Encyclopedia of Islam

communism

---

see communism as being incompatible with their 

core Islamic values and teachings, such as their 

belief in God, performance of obligatory acts of 

worship, and acquisition of religious instruction 

as a part of one’s moral development. Muslims in 

the Middle East in particular have also rejected 

communism because of the Soviet Union’s quick 

recognition of i

srael

 in 1948 and the support 

French Marxists showed for their government in 

its bloody war against the Algerian independence 

movement in 1954–62.

The governments of the Soviet Union and 

other communist nations pursued policies to orga-

nize subject Muslim populations in Central Asia 

into discreet nationalities based on ethnicity (for 

example, Uzbek, Tajik, and Kirghiz) and cut them 

off from their ties to Muslims and Islamic centers 

in the Middle East. Mosques and Islamic schools 

were closed or converted into cultural sites, while 

the overt practice of Islam was largely forced to go 

underground. The dissolution of the Soviet Union 

in 1991, however, spurred the revival of Islam, 

including militant Islamism, in the former Cen-

tral Asian republics. In China, Muslims enjoyed 

religious freedom after World War II because they 

sided with the Communists in their campaign 

against the Nationalists for control of the country. 

This relationship disintegrated during the Chinese 

Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when Islam was 

outlawed. Since that time, however, Muslim com-

munities have been allowed to rebuild their insti-

tutions, and their situation has improved.

The Islamic governments of s

aUdi

 a

rabia

 and 

the Iranian republic both took clear stands against 

the spread of communist influence. During 1960s 

and 1970s, Saudi king F

aysal

 

ibn

 a

bd

 

al

-a

ziz

 (r. 

1964–75) urged Muslims to oppose the spread 

of atheism in their lands, by which he meant 

not only communism but also Zionism and a

rab

socialism. Saudi Arabia and p

akistan

 helped the 

U

nited

 s

tates

 provide covert support in the 1980s 

to the a

Fghan

  m

UJahidin

 in their guerrilla war 

against the People’s Democratic Party of a

Fghani

-

stan

, a communist party that had seized power in 

1979 with the backing of the Soviet army. Indeed, 

the United States regarded both Saudi Arabia and 

Pakistan as staunch allies during the cold war 

(1945–91). Meanwhile, after the Islamic revolu-

tion in i

ran

 (1978–79), the new Khomeini regime 

violently eliminated the Marxist Tudeh (commu-

nist) Party, the Fedaiyan-i Khalq, and other leftist 

groups that had formed earlier in opposition to 

the Iranian monarchy.

Elsewhere, Islamic opposition movements 

competed with small groups of communists and 

leftists attempting to gain political power in coun-

tries ruled by conservative or secular authoritar-

ian governments. This was the case in Iran, e

gypt

,

and Iraq. The Palestinian nationalist movement 

against Israeli occupation also reflects this fac-

tional rivalry. Several leading 20th-century reviv-

alists and reformers who were overtly opposed 

to communism nonetheless seized upon Marxist 

rhetoric concerning social justice, class struggle, 

revolution, and liberation and reshaped it in an 

Islamic mold. a

bU

  a

la

 

al

-m

aWdUdi

 (d. 1979), 

s

ayyid

 q

Utb

 (d. 1966), and a

li

 s

hariati

 (d. 1977) 

were in the forefront of this group. The Islamic 

movement that has most fully embodied the 

combination of Marxism with revivalist Islamic 

ideology is the m

UJahidin

-

i

 k

halq

, which opposed 

Iran’s monarchy and was violently suppressed after 

the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

See also c

entral

 a

sia

 

and

 

the

 c

aUcasUs

; 

fidai

;

m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

; 

politics

 

and

 i

slam

.