and Mus- lim national pride and willingness to fight appear to be unrelated. For exam- ple, more than three-fourths of Muslims in Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Nigeria express strong national pride, even though the years of independence range from roughly 75 years for Turkey (at the time of WVS survey) and 25 years for Bangladesh. As for their willingness to fight, more than three- fourths of Muslims are willing to fight for countries that have existed for more than 125 years (Bulgaria), 75 years (Turkey), 50 years (India), 35 years (Nigeria), 25 years (Bangladesh), and less than 10 years (Bosnia and Azerbai- jan). Only in Georgia and Macedonia were less than three-fourths of Muslims not willing to fight. Case studies of these countries may be warranted to explore what intranational reasons may explain these comparatively lower levels of support. Nevertheless, the 1995-1997 WVS data suggest that Mus- lims, in various national contexts and from different parts of the world, show pride in their faith and their nation. By and large, they are willing to fight for their countries, regardless of their majority or minority status. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 79 TABLE 3: MUSLIM RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, NATIONAL PRIDE, AND WILLINGNESS TO FIGHT FOR COUNTRY. (YEAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN PARENTHESES) Ranked by Ranked by Level Ranked by Willingness Religious Identity of National Pride to Fight Nigeria 93.4 (1960) Pakistan 85.3 (1947) Azerbaijan 97.6 (1991) Azerbaijan 90.8 (1991) Turkey 79.1 (1923) Turkey 96.9 (1923) Macedonia 90.8 (1991) Bangladesh 78.2 (1971) India 96.7 (1947) Pakistan 89.7* (1947) Nigeria 75.9 (1960) Bangladesh 88.8 (1971) Georgia 88.7 (1991) Bosnia 72.4 (1992) Bosnia 83.1 (1992) Bulgaria 88.2 (1878) India 69.5 (1947) Nigeria 78.2 (1960) India 87.4 (1947) Azerbaijan 64.9 (1991) Bulgaria 77.0 (1878) Bangladesh 84.9 (1971) Georgia 59.2 (1991) Georgia 67.5 (1991) Bosnia 81.1 (1992) Bulgaria 29.3 (1878) Macedonia 51.9 (1991) Turkey 77.4 (1923) * NOTE: For Pakistan, a substitute measure was used. For Pakistan, the question used was: “How important is God in your life? Please use this scale to indicate – 10 means very important and 1 means not at all important.” Only the percentage of those who chose “10” is recorded here. National pride and willingness to fight data were not available for Pakistan, either. Data for national pride was not fully available for Macedonia; only 18 percent of the Muslim sample was available. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. The findings reported here appear to confirm findings elsewhere. For instance, in a 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey report, 79% of Paki- stanis, 70% of Moroccans, and 63% of Jordanians considered themselves to be Muslims first, as opposed to being national citizens first. However, the results were significantly less so in Turkey (43%), Indonesia (39%), and Lebanon (30%). Pew also found that there is no agreement on the degree of influence that Islam should have in the world.31 Large majorities of Moroc- cans (84%), Jordanians (73%), Pakistanis (70%), and Indonesians (64%) agreed that it is “very important” for Islam to have an influential role in the world. Lebanese and Turks were more divided. Among Lebanese, 47% said it was “very important” and 46% said it was “somewhat important.” Among Turkish respondents, 43% said it was “very important” and 32% said “some- what important.” More than any other national group, nearly one-fifth of Turkish respondents said that it was “not too/not at all important” for Islam to have a large global role. As such, the Pew numbers reveal that between Pakistan and Lebanon, there is significant degree of variability across Muslim countries in terms of primary identity and the extent to which Islam should have a role in the world. 80 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 In yet another study, Zogby showed that in eight Muslim countries, Muslim identity and Arab identity were among the most important in per- sonal encounters between Arab and Arab.32 However, in no single case was religious identity exclusively the most important. In fact, in seven cases (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates [UAE]), being Arab was either the primary identity expressed or it was essentially tied with religious identity. In one case (Lebanon), being Lebanese was the most important marker of identity in Arab-to-Arab per- sonal situations. As Zogby concludes: “In seven of the eight countries cov- ered in our study, ‘being Arab’ proves to be the most frequently cited source of identity.”33 This is a crucial find, for if Islam, unlike