The Jamaat Question in Bangladesh

Reviewed by: Mohammad Hossain, Ibn Haldun University, Turkïye

Published by: London: Routledge, 2023, 278pp. ISBN: 978-1032316383.

Probably among the last books to be blessed by the great Muslim intellectual Shabbir Akhtar before his untimely demise, “The Jamaat Question in Bangladesh,” an edited volume on political Islam in Bangladesh with chapters from early career researchers, established academics, and field experts, stands poised to give a fresh perspective on one of the most neglected Islamist movements outside the Middle East. The book, edited by Syed Serajul Islam and Md Saidul Islam, purports to be a critical and objective in-depth socio-historical analysis of Islam, politics and society in Bangladesh through a study of the Islamist political party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI), venturing to enquire whether a plural yet cohesive national narrative for peaceful coexistence of Islamists with secular forces is possible for Bangladesh, a country mired in political tensions and violence (p.1).

The work is revisionist in nature, aiming to broadly shift discussions on political Islamism from questions of secular-religious divide and terrorism of the 1990s-2010s, to those of crises of democracy and human rights over the past decade