Within and Beyond Ideology - Understanding Islamist Ideas and Concepts in Post-Islamist Groups

Dear Colleagues,

The past few decades have witnessed a shift from Islamism and Islamist parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and others, towards so-called post-Islamism, an ideological trend that—according to Asef Bayat—couples Islam with freedom and liberty, focus more on rights than on duties and emphasizes plurality rather than uniformity. This has manifested itself in parties such as Hizb al-Wasat in Egypt, the Parti de la justice et du développement (PJD) in Morocco and the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) in Turkey, but also in broader trends such as Rashid al-Ghannushi’s conscious rejection of political Islam in favor of “Muslim democracy” or the reformist ZamZam initiative in Jordan.

What all these post-Islamist parties and initiatives have in common is that they have (perhaps selectively) watered down strict and doctrinaire Islamist positions on issues such as the founding of an Islamic state, the application of Sharia and political participation in states deemed non-Islamic. What is less clear is what exact ideas they have substituted these positions with. Throughout the years, Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Nahda and other organizations have developed a wide-ranging discourse to express their views on Islamist politics, but how have post-Islamists reinterpreted, dismissed or reinforced these ideas to give meaning to their new positions? In other words: what ideological impact does post-Islamism have?

The purpose of this Special Issue is to find answers to this question by focusing on two different developments: first, contributions may concentrate on conceptual changes. To what extent are widely-used concepts among Islamists such as shura (consultation), al-amr bi-l-ma‘ruf wa-l-nahy ‘an al-munkar (commanding right and forbidding wrong) and bay‘a (pledge of fealty) still relevant among post-Islamists? What do concepts such as al-dawla al-madaniyya (the civil state) and al-Ghannushi’s “Muslim democracy” actually mean to the post-Islamist thinkers and activists using them? Second, contributions will be welcomed by authors focusing on broader ideological trends in post-Islamism. To what extent can parties such as the PJD still be called “Islamist”? Have they retained an Islamist ideological toolkit, have they—as some have long suggested they would—developed into socially conservative parties comparable to Christian democrats in European countries or have they become more secular?

By answering such questions, this Special Issue seeks to address the understudied subject of the conceptual and ideological underpinnings of post-Islamism. As such, it strives to contribute to our knowledge of developing ideas among religious organizations and parties in general and to those of post-Islamist ones and their transition from their Islamist predecessors in particular.

Dr. Joas Wagemakers
Guest Editor

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• post-Islamism
• Islamism
• ideology