Kropotkin, Peter 175society, economics, and politics. This forms the spiri-
tual and temporal basis of Muslim countries (predomi-
nantly in the Arab Middle East, Africa, Central Asia,
and Indonesia). Islam holds that the Koran was dic-
tated to the Muslim Prophet MOHAMMED(570–629) by
an angel. It teaches monotheism (the doctrine of one
God) and his goodness, awesomeness, omnipotence,
and determination of all things. Other doctrines of
Islam are held in varying interpretations by Muslims,
but generally the Koran presents Jesus Christ as a
prophet (along with Abraham and Moses) but not as
the Son of God as understood by Christians, and it
denies the Resurrection and the Holy Trinity.
The Koran presents a unity of religious and govern-
mental authority as exemplified by Mohammad who,
like the Hebrew king David, was a military, spiritual,
and political leader. This continues in ISLAMIC POLITICAL
THOUGHT, which denies the Western CHRISTIANsepara-
tion of religion and politics but sees faith and law
united in the state. This is realized in varying degrees
in contemporary Muslim countries from Iran—which
claims to be an “Islamic Republic,” deriving all its laws
and social customs from the Koran—to Turkey—
which is a MODERNsecular REPUBLIC, formally separat-
ing religion from politics, incorporating Western
European legal codes, education, science, and econom-
ics (including religious freedom) into a predominantly
Muslim culture.
A contemporary political manifestation of the
Koran is the idea of jihad, or “holy war,” which can
mean the individual’s spiritual war against his own sin
or an organized terrorist war against the non-Muslim
“infidels” (Jews and Christians). Much of the current
conflict in the Middle East (Arab-Israeli) centers
around this concept. Many of Mohammad’s recitations
were probably written down during his lifetime, but
the present text of the Koran was certainly in existence
from the period of the Muslim caliph Uthman
(643–656).
Further Reading
Sells, Michael. Approaching the Quran.Ashland, Oreg.: White
Cloud Press, 2000.
Kropotkin, Peter (1842–1921) Russian anar-
chist
Kropotkin was born in Moscow, the son of an army
general and a descendent of a line of Russian princes
dating back to the founding of the Russian empire. He
was educated in the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg
and served as an aide to Czar Alexander II. Kropotkin
then became an officer in the Mounted Cossacks. He
was stationed in Siberia, where he conducted geo-
graphical surveys and developed important analyses of
glaciation in east Asia during the Iron Age. Kropotkin
also was exposed to the terrible conditions of the penal
system in Siberia and to the writings of many radical
political theorists, including the French anarchist
Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON. In 1866, Kropotkin resigned
his army commission and spent the next several years
in scientific study of the glaciers of Finland and Swe-
den. In 1871 he was offered the secretaryship of the
Russian Geographical Society, but Kropotkin refused,
deciding to leave science and work instead for social
justice and political change.
After visiting exiled Russian revolutionaries in
Switzerland, Kropotkin returned to Russia an avowed
adherent to ANARCHISM, the theory that coercive gov-
ernment, or the STATE, should be abolished. He became
a member of an underground revolutionary group and
was arrested in 1874 for distributing anarchist propa-
ganda. Kropotkin escaped from prison two years later.
He fled to France where he became an active member
of the international anarchist movement, founding the
anarchist paper Le Révoltéin 1879. After serving nearly
four years in prison following his arrest by French
authorities in 1882, Kropotkin settled in England,
where he spent the next 30 years developing his the-
ory of anarchism in a number of influential writings.
Kropotkin returned to Russia after the Bolshevik revo-
lution of 1917 and remained there as a critic of the
Bolsheviks’ authoritarian tendencies until his death in
1921.
Kropotkin advanced a version of anarchism called
anarchist communism. Several features of anarchist
communism are shared with other forms of anarchism,
such as its denunciation of state power and centralized
government and its endorsement of self-managed com-
munes. Kropotkin supported the practice of direct
political action rather than parliamentary representa-
tion because the latter was believed to deprive the peo-
ple of their ability to decide political matters for
themselves. For Kropotkin, it was vitally important to
protect the individual and his or her capacity to make
decisions about his or her life from the “mutilating”
power of the state. Recognizing the need, however, for
some sort of administrative arrangement, even for small
associations such as communes, Kropotkin advocated a