What is Political Islam?

Author(s): Charles Hirschkind

Source: Middle East Report, No. 205, Middle East Studies Networks: The Politics of a Field
(Oct. - Dec., 1997), pp. 12-14
Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project, Inc. (MERIP)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3013086
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 What is
Political Islam?
Charles Hfrschkhid
Many scholars have argued that "political Islam"
involves an illegitimate extension of the Islamic
tradition outside of the properly religious domain it has
historically occupied. Few, however, have explored this
trend in relation to the contemporaneous expansion of
state power and concern into vast domains of social
life previously outside its purview?including that of
religion.
Charles Hirschkind is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Johns Hopkins
University.
12
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Over the of
tral point last few decades,
reference Islam
for a wide hasofbecome
range political a cen?
activities, arguments and opposition movements. The
term "political Islam" has been adopted by many schol?
ars in order to identify this seemingly unprecedented ir?
ruption of Islamic religion into the secular domain of
politics and thus to distinguish these practices from the
forms of personal piety, belief, and ritual conventionally
subsumed in Western scholarship under the unmarked
category "Islam." In the brief comments that follow, I sug?
gest why we might need to rethink this basic framework.
The claim that contemporary Muslim activists are
putting Islam to use for political purposes seems, at least
in some instances, to be warranted. Political parties such
as Hizb al-'Amal in Egypt or the Islamic Salvation Front
(FIS) in Algeria that base their appeal on their Islamic
Middle East Report ? October-December 1997
credentials appear to exemplify this instrumental rela?
tion to religion. Yet a problem remains, even in such seem?
ingly obvious examples: in what way does the distinction
between the political and nonpolitical domains of social
life hold today? Many scholars have argued that "politi?
cal Islam" involves an illegitimate extension of the Is?
lamic tradition outside of the properly religious domain
it has historically occupied. Few, however, have explored
this trend in relation to the contemporaneous expansion
of state power and concern into vast domains of social
life previously outside its purview?including that of re?
ligion.
As we know, through this ongoing process central to
modern nation building, such institutions as education,
worship, social welfare and family have been incorporated
to varying degrees within the regulatory apparatuses of
the modernizing state. Whether in entering into busi?
ness contracts, selling wares on the street, disciplining
children, adding a room to a house, in all births, mar?
riages, deaths?at each juncture the state is present as
overseer or guarantor, defining limits, procedures and
necessary preconditions.
As a consequence, modern politics and the forms of
power it deploys have become a condition for the practice
of many personal activities. As for religion, to the extent
that the institutions enabling the cultivation of religious
virtue become subsumed within (and transformed by)
legal and administrative structures linked to the state,
the (traditional) project of preserving those virtues will
necessarily be "political" if it is to succeed. Within both
public and private schools in Egypt, for example, the cur?
riculum is mandated by the state: those wishing to pro-

13

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