al-Wahda al-Islamiyya

al-Wahda al-Islamiyya (Islamic Unity) is a treatise by the Syrian scholar and thinker Muhammad al-Mubarak (d. 1402 AH / 1981 CE) that analyzes the causes of political, cultural, and social fragmentation in the contemporary Muslim world and outlines practical pathways toward re-establishing Islamic solidarity and unity al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.

Historical Context and Background

The work frames Islamic history as having originally unified diverse peoples into a single community (al-Umma al-Islamiyya), state (al-Dawla al-Islamiyya), and shared civilization and culture al-Wahda al-Islamiyya. Over time, political fragmentation led to multiple states, though the underlying social cohesion of the populace persisted until recent centuries, when Western colonial rule entrenched geographic borders and ideological divisions al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.

Al-Mubarak notes that the term "Muslim world" (al-ʿAlam al-Islami) emerged in modern times as a replacement for al-Umma al-Islamiyya, likely coined by European and American observers (in English as Muslim world and in French as le monde musulman) al-Wahda al-Islamiyya. Despite the modern dissolution of political unity, he argues that the enduring foundation of Islamic belief, worship rituals, legal traditions, and shared sentiment provides the necessary capital to build contemporary forms of unity, such as a unified or federal state al-Wahda al-Islamiyya.

Diagnostic Analysis of Division

Al-Mubarak identifies several interrelated dimensions underpinning modern disunity:

• State Borders and Nationalisms: While past dynastic divisions did not impede free movement or scholars holding public offices across regions—such as Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Battuta serving as judges outside their places of origin—modern state boundaries established rigid patriotic and nationalist rivalries (ʿasabiyyat) reinforced by educational curricula, national anthems, and ruling elites al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.
• Educational and Cultural Duality: Colonial policies introduced Western educational systems (British, French, and later Marxist influences), fracturing intellectual coherence and creating a dualism between traditional Islamic education and imported Western models al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.
• Legal and Economic Fracturing: Foreign penal, commercial, civil, and personal status codes displaced Islamic jurisprudence, undermining social cohesion al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1. Economically, Muslim countries adopted conflicting systems (capitalism, socialism, Marxism) and tied their exports, currencies, and reserves to competing foreign powers al-Wahda al-Islamiyya.
• Foreign Ideologies and Sectarianism: Al-Mubarak distinguishes between historical Islamic schools of thought—arguing that Sunnis, Imami Shi'is, Ibadis, and Zaydis share foundational commonalities that make theological coordination feasible—and modern imported ideologies like Marxism, secular nationalism, and secular democracy, which seek to confine Islam to private rituals or eliminate its public role al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+2.
• External Interference: Foreign powers, multinational corporations, and international Zionism are highlighted as entities actively supporting secular or conflicting movements to thwart Islamic integration al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.

Program and Pathways to Unity

To bridge the gap between contemporary division and institutional integration, the treatise outlines specific measures divided between popular action and state policy:

1. Cultivating Islamic Public Opinion: Establishing primary allegiance to Islam and the wider Muslim Ummah through publications, media, conferences, and incorporating Islamic culture, geography, and economics into secondary and university curricula, as initiated by universities in Saudi Arabia and Sudan al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+2.
2. Intergovernmental Coordination: Convening joint conferences of Muslim states to standardize educational curricula, promote the Arabic language, harmonize civil and commercial legislation, establish an Islamic common market, facilitate interstate travel and employment, coordinate foreign policy, and standardize defense industries and terminology, eventually culminating in a confederation and ultimately a federation al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.
3. Ideological and Sectarian Reconciliation: Channeling valid impulses within nationalist sentiment by emphasizing the historical contributions of diverse Muslim peoples, addressing socialist concerns through Islamic principles of social justice, and de-escalating historical theological disputes—such as Sunnite–Shi'ite debates surrounding the caliphate and imamate—to achieve practical convergence al-Wahda al-Islamiyya+1.