Abstract
The rapid contraction of the territorial extent of the Islamic state seems to have dented its claims to have restored the caliphate. The question that this raises is what does the end of the Islamic state mean for political Islam in general. To address this question, this article will provide an account of the degree to which political Islam can be distinguished from the fate of the Islamic state group. In the process, it will put forward an analysis in which the emergence of political Islam is explored not only as a geopolitical but also epistemological challenge to the prevailing normal science. This essay is an exercise in critical Muslim studies and argues that no understanding of political Islam can be successful without a critique of Eurocentrism.
Highlights
The rapid contraction of the territorial extent of the Islamic state seems to have dented its claims to have restored the caliphate
The articulation of Islam with politics within the contemporary world remains dominated by a fixation that contrasts political Islam with another kind of proper politics based on Enlightenment values and bequeathed by European imperialism
I do two things: firstly, I provide an account of Islamism, and secondly, I examine the extent to which we can distinguish the Islamic State group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Islamism
Summary
To put Žižek’s prediction in its proper context, it should be pointed out that it took place in Australia, where both Žižek and Eltahawy were part of a panel for the ABC flagship current affairs programme Q and A.1 This prediction is mentioned not to point out how, like many predictions, it came to nought, or the perils of confusing philosophy with astrology, but rather to examine the epistemological underpinnings of such a prediction. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980 was described as part of an ongoing battle between Arabs and Persians going on for a millennium It is through Žižek’s embrace of Eurocentrism that essentialism enters his analysis. Orientalism can be seen at work in the dominant narrative describing the socalled Arab Spring This orientalist narrative saw in the removal of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak the continuing long march of democracy. According to this view, the Arab Spring came about because of Westernised youth wired up via social networking media and fired up with visions of democratic life found in the West. To understand Islamism means acknowledging the way in which orientalism and Eurocentrism frame the parameters of ‘normal science,’ and it is precisely this paradigm that gets in the way of understanding political Islam
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