Political Islam in the Aftermath of “Islamic State”

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/reorient.3.1.0065
• Pages: 65-82
• Published date: 01 October 2017
• Date: 01 October 2017
• Author: S. Sayyid
• Subject Matter: political Islam,critical Muslim studies,orientalism,Eurocentrism,Islamic State

ReOrient 3.1 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals

S. Sayyid, University of Leeds

POLITICAL ISLAM IN THE AFTERMATH OF

“ISLAMIC STATE”

S. Sayyid

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 distin-

guished 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 exer-

cise in critical Muslim studies and argues that no understanding of political Islam can be

successful without a critique of Eurocentrism.

Keywords: political Islam, critical Muslim studies, orientalism, Eurocentrism, Islamic State

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.

The analysis of political expression inflected through Muslimness remains under-

theorised. An illustration of this occurred on 3 October 2011. Slavoj Žižek pre-

dicted with “ninety percent certainty” that the Egyptian army and the Muslim

Brotherhood would form a pact. Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist and blog-

ger, chimed in saying that it was already happening, and Žižek went on to say that

the US government would support this arrangement. On 3 June 2012, the Egyptian

military under the leadership of Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed the

duly elected president of Egypt, and member of Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed

Morsi. Morsi was imprisoned, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned, and thou-

sands of its supporters were killed in some of the most violent acts of sustained

state repression not seen in Egypt since the days of the British occupation.

In this article, I do two things: firstly, I provide an account of Islamism, and sec-

ondly, I examine the extent to which we can distinguish the Islamic State group also

known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Islamism. In the process

of addressing these two points, I put forward an analysis in which questions of Islamism

are part of the wider problem of Eurocentrism. The thread running through these

66 REORIENT

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reflections is provided by critical Muslim studies (Sayyid 2014: 11-15; Editorial Board

2015: 5-10) My method is to expand the horizon of illustrations that bring critical

Muslim studies into view. I begin this series of reflections by returning to Žižek.

The Mysteries of Political Islam

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. For once all the necessary caveats are made

(e.g., the context of a live-televised meeting – where the risk of misspeaking is

high, and one is not always at one’s most considered), we still have a situation in

which the likelihood of a pact between the Egyptian military and the Muslim

Brotherhood is seen as not only possible but very probable. Nor is it the case that

this is just another idiosyncratic intervention by Žižek; after all, Eltahawy also

supported this prediction.

The basis of this prediction was a theoretical model, which saw the Egyptian

military and the Muslim Brotherhood as in essence right-wing organisations and

therefore natural allies. The reason why neither Žižek nor Eltahawy seemed to find

a convergence between the army in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood a strain on

their imagination (despite all contrary evidence) was because they understood the

Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian military as “reactionary” forces at heart.

The idea that social actors have intrinsic interests that they pursue purposefully

and predictably is a staple of essentialist social sciences. Žižek is not typically

considered an essentialist, but the articulation between the political and the

Islamicate has the effect of turning him into one. This is because the analysis of

political Islam remains dominated by a framework that refuses to take the “politi-

cal” part of “political Islam” seriously. Consequently, political Islam, in general,

remains under-theorised (Sayyid 2015a: 7-27). This lack of theorisation of politi-

cal Islam stems in part from a belief that continues to see the development of poli-

tics and the political as uniquely Western. Conflict between France and Britain or

Germany and France is rarely authoritatively described as the outcome of ancient

ethnic hatreds. Conflict outside the West is most often described in terms of essen-

tial differences, which are not amenable to historical transformations or do not

reflect anything other than tribal hostilities. For example, Saddam Hussein’s inva-

sion of Iran in 1980 was described as part of an ongoing battle between Arabs and

Persians going on for a millennium. Specifically, it is through Žižek’s embrace of

Eurocentrism that essentialism enters his analysis. Žižek’s (1999) plea for