Enemy in the Mirror

by Euben, Roxanne L.

• ISBN13: 9780691058436
• ISBN10: 0691058431
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

A firm grasp of Islamic fundamentalism has often eluded Western political observers, many of whom view it in relation to social and economic upheaval or explain it away as an irrational reaction to modernity. Here Roxanne Euben makes new sense of this belief system by revealing it as a critique of and rebuttal to rationalist discourse and post-Enlightenment political theories. Euben draws on political, postmodernist, and critical theory, as well as Middle Eastern studies, Islamic thought, comparative politics, and anthropology, to situate Islamic fundamentalist thought within a transcultural theoretical context. In so doing, she illuminates an unexplored dimension of the Islamist movement and holds a mirror up to anxieties within contemporary Western political thought about the nature and limits of modern rationalism--anxieties common to Christian fundamentalists, postmodernists, conservatives, and communitarians.A comparison between Islamic fundamentalism and various Western critiques of rationalism yields formerly uncharted connections between Western and Islamic political thought, allowing the author to reclaim an understanding of political theory as inherently comparative. Her arguments bear on broad questions about the methods Westerners employ to understand movements and ideas that presuppose nonrational, transcendent truths. Euben finds that first, political theory can play a crucial role in understanding concrete political phenomena often considered beyond its jurisdiction; second, the study of such phenomena tests the scope of Western rationalist categories; and finally, that Western political theory can be enriched by exploring non-Western perspectives on fundamental debates about coexistence.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
A Note on Spelling	xv
Re-Marking Territories	3	(17)
Comparative Political Theory and Foundationalist Political Practice	8	(8)
The Politics of Naming: Defining Fundamentalism	16	(4)
Projections and Refractions: Islamic Fundamentalism and Modern Rationalist Discourse	20	(29)
The Irrational Rational Actor: Theories of Islamic Fundamentalism	25	(11)
Meaning and Power: A Dialogic Model of Intepretation	36	(6)
Toward an Understanding of Islamic Fundamentalism	42	(7)
A View from Another Side: The Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb	49	(44)
Sayyid Qutb: Radical and Martyr	53	(2)
Modernity as Pathology: Analysis and Exhortation in Signposts along the Road	55	(29)
Rationalism and Reenchantment	84	(4)
Conclusion: Beyond Orientalism	88	(5)
A View across Time: Islam as the Religion of Reason	93	(30)
Afghani and Islamic Philosophy	96	(9)
`Abduh and The Theology of Unity	105	(9)
Through the Back Door: Rationalism and Islamic Modernism	114	(3)
Coda: Khomeini and Shi'ite Fundamentalism	117	(6)
Inside the Looking Glass: Views within the West	123	(31)
The Crisis of Authority	127	(6)
The Decay of Morality	133	(9)
The Decline of Community	142	(8)
Modern Anxieties and Metaphysical Urges	150	(4)
Conclusion: Cultural Syncretism and Multiple Modernities	154	(15)
Notes	169	(48)
Bibliography	217	(16)
Index	233