Islamic Epistemology in the Bangladesh Government System (1996–2022)
An Analysis of Political Ideologies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21787/jbp.15.2023.479-493Keywords:
democracy; , Islamic-Epistemology, regimes, Senate/Surah-Council, Bangladesh-PoliticsAbstract
This study aims to explore the extent of Islamization in Bangladesh during the tenure of democratically elected leaders Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. The objective is to analyze the state of democratic governance in Bangladesh from a religious perspective, focusing specifically on Islamic political epistemology. It begins by defining Islamic Political Epistemology and its significance in acknowledging Islam’s role in democratic power. This qualitative descriptive analysis examines recent research papers from highly ranked resources such as Scopus. It is important to note that specific methods can strengthen strategies for enforcing electoral decrees, improve credentials for arbitration through sovereignty within the dominion branch, and increase national participation in political acts and society through Islamic Political Epistemology. Sheikh Hasina’s new regime has achieved significant progress in implementing Islamic development in bureaucracy and regulations. Qawmi Madrasah has contributed significantly to Islamic Education in Bangladesh, and the current government recognizes their educational certificates. The salaries of teachers and Imams at Government Madrasah-e-Alia have been increased, which is a significant policy change. The study revealed that Khaleda Zia’s government could have succeeded despite its alliance with Islamic political parties. Having a coalition with Islamic political parties does not necessarily mean that the country’s political ideology is institutionalized in an Islamic way. Opposite, Bangladesh’s government, with partial financing from Saudi Arabia, is constructing 560 mosques that will also serve as artistic centres to promote Islamic epistemology and combat extremism. However, this government operates under a one-party system with the Awami League party, led by Sheikh Hasina, idolizing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Downloads
References
ACCORD. (2023). Bangladesh: COI Compilation. ACCORD.
Ahmed, K. U. (2008). Women and Politics in Bangladesh. In K. Iwanaga (Ed.), Women’s Political Participation and Representation in Asia: Obstacles and Challenges (pp. 276–296). NIAS Press.
AI-Ahsan, A. (1994). Spread of Islam in Pre-Mughal Bengal. Intellectual Discourse, 2(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.31436/id.v2i1.339
Azad, A. K., & Ahmed, A. I. M. U. (2021). Social Mobility and the Epistemological Hybridity of Madrasah Students in Bangladesh. BUFT Journal of Business & Economics (BJBE), 2, 145–158.
Basu, N. (2021, October 25). Why Sheikh Hasina Govt Is Unlikely to Restore Bangladesh’s ‘Secular’ 1972 Constitution. ThePrint. https://theprint.in/world/why-sheikh-hasina-govt-is-unlikely-to-restore-bangladeshs-secular-1972-constitution/755962/
Bergman, D. (2016, March 28). Bangladesh Court Upholds Islam As Religion of the State. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/3/28/bangladesh-court-upholds-islam-as-religion-of-the-state
Chakravorty, N. N. T. (2023). Corruption in Bangladesh: Background Causes and Current Scenario. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 20(1), 71–83. https://doi.org/10.33423/jlae.v20i1.6002
Chaudhury, D. R. (2020). The Resilience of Secularism in Bangladesh. Indian Foreign Affairs Journal. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48630186
Chowdury, S. R. H., & Nafis, M. N. (2019). Foundation of Religious Liberalism in Bangladesh: Contribution of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Awami League. International Journal of Social, Political and Economic Research, 6(1), 104–132. https://doi.org/10.46291/IJOSPERvol6iss1pp104-132
Dasgupta, S. (2020, May 10). ‘First a Bengali, then a Muslim.’ Telegraph India. https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/first-a-bengali-then-a-muslim-sheikh-mujibur-rahman-s-birth-centenary/cid/1771953
Hajjaj, B. (2023). Purveyors of Radical Islamism or Casualty of Cultural Nationalism: Situating Jamaat-e-Islami in Contemporary Bangladesh Politics. Journal of Asian and African Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096231153149
Hassan, M. (2023). Religion as a Source of Violence: Contending the Narrative of Political Violence Perpetrated in the Name of Islam in Bangladesh. Journal of Asian Wisdom and Islamic Behavior, 1(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.59371/jawab.v1i1.41
Hassooni, F. K. (2023). Types of Party Systems. International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities, 16.
Holijah, & Rizal, M. (2023). Contruction of Criminal Law Against Blaspheming the President As the Head of Government in Indonesia. Nurani: Jurnal Kajian Syari`ah dan Masyarakat, 23(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.19109/nurani.v23i1.15992
Hossain, Md. K. R. (2015). The Institutionalization of Liberal Democracy in Bangladesh: An Appraisal. Journal of Social Science (JSS), 3, 195–210.
Huque, A. S., & Akhter, M. Y. (1987). The Ubiquity of Islam: Religion and Society in Bangladesh. Pacific Affairs, 60(2), 200. https://doi.org/10.2307/2758132
Hussain, M. (2016, March 28). Keeping Islam As State Religion in Bangladesh Triggers Mixed Reactions. Voice of America. https://www.voanews.com/a/bangladesh-islam-state-religion/3258149.html
Islam, M. H., & Adam, F. (2019). Islamization of Family and Society: Study of Bangladesh Jama’at-e-Islami (BJI). In S. Fahmy, S. H. Syed Omar, N. Abdullah, & R. M. Mohamed (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Islamic Civilization and Technology Management. Research Institute for Islamic Product and Malay Civilization (INSPIRE) Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA).
