The Myth of Perpetual Departure: Sufis in a New (Age) Global (Dis)Order

This chapter explores the relation between Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s vision, the modern nation-state and postmodern advanced media technologies. Modernisation of Middle Eastern societies involved four main transformations, substituting the political framework of the Ottoman Empire, which was based on religious affiliations and represented an ambition for Islamic global hegemony, with nation-states based on territorial affiliations; substituting religious law and religion-based social organisations for non-religious laws and organisations; substituting the principle of God’s sovereignty for that of the People’s sovereignty and substituting metaphysical scholarship for empiricism and rationalism. Secular and infidel notions that became hegemonic must give way to Islamic principles and Islamic laws. The potential of global media operations to encroach on traditional territorial limitations, and the prospect of their redefining nationality, was not lost on some Islamic scholars. News stories in IslamOnline.net under Qaradawi were concerned with Muslim states, Muslim minorities and Islam in general.