Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05DHAKA2409
2005-05-24 10:07:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Dhaka
Cable title:  

WIDENING SPLITS AMONG BANGLADESHI ISLAMIST GROUPS

Tags:  KISL PHUM PGOV PTER BG 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 002409 

SIPDIS

SA FOR DAS GASTRIGHT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/24/2015
TAGS: KISL PHUM PGOV PTER BG
SUBJECT: WIDENING SPLITS AMONG BANGLADESHI ISLAMIST GROUPS

REF: 04 DHAKA 0888

Classified By: P/E Counselor D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.4 d.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 002409

SIPDIS

SA FOR DAS GASTRIGHT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/24/2015
TAGS: KISL PHUM PGOV PTER BG
SUBJECT: WIDENING SPLITS AMONG BANGLADESHI ISLAMIST GROUPS

REF: 04 DHAKA 0888

Classified By: P/E Counselor D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.4 d.


1. (C) Summary. There is a widening, public split between
mainstream Jamaat Islami and other, more extreme Islamist
groups driven by ideological, personal, historical, and even
material factors. While IOJ could drop out of the ruling
coalition, the JI-BNP alliance -- grounded solidly in
political expediency -- looks secure. End Summary.

Growing Rumbles
--------------


2. (C) Factions of the Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ),a member of
the ruling coalition, and AMM Bahauddin, owner/editor of the
anti-US/pro-Saddam/pro-Islamist Daily Inquilab newspaper, are
spearheading a move to unite a large number of Islamist
groups against the mainstream Jamaat Islami (JI) and
undermine the BNP-led coalition. The two principal leaders
of this move have material grievances against the BDG.
Fazlul Haq Aminee, MP and chairman of one of the three IOJ
factions, has been lobbying the BDG hard since at least
December 2003 for a cabinet seat. a push that coincided with
the revival of anti-Ahmadiya agitation, which he strongly
supported. He also reportedly wants a license to open a
bank. Bahauddin, meanwhile, tried and failed to get a
license for a satellite TV channel called Inquilab TV.
(Note: Recently freed journalist Shoaib Chowdhury, who had
been detained since 2003 on sedition charges for trying to go
to a conference in Israel, was the channel's managing
director.)


3. (C) Aminee, citing BDG attempts to expand the curriculum
at quomi madrassas to include science and English, complains
the BDG is "cracking down" on these madrassas and the
Islamist groups, like his, which support them. (Note: During
the 2001 election, alleged anti-madrassa actions by the Awami
League (AL) led the Islamists' objections to the AL
government.) In September 2004, Aminee told us that three
senior AL leaders met with him to propose a political
understanding. AL leaders subsequently denied this to us but
there is good reason to believe some sort of meeting
occurred. Aminee has a long history of publicly criticizing
the BDG; in private, he says it is dictatorial and mercenary.

On March 17, Aminee and other IOJ leaders demanded that the
BNP expel the two JI ministers for allegedly licensing a
company to produce alcohol and for allowing prostitution in
Bangladesh.


4. (C) Mufti Ijharul Islam, former SYG of Aminee's IOJ
faction and since March chairman of his own faction, says he
left Aminee because he could not abide his criticism of
coalition partners BNP and JI. "When we formed the alliance
with JI, we knew we had religious differences with them," he
said. "What has changed about JI that we should oppose them
now?" The AL, he told us, had been trying for a year to
persuade him and Aminee to defect. When he refused, he said,
the AL asked him to speak publicly about the religious
differences between JI and Deobandi ulama. Islam insists he
declined but suggests Aminee did not. On May 23, Islam
alleged to us that India has funneled funds to Aminee and
Bahauddin to undermine the ruling coalition.

Nothing New
--------------


5. (C) Maulana Syed Abul Ala Moududi is the founder and
guiding light of JI. Deobandi ulama condemned his advocacy
of political Islam. When Moududi founded JI in 1941, they
declared him a "deviated" person because he mixed politics
with religion. Moududi's book, "Caliphate and Monarchy" in
1967, produced allegations that he was a conspirator against
Islam and fatwas were issued instructing Muslims not to
associate with JI. According to IOJ's Ijharul Islam, there
are three major differences between Moududism and
traditionalist ulama: Moududi does not attribute the same
level of innocence and purity to Prophet Muhammad as do the
ulama, Moududi found weaknesses in the personalities and
abilities of some caliphs and companions of the prophet,
while ulama believe they are beyond reproach, and Moududi did
not have formal Islamic training and was therefore unfit to
interpret Islam for others.


