Post-Islamism: From Making Islam Democratic to the Politics of Myth
Post-Islamism: From Making Islam Democratic to the Politics of Myth
Fatemeh Sadeghi
 
“If a religion doesn’t ask questions about distribution and justice, it’s a dead religion.”
 
Abstract: Post-Islamism has been suggested as an intellectual and political response by which Islam and democracy become compatible. However, post-Islamism is not a homogenous discourse and involves at least democratic and social democratic inclinations. For democratic post-Islamism, freedom, democracy, and human rights were master signifiers, whereas, for social-democratic post-Islamism and anti-capitalist Muslims, justice is pivot of the intellectual constellation and religious criticism. Reviewing the main ideas and criticisms of the most recent post-Islamist intellectual discourses, this article investigates the ability of post-Islamism in addressing authoritarianism, inequality, and social injustice. Exploring the significance of the politics of myth for the meaningful intellectual and political endeavours, this article investigates the theological turn of the anti-capitalist Muslims and its significance for post-Islamism particularly in suggesting new understandings of the Qur’an. The article concludes that if Islamism is not seen primarily as a state ideology but as politics of myth, then post-Islamism requires to capture popular imagination.

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