Imaginative landscapes of Islamist politics: An introduction to takhayyul

History and Anthropology, 2025

This introduction examines the theoretical and methodological challenges of studying imaginative elements in Islamic politics while proposing new frameworks for understanding intangible realms in political formation. Moving beyond traditional approaches that either dismiss imagination as irrational or reduce Islamic politics to textual analysis, we argue for engaging with imagination as a critical interface between material and metaphysical domains. Drawing on recent anthropological scholarship on affect, dreams, and aspirations, alongside classical Islamic concepts like takhayyul, this special issue offers novel approaches to studying Islamic political formations. The collected papers demonstrate how imagination operates as both a realm of critique and a space for political becoming while challenging established disciplinary boundaries between history and anthropology. By engaging with diverse forms of knowledge production – from classical Islamic scholarship to contemporary political movements – this issue contributes to broader discussions about decolonizing academic knowledge while avoiding the trap of reifying new canons. Our intervention suggests ways to understand Islamic politics beyond Eurocentric preoccupations with liberalism and secularism while maintaining critical perspectives on power relations within Islamic traditions themselves.

The present paper specifies the narrative of the Islamic State. To that aim, it sets out to deconstruct its geopolitical imaginary, by relying on the speeches and statements from its leadership as well as on its various propaganda documents (maps, pictures). Understanding this imaginary is not only bound up with grasping the movement’s interpretation of the sources it quotes, but is also the key to better understanding its eschatological agenda and its seductive appeal for the young people prepared to join the jihad ‒ as well as, ultimately, providing the necessary basis on which a counter-narrative can be built.

2015

'The Symbolic Scenarios of Islamism' initiates a dialogue between the discourse of three of the most discussed figures in the history of the Sunni Islamic movement — Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and Osama bin Laden — and contemporary debates across religion and political theory, providing a crucial foundation upon which to situate current developments in world politics. Redressing the inefficiency of the terms in which the debate on Islam and Islamism is generally conducted, the book examines the role played by tradition, modernity, and transmodernity as major "symbolic scenarios" of Islamist discourses, highlighting the internal complexity and dynamism of Islamism. By uncovering forms of knowledge that have hitherto gone unnoticed or have been marginalised by traditional and dominant approaches to politics, accounting for central political ideas in non-Western sources and in the Global South, the book provides a unique contribution towards rethinking the nature of citizenship, antagonism, space, and frontiers required today. While offering valuable reading for scholars of Islamic studies, religious studies and politics, it provides a critical perspective for academics with an interest in discourse theory, post-colonial theory, political philosophy, and comparative political thought.

Middle East, 2008

Islamists, showing how the latter is a continuation of the former's writings. It also shows how episodes of Islamist thought have coincided with both external conflicts with non-Muslim powers and internal ones with local regimes.

The recent news from the Middle East and about the facts occurred in France during the last January pose some questions to geography: what kind of geographical and political project is proposing the Islamic State (IS)?; is that a real State, which is changing the political geographies of the Middle East?; are the borders being redefined by its action?; finally: what kind of military engagement could be taken by Europe? This contribute tries to underline these questions, proposing a lecture of the changes occurring between Syria and Iraq, but maybe also in Nigeria and Yemen, of a geography of uncertainty. With this image the article tries to give an idea of the struggle between two different conceptions of the political spaces, that is producing a significant uncertainty about the borders and the territorial definition of political powers. The internal fragmentation of Iraq and Syria, strongly evident, seems to derive from the IS’ attempt to impose a different political model from the Western one: this conflict – between a universalist and religious model and a Western one – seems to contribute to produce a geography of uncertainty.

In January 2011, an uprising in Tunisia forced President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from office, inaugurating a wave of challenges to authoritarian rule from Morocco to Yemen. Deeply entrenched patterns of power and powerlessness were disrupted by a groundswell of demands for dignity, work, and participatory politics. Many of the established shibboleths of American foreign policy in the Middle East were outpaced by events, assumptions of a hardening cold war between Islam and the West temporarily suspended as images of Egyptians converging en masse on Tahrir (Arabic for liberation) Square carrying placards demanding !»Àzo [freedom!] traveled the globe at lightning speed. In that moment, it appeared as if the demos would remake entirely the dynamics of a region held for decades in the iron grip of autocrats garbed in the trappings of presidents, generals and kings. But politics, as Max Weber (1970, 128) famously pointed out, "is a strong and slow boring of hard boards." Egyptians quickly discovered that they had dispensed with the dictator but not the dictatorship (el-Naggar 2011), numerous Bahraini activists were rounded up and imprisoned on flimsy charges in appalling conditions, and spring in Syria has now devolved into a brutal and protracted winter in which tens of thousands have died.

Journal of International and Global Studies, 2015

ROMANO-ARABICA, 2018

For the longest time, perhaps because of its genre as polemic, ar-radd ‘alā n-naṣārā (Rebuttal Against Christians) has rarely been taken into consideration or taken seriously as a historical source, despite its potential relevance to history. However, the treatise is deemed, nowadays, as a primary source for understanding shifting Muslim sensibilities towards Christian ḏimmī social status in a period of official anti-Christian sentiment. The accuracy and intentions of al-Ğāhiẓ’s writings have been drawn into question on numerous occasions, by both his contemporaries and by later historians, and Rebuttal is not an exception as the timing of its creation and the motivation behind it suggest a connection to al-Mutawakkil’s anti-ḏimmī measures of 850. The purpose of this paper is to show how, in order to achieve his goal, al-Ğāhiẓ actively tries to blur the lines between (various) ḏimmī and Byzantine Christians by simultaneously taking on doctrinal and social issues while perpetrating generalizations and decontextualizations. Structured as responses to a series of questions asked by some fellow Muslims and initially addressed by some Christians, al-Ğāhiẓ’s purpose was either to provide a genuine answer or to raise awareness over what was perceived as haughtiness from Christians, as ahl ḏ-ḏimma, in the Abbasid society at that time. Ultimately, the goal of his criticism and rebuttal was the (re)enforcement of the law, either as a natural, next-logical-step measure, or as a calculated measure, enforcing the caliph’s agenda. Despite being, almost certainly, exaggerated for effect, Rebuttal nevertheless gives a unique insight into the mixed urban life of the period and contains relevant information about the social and legal conditions of Muslim-ḏimmī, especially Christian, relations in ‘Abbasid society.