Transformations and Prospects

Abstract

Political Islam in its singular form does not fully encompass the collisions, incongruities, and discord among and within diverging Islamic movements and parties. The Conclusion highlights the divergent strategies that Islamists employ when ‘doing politics’, as well as the internal struggles and contestations both within and between these movements and parties. This diversity and plurality among Islamist movements, and their general willingness to partake in mainstream politics, signals an important transformation in the Muslim world over recent decades. It demonstrates that the Muslim world has gravitated from the simplistic focus on the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam and democracy. Islamic movements and parties are adhering to and promoting multiple versions of political Islam, engaging in different forms of politics that may or may not ultimately prove to be compatible with democratization. An important and promising outcome of these divergent visions and trajectories is that extremist and militant Islamists have been relegated to a marginal fringe and to the periphery of the political landscape of the Muslim world.