Beyond Clash of Civilizations and Post-Islamism: Ummah(s) and the Muslim World

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates the relevance of ummah to ordinary Muslims, Muslim terrorists, Islamist parties and even to the Heads of Muslim states. It reviews the existing literature on Islam and politics (from clash of civilizations, Islam and democracy to post Islamism) and argues that the debate about Islam and politics is a debate about compatibility. Can Muslim politics fit within Western, liberal democracy? This is a reinforcement of Eurocentric hegemony into the knowledge production in political science and International Relations. It argues that to understand Muslim politics, non-Western Islamic concepts need to be incorporated into explanations of the Muslim state, party and voter behavior. This chapter argues that in the modern period ummah as a political ideology was formed during colonial period as a critique of colonization and modernity and expanded in the post-colonial period as Islamic modernity. Influenced by different aspects of globalization, now, the ummah offers a broad canvas for the Muslim political imagination and it accommodates liberal, radical, and extremist versions of the ummah within a discourse of Islamic modernity. In short, the ummah promotes theoretical unity among Muslims but encourages practical divisions when religious ideals are applied to local politics.