other faith traditions, nurtures an exceptional degree and display of transnational ties, then the reli- gious identity variable should be highlighted in Muslim-to-Muslim situa- tions. To the contrary, however, Zogby found that Arab identity rivals Islamic identity; indeed, it may even be more pronounced. When asked how one defines oneself to an American, not much changes. In seven cases (the same countries listed above), being Arab and being Mus- lim were the two most important identities. Interestingly, citing Arab identity was more frequent for Jordanian, Saudi, and UAE respondents. Again, Leba- nese respondents were the most likely to define themselves in national terms. Moreover, being Arab was their second-most important identity reference. For Lebanese who encounter an American, being Muslim was third. Especially interesting is that in five cases (Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan), at least two-thirds of respondents claimed national iden- tity as being important to their self-identification in the presence of an American.34 Using the Zogby data, table 4 lists the countries included in the survey and the most important identity (identities) employed in both Arab-to- Arab and Arab-to-American encounters. TABLE 4: IDENTITY IN EIGHT ARAB COUNTRIES. Country Identity to Another Arab Identity to an American Egypt Being Arab, Muslim, Egyptian Being Arab Jordan Being Arab and Being Jordanian Being Arab Kuwait Being Arab Being Arab Lebanon Being Arab and Being Lebanese Being Lebanese Morocco Being Arab and Being Muslim Being Muslim Palestine Being Muslim Being Arab Saudi Arabia Being Arab Being Arab UAE Being Arab Being Arab SOURCE: James J. Zogby, What Arabs Think (2002), 49-52. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 81 In nearly every case, “being Arab” was found to be the most frequently cited identity. National identity was also important: Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese respondents placed it among the most important. Surprisingly, “being Muslim” was the most important identity marker only for Palestinians in their encounters with other Arabs, and with Moroccans in their encounters with Americans. In Arab-to-Arab encounters, Egyptians were as likely to cite “being Muslim” as they were “being Arab” or “being Egyptian.” Muslim Identity versus Non-Muslim Identity Are Muslims less likely to express national pride and a willingness to fight for their country than non-Muslims? Table 5 shows that Muslims and non- Muslims were “very proud” of their national identity. A supermajority of Muslims in Pakistan (85.3%) and Turkey (79.1%) were “very proud” of their nationality. In three cases, Azerbaijan (+7.6), Bosnia (+23), and Nigeria (+14.4), Muslims expressed significantly more national pride than non- Muslims. In three cases, Bangladesh (-1.2), Georgia (-1.3), and India (-2.8), Muslims and non-Muslims were equally proud of their nationalities. Only in Bulgaria (-33.7) were non-Muslims significantly more proud of their nation- ality than Muslims. TABLE 5: COMPARING MUSLIM AND NON-MUSLIM NATIONAL PRIDE. Country Muslim Non-Muslim +/- National Pride National Pride Advantage Azerbaijan 64.9 57.3 + 7.6 Bangladesh 78.2 79.4 - 1.2 Bosnia 72.4 49.4 + 23.0 Bulgaria 29.3 63.0 - 33.7 Georgia 59.2 60.5 - 1.3 India 69.5 72.3 - 2.8 Nigeria 75.9 61.5 + 14.4 NOTE: Non-Muslims include only the major non-Muslim groups in each country. Only respondents who answered “very proud” are included here. Turkey was excluded here for lack of non-Muslims in sample. Data were unavailable for Pakistan and Macedonia. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. Table 6 shows that Muslims, for the most part, were just as willing as non-Muslims to fight for their country, even if they lived in a majoritarian non-Muslim country. In five cases, Azerbaijan (+3%), Bangladesh (-2.4), Bosnia (+1.3), Bulgaria (+2.9), India (+2.5), and Nigeria (+10.7), Muslims were either as likely or more likely than non-Muslims to express a willing- 82 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 ness to fight. In one case, Georgia (-7.0), Muslims were slightly less likely. The only case where Muslims were significantly less likely to fight for their country was Macedonia (-38.6). TABLE 6: MUSLIM AND NON-MUSLIM WILLINGNESS TO FIGHT FOR COUNTRY. Country Muslim Willingness Non-Muslim Willingness +/- to Fight for Country to Fight for Country Advantage Azerbaijan 97.6 94.6 + 3.0 Bangladesh 88.8 91.2 - 2.4 Bosnia 83.1 81.8 + 1.3 Bulgaria 77.0 74.1 + 2.9 Georgia 67.5 74.5 - 7.0 India 96.7 94.2 + 2.5 Macedonia 51.9 90.5 - 38.6 Nigeria 78.2 67.5 + 10.7 NOTE: Non-Muslims include only the major non-Muslim groups in each country. Turkey was excluded here for lack of non-Muslims in sample. Data were unavailable for Pakistan. