Researching Political Islam

Being the (gorgeous) Geek that I am, I actually researched the literature on Political Islam and was entertained by my own conclusion. But it's OK because Political Islam is totally sexy nowadays.



Reviewing the literature

Writings on political Islam have proliferated in the past few decades. Certain international events, such as the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 seemed to spark a new flood of research on the topic by scholars from all over the world. To be sure, the political stakes involved are high, much of this writing is politically motivated, and one must steer clear of research which is too blatantly propagandist. Through my research I have been able to classify the main work done on political Islam/Islamic groups/fundamentalism into a number of different categories.

The first of these categories focuses on the historical continuity of political Islam, and the essential aspects present in Islamic movements. This work, the approach of which I move away from, is exemplified by the work of those such as John Voll[1] and Abdulaziz Sachedina.[2] The break with such types of work was made by John Esposito[3] who was able to move from this essentialist understanding of Islam to locate them within a wider social and political setting, as well as to interrogate the movements themselves and to differentiate between the natures of different types of movements. What Esposito shares with writers such as Voll and Giles Kepel[4], is a focus on the ideas of political Islamists. The ideas of political Islam will be important here only insofar as they are represented in a constructed historical narrative which shapes the boundaries of the public sphere in Egypt today.

An increasingly prominent approach to understanding political Islam has focused on political economy, and the manifestations of economic and social transformations in Egypt which made the rise of political Islam both possible and varied in forms. One strong advocate of such an approach is Joel Beinin[5]. I draw on his work addressing the structural economic shifts that contributed to the rise of political Islam in Egypt in its different variations, as well as on the work of Maha Abd El Rahman[6] who addresses the manifestations this has had on patterns of consumption fused with the symbols of Islam in contemporary Egyptian society.

Other writers such as Sami Zubaida [7]and Asef Bayat[8] explain the rise of Islamic movements within the context of the nationalist struggles of their respective states. I have found their work useful in contextualizing the rise of political Islam, as well as explaining the methods of social mobilization that have been used by these actors in their struggle for power. Discussing a struggle for power at a different level, Salwa Ismail[9] and Maha Azzam[10] have focused on the discourse of the Islamic movement in Egypt, and the way it operates employing a particular narrative within Egypt's political configurations. This type of work explores the relationship between the different variations of political Islam within Egypt, the state, and other forces of opposition. Their work has been enlightening regarding the specific language of the Islamic opposition in Egypt, and how the use of a specific discourse has in itself generated new power dynamics at discursive planes of contestation, determining what is possible or impossible as forms of action in the public sphere. Obviously the literature is varied and addresses different threads regarding the political Islamic phenomenon. There seems to be a gap in the scholarship( not to say that the examples I give are all I've found, or that my research is exhaustive), however, regarding the capacity of the Islamic movement in its moderate, conservative form to occupy public spaces in ways which are not conventionally understood as political. The gap is shocking considering in my own view it is this type of activity, not traditionally understood as political, is the most powerful and visible aspect of political Islam. But more on that later.

[1] Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appelby, Ed., The Fundamentalisms Project :Volume One. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press ,1991.

[2] Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appelby, Ed., The Fundamentalisms Project :Volume One. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press ,1991.

[3] John L Esposito, Introduction to Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism or Reform?
Edited by John L. Esposito,1-17.Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press,
1997.

[4]Gilles Kepel. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh. 3d ed.
Berkeley:University of California Press, 2003

[5]Joel Beinin. "Political Islam and the New Global Economy: The Political Economy of an
Egyptian Social Movement
[6] Maha Abd El Rahman. "Divine Consumption: "Islamic" Goods in Egypt" in Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt, edited by Maha Abd El Rahman, Iman A. Hamdy, Malak Rouchdy, and Reem Saad, 51-69. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006.

[7]Sami Zubaida. Islam the People and the State. NewYork: I.B Tauris, 2001.

[8] Assef Bayat. "Revolution Without Movement, Movement Without Revolution:
Comparing Islamist Activism in Iran and Egypt." Comparative Studies in Society and
History 40, no. 1: 136–70.(1998)
[9] Salwa Ismail. "Confronting the Other: Identity, Culture, Politics, and Conservative
Islamism in Egypt"International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2.
(May, 1998) and "The Paradox of Islamic Politics." Middle East Report 221 (Winter 2001

[10] Maha Azzam. "The Use of Discourse in Understanding Islamic-Oriented Protest Groups in Egypt 1971-1981"Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 13, No.2. (1986),