Reconfiguring Political Islam A Discursive Tradition Approach
Main Article Content
Keywords
Political Islam, Islamism, Discursive Tradition, Islamic Tradition, Talal Asad
Abstract
This article reconceptualizes Political Islam through the analytic lens of discursive tradition, restructured within the framework of social configurations. Departing from essentialist, universalist, nominalist, and reductionist readings, the study foregrounds the epistemological contingencies and internal pluralities that characterize Political Islam as a historically situated and discursively constructed phenomenon. Rather than treating political Islam as a fixed ideological project or a transhistorical expression of Islamic governance, the article theorizes it as a dynamic and contested field in which diverse actors articulate Islamic categories within distinct configurations shaped by contextual transformations, historical ruptures, institutional dislocations, regimes of reasoning, and so on. Drawing on Talal Asad’s notion of discursive tradition, the analysis reconstructs its scope through the concept of social configurations, which enables a multilayered reading of Political Islam across three analytical levels: conditions of possibility, categorical and discursive formation, and social objectification. This theoretical reconstruction clarifies how Islamist discourses emerge not from doctrinal continuity alone, but through strategic negotiations over core issues such as temporality, authority, power, and legitimacy. Through comparative and context-sensitive examination of various Islamist traditions—from reformist to revolutionary, nationalist to transnational, moderate to militant—the article shows how Political Islam operates through a grammar of differentiation and reconfiguration within the broader Islamic tradition. The resulting framework not only situates Political Islam within shifting social terrains, but also offers an epistemological intervention into its interpretation as a plural, indeterminate, and generative discursive tradition.
References
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Ayoob, M., & Lussier, D. (2020). The Many Faces of Political Islam, Second Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11448711
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Jong, A., & Ebrahimzadeh, S. (2024). Ahmad Moftizadeh and the Idea of the Islamic Government: A Discursive Tradition Analysis in the Field of Political Islam. Religions, 15(2), 220. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020220
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Kurzman, C. (2004). The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lauzière, H. (2016). The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
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MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Mahmood, S. (1994). Islamism and fundamentalism. Middle East Report, 191. Retrieved from https://merip.org/1994/11/islamism-and-fundamentalism/
Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mandaville, P. (2008). Global Political Islam. London: Routledge.
Mandaville, P. (2014). Islam and Politics. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/
9781315814773
March, A. F. (2015). Political Islam: Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 18(1), 103–123. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-082112-141250
Martin, R. C., & Barzegar, A. (Eds.). (2009). Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Meijer, R. (Ed.). (2009). Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. New York: Hurst & Co.
Moaddel, M. (2002). The Study of Islamic Culture and Politics: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1), 359–386. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.140928
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Rahman, F. (2017). Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Ramadan, T. (2012). The Arab Awakening: Islam and the New Middle East. London: Penguin.
Rashid, A. (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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Safi, O. (2003). Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. London: Oneworld Publications.
Salvatore, A. (1999). Political Islam and the Discourse of Modernity. Reading: Ithaca Press.
Schäbler, B. (2016). Moderne Muslime: Ernest Renan und die Geschichte der ersten Islamdebatte 1883. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh.
Schielke, S. (2007). Hegemonic Encounters: Criticism of Saints-Day Festivals and the Formation of Modern Islam in Late 19th and Early 20th-Century Egypt. Die Welt Des Islams, 47(3), 319–355. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006007783237446
Schwedler, J. (2011). Studying Political Islam. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43(1), 135–137. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743810001248
Tibi, B. (2005). Islam between Culture and Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157
Tibi, B. (2012). Islamism and Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Varisco, D. M. (2009). Inventing Islamism: The Violence of Rhetoric. In R. C. Martin & A. Barzegar (Eds.), Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (pp. 33–47). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Voll, J. O. (1991). The Revivalist Heritage. In Y. Haddad, J. O. Voll, & J. L. Esposito (Eds.), The Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography (pp. 23–36). New York: Greenwood Press.
Voll, J. O., & Sonn, T. (2009). Political Islam. In obo in Islamic Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0063
Volpi, F. (2011a). Introduction: Critically studying political Islam. In F. Volpi (Ed.), Political Islam: A critical reader (pp. 1–7). London: Routledge.
Volpi, F. (Ed.). (2011b). Political Islam: A critical reader. London: Routledge.
Wickham, C. R. (2004). The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party. Comparative Politics, 36(2), 205. https://doi.org/10.2307/4150143
Wickham, C. R. (2013). The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wiktorowicz, Q. (2000). The Management of Islamic Activism: Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and State Power in Jordan. New York: State University of New York Press.
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Nov 10, 2025
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Jong, A. (2025). Reconfiguring Political Islam: A Discursive Tradition Approach. American Journal of Islam and Society, 42(3-4), 6–41. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v42i3-4.3609
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