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. Transnationalism On the issue of transnationalism, Muslims, contrary to conventional expecta- tions and descriptions, were not unusual. Table 7 shows that in all cases but Bangladesh, less than one-fifth of Muslims claimed transnational identity, identifying with the “continent” or the “world,” as their primary identity over intranational identity, “town” or “region,” and national identity. In four of the nine cases (Bulgaria, India, Macedonia, and Nigeria), clear majorities indicated that intranational identity (town or country region) was paramount. In fact, more than 90% of Indian Muslims and nearly 80% of Nigerian Muslims identified themselves in intranational terms. In three other cases (Azerbaijan, Bosnia, and Georgia), identities among Muslims were roughly split between intranational and national, with a plurality of Azeri and Bosnian Muslims choosing national identity over intranational identity, and a plurality of Georgian Muslims choosing intranational identity over national identity. Only in Turkey did national identity receive a majority of the responses. Overall, in the Balkans-Caucasus region, a plurality of Muslims was more likely to express national identification (46.1 percent), as opposed to intranational or transnational identification. Less than one-fifth of Muslims in every case but Bangladesh, expressed transnational identity as the most important form of personal identity. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 83 These findings may reveal a gap between the Islamic ideal of the ummah and the reality of the Muslims’ low sense of transnational identity. Instead, they were found to be quite attached to their towns, national regions, and nation-states. But perhaps more than revealing an identity gap, the data reported here may suggest that the common assumptions about the Muslims’ actual understanding of ummah may be misunderstood. At the individual level, this concept may simply coexist with other identities. TABLE 7: MUSLIMS AND PRINCIPAL GEOGRAPHIC IDENTITY: BY COUNTRY AND REGION. Country Intranational^ National Transnational* % Per. N % Per. N % Per. N Total % N Balkans-Caucasus Azerbaijan 37.1 675 46.4 843 16.5 300 100 1,818 Bosnia 42.3 137 48.1 156 9.6 31 100 324 Bulgaria 64.5 80 28.2 35 7.3 9 100 124 Georgia 44.5 45 41.6 42 13.9 14 100 101 Macedonia 75.2 176 15.8 37 9.0 21 100 234 Turkey 32.7 465 52.2 743 15.1 215 100 1,423 Region Totals 39.2 1,578 46.1 1,856 14.7 590 100 4,024 South Asia Bangladesh 0.1 2 2.7 33 97.2 1,200 100 1,235 India 91.9 214 7.7 18 0.4 1 100 233 Sub-Saharan Africa Nigeria 79.1 243 14.0 43 6.9 21 100 307 NOTE: ^-includes “town” and “region” responses. *-includes “continent” and “world” responses. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. Challenging another core component of the conventional wisdom, table 8 shows that Muslims were no more likely than non-Muslims to express a transnational identity. In fact, in Azerbaijan, “Seculars” were significantly more likely than Muslims to claim a transnational identity. In Bosnia, Bul- garia, Georgia, and Macedonia, “Seculars” were either slightly more likely than or just as likely as Muslims to claim a transnational identity. In Nigeria, both Orthodox and Protestant Christians were more likely than Muslims to claim a transnational identity; Catholics were just as likely as Muslims to be transnationalist. In India, there was virtually no difference between Muslims and Hindus; transnational identity barely registered in either community. In Bangladesh, the lone case where some form of transnational identity pre- vailed, Muslims and Hindus were equally so: more than 97 percent in each community expressed a transnational identity. This curiosity deserves further study. 84 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 TABLE 8: INTRANATIONAL RELIGIOUS GROUPS AND TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY.* Azerbaijan India Seculars 27.7% (33) Muslims 0.4% (1) Muslims 16.5% (300) Hindus 0.1% (1) Bangladesh Macedonia Hindus 98.3% (171) Seculars 11.4% (31) Muslims 97.2% (1,200) Muslims 9.0% (21) Orthodox 8.6% (39) Bosnia Nigeria Muslims 9.6% (31) Protestants 13.9% (64) Seculars 9.5% (33) Orthodox 12.7% (79) Catholics 5.3% (9) Catholics 6.9% (51) Orthodox 4.8% (15) Muslims 6.9% (21) Bulgaria Turkey Seculars 8.3% (29) Muslims 15.1% (215) Orthodox 7.7% (43) Muslims 7.3% (9) Georgia Muslims 13.9% (14) Seculars 11.5% (18) Orthodox 10.0% (210) NOTE: *-includes “continent” and “world” responses; N in parentheses. SOURCE: World Values Survey, 1995-1997. If one looks at this from Huntington’s perspective, this must be surpris- ing. After all, he