Dr Mubashar Hasan – Islam and Politics in Bangladesh: The Followers of Ummah

Dr. Hasan presents his recent book that conceptualizes the politics of Bangladesh through an Islamic concept called ummah or the global brotherhood of Muslims. It demonstrates that, against the backdrop of geopolitics, capitalism, and free flow of ideas, localization of this global religious concept at the individual level, institutional level, major party platforms, and the state has cemented the current political condition in Bangladesh in which religiosity, religious intolerance, Islamization and extremism take place. By exploring the effects of ummah in Bangladeshi politics, this book shows how major political parties have mainstreamed political Islam in the country. The book rejects the long-standing scholarly claim of religious-secular distinction in Bangladeshi politics and argues that with most Muslim-dominated states, there are no major secular parties in Bangladesh. There are only Islamic parties, which are more or less Islamic. The purely ‘rational’ domain of politics in Bangladesh is long lost, and political Islam sets the framework for politics in the country. The reason behind this logic of Bangladeshi politics is formed, contained and expanded by ummah.

About the Speaker

Dr Mubashar Hasan

Adjunct Research Fellow, Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI), School of Social Science and Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Dr Mubashar Hasan is an experienced researcher and analyst currently affiliated with the University of Western Sydney as an adjunct research fellow at the Humanitarian and Development Initiative. He just completed a 2.5 years research fellowship at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo and moved to Australia in July 2020. He is an incoming member of the Research Advisory Council of the Washington DC-based RESOLVE Network located at the United States Institute of Peace. His research interests include CVE, Islam and politics and populist Islam in the society.