Arnold Yasin Mol

Politics and Islam

Islamic Activism as a Discursive Tradition

Arnold Mol
Politics and Islam
In Wiktorowicz's introduction to Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach1 he refers to
the pursuit of a general framework wherein disciplinary fragmentation can be brought together into
a wholesome overview of Islamic activism.2 He points out that the activism portrayed by Islamic
activism has certain essentialistic traits which 'transcend the specificity of Islam' itself.3 His general
theory of Islamic activism is: The mobilization of contention to support Muslim causes.4 Whereby
propagation movements, terrorist groups, political movements that pursue an Islamic state,
collective actions using Islamic symbols and identities, and Islamic spirituality groups all fall under
activism.5 But these groups are all approached in contemporary settings, thereby applying social
movement theory only to contemporary activism and not to history. It thus limits the focus of the
theory to an assumed timeframe, separating Islam in two epochs. This focus on 'modern'
movements thus takes away the potential to assess the universality of the theory, which
Wiktorowicz assumes to be proven purely based on the wide broadness of the above groups.6 If
we on the other hand apply this theory of Islamic activism to the whole range of historical and
contemporary groups, it can show us how this mobilization of contention has formed the different
discursive traditions of Islam.7 How can we view the Abbasid revolution (661-750 CE) as a form of
contention, which both wanted to form an Islamic state and used the universal appeal of Islam to
move beyond the Umayyad Arabism? How much did their contention differ from the Kharijites and
the Shiites, which would explain their ambivalence in their adherence to Sunnism or Shiism?8 The
application of social movement theory for Islamic activism can indeed be very fruitful, but only if we
move it beyond this self-created imaginary line of classical and modern Islam.

Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington, Indiana University Press,
2004), editor: Quintan Wiktorowicz
2

Ibid, 4

Ibid, 3

Ibid, 2

Ibid, 2-3

Ibid, 5

Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam, Qui Parle 17, No. 2 (2009), 14

John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 46-61