6. (C) Maulana Shamshul Haq, one of the few prominent Islamic
scholars asserting some appreciation for Moududism, withdrew
his support from JI after "Caliphates and Monarchy" and wrote
a book called "Correcting Mistakes" that declared it illegal
for a Muslim to support JI unless Moududi corrected his
mistakes. Similarly, praying with such people was declared
invalid. Other ulama issued fatwas that included banning
marriage to JI supporters. On May 21, Haq's own political
party, Khelafat Majlish, split into two groups when one
faction rejected Haq's six-point declaration condemning
Moududism and Shia'ism, among other things. The splinter
group consists mostly of former JI activists who found JI too
flexible ideologically. After Bangladesh achieved
independence in 1971 and secularism was included in the new
constitution, some traditionalist ulamas joined with JI
leaders to form the Islamic Democratic League once the AL was
ejected from power in 1975. The JI gradually rebuilt its
political base, rendering the IDL insignificant, and ulama
started joining political Islam in the form of a respected
scholar known popularly as Hafezzi Huzur, who ran for
president in 1981. In a surprise move, Huzur visited Iran
and recognized Shias as acceptable Muslims. After Huzur's
death, his party mutated into what became the core of the IOJ.


7. (C) The JI and IOJ drew closer during the 1996-2001 AL
government, but differences were apparent soon after the
four-party coalition came to power. IOJ leaders charged that
JI amir Nizami was vain, ignored the IOJ, and did not support
their demand for a separate Arabic university authorized to
affiliate with quomi madrassas. In addition, they said,
Nizami failed to oppose strongly enough USG actions in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and he did not support their
anti-Ahmadiya campaign. After the BNP candidate lost the May
9 Chittagong mayoral election, Inquilab newspaper and IOJ
leaders blamed JI "betrayal" and declared the JI a political
liability for the BNP.

Going Public
--------------


8. (C) On May 12, leaders of different Islamist groups, minus
JI, gathered at a seminar organized by Inquilab's Bahauddin
in Dhaka to discuss the need for political unity in the next
election. Asked about the possible beneficiary of such a
move considering the small vote banks of the non-JI Islamist
groups, Bahauddin expressed indifference about who comes to
power next. IOJ leaders reiterated their criticism of JI as
an "un-Islamic" force and a "deviated" group like Ahmadiyas.

JI's Response
--------------


9. (C) JI leaders strike a generally relaxed view about these
developments. Some note that the JI won 18 parliamentary
seats on its own in 1991, and that Bangladeshis traditionally
ignore ulamas' political guidance. JI, one said, is a
complex party that draws its support from civil society and
educated people who are pious but understand the modern
world. IOJ leaders, however, are ignorant of modern
economics, science, and international relations, and are
jealous of JI's success and influence. Another JI leader
told us Nizami has several times tried and failed to persuade
Bahauddin to stop his anti-JI activities.

Comment
--------------


10. (C) Political Islam in Bangladesh is a
vertically-integrated enterprise with JI as its political
center (reftel). However, it is not a monolith and
Bangladesh's many Islamist groups have important ideological,
historical, personal, and even material issues that push them
apart. The agenda of these groups is predominantly domestic,
although anti-U.S. rhetoric, fueled by incidents associated
with the GWOT, is on the increase, even if it is still lower
than in many Muslim countries. Political expediency, and not
much else, binds the JI and BNP, and that is unlikely to
change before the next election. Other groups, like IOJ,
however, could move more openly into anti-government terrain,
intensifying Islamist activism against the Ahmadiyas and
other alleged affronts to Islamist orthodoxy. The upsurge in
anti-Ahmadiya attacks in April, the JI's defensive denial of
involvement and condemnation of its Islamist rivals as an
extremist embarrassment, and the BDG's belated move to curb
again the attacks should be seen in this broader context of
widening Islamist differences.
THOMAS