Islam, M. N. (2017). God in Politics: Islamism and Democracy in Bangladesh [Nanyang Technological University]. https://doi.org/10.32657/10356/69470
Islam, M. N. (2022). Faithful Participation: The ’Ulama in Bangladeshi Politics. Politics, Religion & Ideology, 23(2), 177–203. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2022.2082416
Islam, M. N. (2023). Educational Discourses of Bangladesh: An Epistemological Evaluation of Primary Education. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology. https://www.ijisrt.com/educational-discourses-of-bangladesh-an-epistemological-evaluation-of-primary-education
Islam, M. N., & Islam, M. S. (2018). Islam, Politics and Secularism in Bangladesh: Contesting the Dominant Narratives. Social Sciences, 7(3), 37. https://doi.org/10.3390/SOCSCI7030037
Islam, M. N., Önder, M., & Nyadera, I. N. (2020). Islam, Politics and Bangladesh: A Qualitative Content Analysis on the Democratic and Political Culture of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI). Adam Academy Journal of Social Science, 10(2), 291–318. https://doi.org/10.31679/adamakademi.783781
Johnston, M. P. (2014). Secondary Data Analysis: A Method of Which the Time Has Come. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 3(3), 619–626. https://www.qqml-journal.net/index.php/qqml/article/view/169
Kabir, P. (2023). Civic Engagement in Exile: Exploring Social Media Presence of Dissidents From Bangladesh. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 28(3), 516–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612211047200
Kapur, R. (2022, February 16). Hefazat-e-Islam and the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in Bangladesh. East Asia Forum. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/02/16/hefazat-e-islam-and-the-rise-of-islamic-fundamentalism-in-bangladesh/
Lantong, A. M. (2018). The Islamic Epistemology and its Implications for Education of Muslims in the Philippines. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intellectuals’ Global Responsibility (ICIGR 2017). https://doi.org/10.2991/icigr-17.2018.16
Lorch, J. (2019). Islamization by Secular Ruling Parties: The Case of Bangladesh. Politics and Religion, 12(02), 257–282. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048318000573
Moniz Bandeira, E. (2023). Creating a Constitutional Absolute Monarchy: Li Jiaju, Dashou, and Late Qing Interpretations of the Japanese Parliament. The International History Review, 45(2), 243–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2022.2139282
Mostofa, S. M. (2021, December 6). Bangladesh’s Identity Crisis: To Be or Not to Be Secular. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/bangladeshs-identity-crisis-to-be-or-not-to-be-secular/
Patwary, Md. E. U. (2022). Democratization and Intra-party Democracy: Bangladesh Experience. Society & Change, XVI(4), 67–85. https://societyandchange.com/home/journalDetails/476
Rahman, M. R. (2020). The Compatibility of State Religion and Constitutional Secularism Coexistence: Bangladesh in Context. Indian Journal of Secularism, 24(1), 30–59.
Riaz, A. (2012). Islam, Islamization and Politics in Bangladesh. In C. Jaffrelot & A. Mohammad-Arif (Eds.), Politique et religions en Asie du Sud (pp. 93–115). Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.22291
Rohmah, S., Kholish, M. A., & Galib, A. M. (2022). Human Rights and Islamic Law Discourse: The Epistemological Construction of Abul A’la Al-Maududi, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, and Mashood A. Baderin. Justicia Islamica: Jurnal Kajian Hukum dan Sosial, 19(1), 153–170. https://doi.org/10.21154/justicia.v19i1.3282
Saadi, W. F., Yousif, H. M., & Kareem, K. K. (2023). Consolidate the Constitutional Monarchy in the Kurdistan Regionfirst. Qalaai Zanist Journal, 8(1), 607–626. https://doi.org/10.25212/LFU.QZJ.8.1.23
Sedelius, T., & Ã…berg, J. (2019). Semi-Presidential Systems. Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756223-0271
Shugart, M. S. (2005). Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive And Mixed Authority Patterns. French Politics, 3(3), 323–351. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200087
Siddiqa, A. (2011). The Evolution of Civil–Military Relations in South Asia. In E. Sridharan (Ed.), International Relations Theory and South Asia (pp. 143–193). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198069652.003.0005
United Kingdom: Home Office. (2015). Country Information and Guidance – Bangladesh: Opposition to the Government. United Kingdom: Home Office.
United States Department of State. (2019). Bangladesh 2019 International Religious Freedom Report. United States Department of State.
Verma, S. (2023). Notion of Nation and Nationalism in Bangladesh. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, 12(3(2)), 92–96.
Wiraguna, S. A., & Fakrulloh, Z. A. (2023). Legal Reforms in Indonesia Related to “Presidential Threshold†of Presidential Candidate in Law No. 7/2017 Concerning General Elections. Ius Positum: Journal of Law Theory and Law Enforcement, 2(2), 58–69. https://doi.org/10.56943/jlte.v2i2.194
Zulkarnain, F., Muhammad, A. Y., Sule, B., & Abdul Sahid, A. (2022). When the East Meets the West: Analysing Rached Ghannouci’s Synthesis of Democracy in Islam. Journal of Al-Tamaddun, 17(2), 127–141. https://doi.org/10.22452/JAT.vol17no2.10
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.