wrote that the Bosnian war in the mid-1990s was “a war of civilizations,” a war among the Islamic, western, and Orthodox Christian civilizations35: Muslim states and organizations universally rallied behind Bosnian Mus- lims and opposed the Croats and Serbs. Orthodox countries and organiza- tions universally backed the Serbs and opposed the Croats and Muslims. Western governments and elites backed the Croats, castigated the Serbs, and were generally indifferent to or fearful of the Muslims. As the war con- tinued, the hatreds and cleavages among the groups intensified, most notably among Muslims.36 However, the Bosnian war may not have intensified transnationalism among individual Bosnian Muslims. In fact, the experiences of war and fighting for national survival may have intensified a “Bosnian” identity among Bosnian Muslims, rather than engendering a pan-Islamic one,37 for according to the 1995-1997 WVS, 72.4% of Bosnian Muslims were “very Berggren: More Than the Ummah 85 proud” and 22.9% were “quite proud” of being Bosnian. Consequently, they may be exhibiting an attitude often thought to be typical of “the modern West”: “loyalty to the nation state.”38 This case, at least, may represent a monumental breaking of the historic Islamic model of tribalism and trans- nationalism.39 If so, Bosnia would represent an interesting example of politico-cultural transformation. Conclusion Scholars and students of Islam have frequently argued that Islam is more than a religion, that it is also an identity – the highest level of identity that a human being can acquire. Supposedly, Muslim identity transcends other forms of identity, such as national and intranational, and even delegitimizes them. Moreover, Islam supposedly fosters a transnational identity (the ummah) to an extent unrivaled by other major faith traditions. In this respect, Islam is (and Muslims are said to be) “exceptional.” But is Islam “exceptional”? In terms of identity, do Muslims have weak ties to national and intranational communities and strong ties to a trans- national community? Are Muslims less likely to claim national affiliation and loyalty, and more likely to claim a transnational one, than non-Muslims? If so, then Muslims, regardless of whether they are in the majority or the minority and regardless of time and space, should hold similar attitudes toward non-Islamic sources of identity. This article sought answers to these questions based on empirical data from the 1995-1997 WVS, supplemented with other data, by examining individual responses from ten geographically diverse countries that have sizeable Muslim populations. Given that the data examined here came from only one phase of the WVS project, the conclusions are obviously tentative and incomplete. As such, incorporating data from other WVS phases is certainly warranted and encouraged. Be that as it may, at the very least the data presented here from 1995-97 show that Muslims are quite religious. In each case, more than three-quarters of them, whether they were European, African, or Asian, claimed to be personally religious. Furthermore, when compared with the percentage of Muslims claiming the nation as their first source of geo- graphic identity, personal religious identity was the more compelling. With the exception of Turkey, less than one-half of Muslims in the other cases claimed the nation as their primary geographic identity. It would appear, therefore, that the findings of Moaddel and Azadarmaki and other survey reports, along with the conventional wisdom on Muslim religious identity, are confirmed. 86 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 However, other findings reported here show that Islam and the nation- state are not necessarily attitudinally antithetical at the individual level. For instance, if the first and second sources of geographic identity are considered together, one finds that many Muslims had strong national ties. More Bos- nian and Turkish Muslims had stronger national ties than religious ties. More than three-fourths of Azeri, Georgian, and Indian Muslims claimed the nation as a key source of identity. Only in two cases (Macedonia and Nigeria) do less than a majority of Muslims identify with the nation. Consequently, for the most part, Islamic and national identities, even if they are in the minority, may be compatible sources of identity for Muslims. This seems to confirm the observation of Dale Eickleman and Piscatori that Islam is not “particularly hostile to ethnic and cultural variations” or “abnormally resist- ant to nationalism”; hence, it is not exceptionally unique.40 This also seems to confirm Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart’s conclusion that Muslim popu- lations are quite