Violent and Non-Violent Political Islam in a Global Context

The role played by Islamism, or political Islam, in the contemporary world holds the key to understanding current geopolitical tensions both within the Muslim world and between the West and the Muslim world. This article centres on four books that explore some violent and non-violent manifestations of political Islam and offer analyses of the Islamic State, al-Qa’eda, the Muslim Brotherhood and, more generally, Salafi-jihadism. Political Islam considers Islam to be a totalising entity that should shape the contours of society, culture, politics and the law – that is, it ideally seeks to achieve unity of state and religion (din wa-dawla). It expresses itself in multiple, and at times interlinked, ways that can encompass, among many others, a largely non-violent gradualist approach to power (Muslim Brotherhood), global terrorist action (al-Qa’eda) and sectarian warfare combined with territorial control and state-building (Islamic State). The aim of this article is to capture some of the multifarious ways in which political Islam manifests itself with the aid of the four books under review.