A Critical Reading of Political Islam in Light of the Problematic Ideological Transformations of Salafi-Jihadist Movements

Abstract

This study presents interwoven perspectives on the relationship between Islam as a religion and the currents of political Islam, particularly Salafi-jihadist movements and their ideological transformations. The spiritual dimension is largely absent in political Islam, as it relies on the materiality of action in shaping the relationship between religion and politics—an approach that plunges events into a chaos of actions from which pure religion tends to distance itself.

In its earliest sources, Islam was not political but rather a pure creed. Early Muslims engaged with the details of life on the basis of faith. Some may assume that faith can be political; however, this is not the case. Faith consists of inner, subjective interactions within the self, coupled with the development of a moral conscience that admits no alternatives to constants. As for variables, they are characteristics of religion, since religion is composed of a set of obligations and rituals that regulate objective interactions, shaping the individual’s belonging to the mechanisms of natural and social existence as a framework governing the application of Sharia in life