receptive to democratic values and forms of government, as well as the Gallup Organization’s findings that Muslim attitudes toward the political role of clerics, the separation of mosque and state, the political rights of women, and the preferred form of government can vary considerably.41 Using two other indicators of national identity, national pride and the willingness to fight on behalf of one’s country, shows that Islam is not nec- essarily hostile to or wishes to eliminate individual Muslim bonds to the nation-state. In eight cases, solid majorities of Muslims said they were “very proud” of their nationality, with Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Pakistanis, and Turks leading the way. More Muslims in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, and India said they would fight for their country than claimed to be personally religious. Of particular interest is that minority-status Muslims were willing to fight for non-Muslim countries. More than two-thirds of Bosnian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Indian, and Nigerian Muslims said they would fight for their countries, even though they did not constitute a clear majority of the population or live in an Islamic state. The findings reported here further reveal that non-Muslims are not more likely to express national pride or a willingness to fight for their country. Muslims in Azerbaijan, Bosnia, and Nigeria had more national pride than non-Muslims. Muslims in Bangladesh, Georgia, and India were just as likely as non-Muslims to be “very proud” of their national identity. Only in Bulgaria were Muslims substantially less likely than non-Muslims to have national pride. Muslims were also just as likely as non-Muslims to say they would fight for their country, even if that country had a non-Muslim major- ity. Azeri, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Indian, and Nigerian Muslims were more likely than non-Muslims to fight for their country. Bangladeshi and Geor- Berggren: More Than the Ummah 87 gian Muslims were only slightly less likely. Macedonian Muslims were the lone exception that conformed to conventional wisdom. What makes this so warrants further study. Transnationally, contrary to conventional expectations and descriptions, Muslims are also not exceptional. In all cases but Bangladesh, less than one- fifth of Muslims cited a transnational identity, “continent” or “world,” as their primary geographic identity. In four cases (Bulgaria, India, Macedonia, and Nigeria), clear Muslim majorities cited intranational identity, “town” or coun- try “region,” as primary, with Indian and Nigerian Muslims being the most intranational. In three cases (Azerbaijan, Bosnia, and Georgia), primary Muslim identities were nearly evenly divided between intranational and national. Overall, however, in the Balkan-Caucasian region a plurality of Muslims chose national identity over intranational and transnational identi- ties. In addition, Muslims were just as likely as non-Muslims to claim a transnational identity. In five cases, for example, “Seculars” were either more likely or just as likely as Muslims to claim a transnational identity. Only in Bangladesh did some form of transnational identity appear in Muslim responses; however, it appeared to an equal degree among Hindus as well. A gap seems to exist between the expressed ideals of faith and the real- ities in the world, commonly held scholarly assumptions, and individual Muslim attitudes. Or, and more likely, the ideal and reality of Islam have often been misinterpreted. Perhaps the issue is not so much what Muslims believe and have believed, but the disconnect between what others claim they believe and what individual Muslims actually do believe. Muslims have multiple (if not overlapping) attachments to their home- towns, country’s region, countries, and the transnational ummah. Muslims across the world may share religious beliefs and practices that forge a sense of unity, but that unity is evidently confined to matters of religion. Just as Christians may feel a sense of transnational unity on Sundays or during the holy seasons of Christmas and Easter, their loyalties to nation, ethnic group, and locality remain intact. This seems to be equally true for Muslims.42 The evidence presented here suggests that Islam is not an exceptional faith when it comes to eliminating or mitigating other identities. Rather, Islamic identity co-exists with other forms of identity, and other factors beyond it may even influence which identity or identities move to the fore- ground and background in the minds of individual Muslims at any given moment. In short, their self-declared identities are many and “remarkably fluid,” and the ummah is “no more than an ideal.”43 Consequently, as one scholar has suggested, making a greater distinction between the spiritual ummat al-Islam (the community of the faithful) and the material dar al- 88 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 Islam (geographically bounded and sovereign Muslim land) may be useful.44 The former stresses shared belief; the later stresses shared residency, nation- ality, or citizenship. If ummah is understood far more narrowly, such as a “religious fraternity,” then it may be stated more accurately that “Muslims are still a single ummah” and that no fitnah (rupture, separation, or splitting of the community) has occurred, as many Islamists commonly claim.45 As Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufi of Bosnia, explains: Yes, there is a center of Islam, but not so much in the sense of geograph- ical compact, economic product, or political impact on the global devel- opment as in the sense of a universal identity, the time-space Ka’ba-Qibla orientation and of the faith-based solidarity among common Muslims all over the world.46 Reflecting upon his own myriad of identities, Jimmy Carter made a per- tinent observation about the flexibility, interchangeability, and complexity of individual sources of identity. Time, space, and audience can all have a bear- ing on one’s claim to identity in the moment, and the variety of identity is actually quite healthy and natural to being human. At different times in my life I have introduced myself as a submariner, farmer, warehouseman, state senator, governor, or even president … Now, even though not holding a steady job, I could reply, depending on my audi- ence, that I am a professor, author, fly fisherman, or woodworker. I could add American, Southerner, Christian, married, or grandfather. The point is that each of us is a complex human being, with multiple choices of our pri- mary interests or identification at any moment. Keeping a number of these options alive is a good indication of the vitality of our existence.47 While far from ending the debate and discussion on this topic, the find- ings suggest that the “civilizational” approach to Islam may distort, more than reflect or illuminate, the attitudes of individual Muslims, and may con- firm the views of those who have descriptively and theoretically critiqued the “civilizational” approach.48 In other words, to paraphrase Walker Connor, the “civilizational approach” seemingly falls into “the illusion of homo- geneity.”49 Thus, claiming that those who belong to the same community, country, or land mass “share certain common interests and traits” because of that belonging is based upon a false assumption. Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938), the spiritual father of Pakistan, once wrote: “It seems to me God is slowly bringing home to us the truth that Islam is neither Nationalism nor Imperialism but a League of Nations which rec- ognize artificial boundaries…”50 He may have been on to something. Rather Berggren: More Than the Ummah 89 than striving for a new pax Islamica, Iqbal recognized a unity within diver- sity, that “each group is entitled to free development on its own line” within a wider whole.51 Obviously, this has implications for policymakers – it is a mistake to treat the Islamic world as a monolithic whole. Instead, as Richard Nixon once urged, American policymakers must pursue a Muslimpolitik “based on the recognition that Muslims and the Muslim world are not a uni- fied, radical geopolitical force bent on confronting the West, but rather a diverse cultural and ethnic grouping sharing a faith in Islam.”52 Endnotes 1. Unless otherwise noted, all Qur’anic quotes are from Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an (Beltsville, MD: amana publications, 1989). 2. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), 17. 3. Ibid., xx. According to Lewis, the West sees the nation-state as “the basic unit of human organization”; Muslims see the ummah as the basic unit. 4. Frederick M. Denny, “Ummah in the Constitution of Medina,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 36, no. 1 (January 1977): 47. 5. Cited in Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1992), 254. 6. John Kelsay, Islam and War: The Gulf War and Beyond: A Study in Compara- tive Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 34. 7. Mir Zohar Husain, Global Islamic Politics (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 31. Some have even argued that “defense of the ummah … is a prime religious duty.” See Ismail R. al Faruqi, “Islam and Zionism,” in John L. Esposito, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 262. 8. Lewis, The Crisis of Islam, xvii-xviii. 9. Though not examined here, some scholars posit that one element of Islamic exceptionalism is found in Muslim (especially Arab) attitudes toward women. See Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003), 49, 130, 134; Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 66-67. In addi- tion to low levels of sexual tolerance and gender equality, Yilmaz Esmer found that Muslims are more likely to show higher levels of religiosity and lower lev- els of secularism, efficacy, or acceptance of fate. See Yilmaz Esmer, “Is There an Islamic Civilization?” in Human Values and Social Change: Findings from the Values Surveys, ed. Ronald Inglehart (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 35-68. 10. Lewis, What Went Wrong?, 6; Armstrong, Muhammad, 165. 11. Lewis, What Went Wrong?, 47-48, 61-62; Bassam Tibi, “Islam and Modern European Ideologies,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, no. 18 (1986): 15-29. 90 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 12. Mansoor Moaddel and Taqhi Azadarmaki, “The Worldviews of Islamic Pub- lics: The Cases of Egypt, Iran, and Jordan,” in Human Values and Social Change: Findings from the World Values Surveys, ed. Ronald Inglehart (Bos- ton, MA: Brill, 2003), 70; James J. Zogby, What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs, and Concerns (Utica, NY: Zogby International, 2002), 49-59. 13. Armstrong, Muhammad, 250-51; John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8; John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1998), 4. 14. See Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994). 15. Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1973), 338. 16. Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 27; Lewis, What Went Wrong?, 96-116. 17. James P. Piscatori, Islam in a World of Nation-States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 11; Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 4-5, 135, 181. Huntington argues that this basic difference in religion-politics models is at the heart of the historic civi- lizational conflict between the Christian West and the Islamic world. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 210, 212. And, as Lewis argues, Chris- tian Europe legitimately feared Islamic conversion, expansion, and conquest for a thousand years “from the advent of Islam in the seventh century until the second siege of Vienna in 1683.” Lewis, Islam and the West, 127. 18. Lewis, Islam and the West, 135. 19. Bassam Tibi, “The Crisis of the Nation-State,” in The Challenge of Fundamen- talism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 114-37. Religionless was how Abul A`la Mawdudi, the founder of Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami, described the secular state. See Charles J. Adams, “Mawdudi and the Islamic State,” in Esposito, ed., Voices of Resurgent Islam, 103. Given this, it should not be surprising that Islam lacks an independent academic tradition of political study. Instead, “the study of poli- tics” is subsumed in the “religious disciplines of jurisprudence (fiqh) and theol- ogy (kalam).” Tibi, “Islam and Modern European Ideologies,” 15. 20. Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 31. 21. Armstrong even described the pursuit of ummah as having an almost “sacra- mental importance” for Muslims as the individual and collective effort “to redeem history” for God. Armstrong, Muhammad, 259. 22. Piscatori, Islam in a World of Nation-States, 8. 23. Edward Luttwak, “The Missing Dimension,” in Religion: The Missing Dimen- sion of Statecraft, eds. Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 9; Barry Rubin, “Religion and International Affairs,” in ibid., 20-34; Mark Juergensmeyer, “Islam’s ‘Neglected Duty’,” Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 67-69. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 91 24. See Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy: Testing the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Thesis,” in Human Values and Social Change: Findings from the Values Surveys, ed. Ronald Inglehart (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 5-33. In their analysis, Norris and Inglehart examined the attitudes of nine majoritarian Muslim countries (Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangla- desh, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey). 25. More countries in the Islamic world were included in the 1999-2001 World Values Survey, namely, Albania, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Morocco. Unfortu- nately, the data were not available to the author at time of this writing. See Inglehart and Norris, Rising Tide, 24-27, 165-67. 26. Ibid., 21-27, 165-67. 27. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 28. The Organization of the Islamic Conference, www.oic-un.org/about/over.htm. 29. “CIA-The World Factbook 2002,” www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/. 30. Moaddel and Azadarmaki, “The Worldviews of Islamic Publics,” 70; Zogby, What Arabs Think, 49-59; Richard Burkholder, “Turkey: Secular and Firmly Grounded in Islam,” The Gallup Organization, September 3, 2002, www. gallup.com/poll/tb/goverpubli/20020903.asp; “How Muslims See Themselves and Islam’s Role,” in “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics,” The Pew Global Attitudes Project, July 14, 2005, 21, http:// pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=813. 31. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, July 14, 2005, 27. 32. Zogby, What Arabs Think, 49. 33. Ibid., 50. 34. Ibid., 51. 35. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 288. 36. Ibid., 289. 37. See Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 38. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 174. 39. Ibid., 174-75. Huntington argues that Muslim loyalties either sway between or are a mixture of tribalism and transnationalism: “Throughout Islam the small group and the great faith, the tribe and the ummah, have been the principal foci of loyalty and commitment.” 40. Dale F. Eickleman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), x. 41. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, “Religion and Politics in the Muslim World,” in Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 133-55; Richard Burkholder, “Gallup Poll of Iraq: Should Clerics Govern?” Gallup Poll News Service (GPNS), June 1, 2004; Richard Burkholder, “Gallup Poll of Iraq: How Different Are the Kurds?” GPNS, June 22, 2004; Lydia Saad, “Gallup Palestinian Survey Reveals Broad Discontentment with Status Quo,” GPNS, January 27, 2006. 92 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2 42. Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence, “Introduction,” Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop, eds. Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 1. 43. John F. Stack, Jr., “Ethnicity, Racism, and Busing in Boston: The Boston Irish and School Desegregation,” Ethnicity, no. 6 (1979): 22; Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 128-29. 44. Quoted in Nissim Rejwan, The Many Faces of Islam: Perspectives on a Resurgent Civilization (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000), 122. 45. Ibid., 123; Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 71. 46. Mustafa Ceric, “The Many Voices of Islam: Cultivating Intellectual Plural- ism,” in Contemporary Islam: Dynamic, not Static, eds. Abdul Aziz Said, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, and Meena Sharify-Funk (New York: Routledge, 2006), 21. 47. Jimmy Carter, The Virtues of Aging (New York: Ballantine, 1998), 89-90. See also Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, “Introduction,” Ethnicity: Theory and Experience, eds. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 19; Daniel Bell, “Ethnicity and Social Change,” in ibid., 141-74; John Hutchinson, “Ethnicity and Modern Nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 4 (July 2000): 651-69. 48. See, for instance, John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Mahmood Monshipouri and Gina Petonito, “Constructing the Enemy in the Post-Cold War Era: The Flaws of the ‘Islamic Conspiracy’ Theory,” Journal of Church and State 37, no. 4 (autumn 1995): 773-92; Lisa Wedeen, “Beyond the Crusades: Why Huntington, and Bin Laden, are Wrong,” Middle East Policy 10, no. 2 (summer 2003): 54-61. 49. Walker Connor, “Illusions of Homogeneity,” chapter in Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 118-43. 50. John L. Esposito, “Muhammad Iqbal and the Islamic State,” in Voices of Resurgent Islam, 183. See also Ali S. Asani, “‘So That You May Know One Another’: A Muslim American Reflects on Pluralism and Islam,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, no. 588 (July 2003): 40-51. Existing evidence shows that even Islamists, such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (which ultimately desires a transnational Islamic state), are work- ing on transforming one state or one civil society at a time, namely, Islamization from above or from below. See Sheri Berman, “Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Society,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 2 (June 2003): 257-72. 51. Muhammad Iqbal, “A Separate Muslim State in the Subcontinent,” in Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspective, eds. John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 91-93. 52. Richard Nixon, Beyond Peace (New York: Random House, 1994), 141. Berggren: More Than the Ummah 93