The Failure of Political Islam

by Olivier Roy, Carol Volk (Translator)

For many Westerners, the 1990s may seem the era of Islamic fundamentalism with radical Muslims everywhere on the march, remaking societies and altering the landscape of contemporary politics. Offering a corrective to such a view, the French political philosopher Olivier Roy depicts an entirely different spectacle - political Islam is a failure. Save for Iran, it has not won power in the states of the Muslim world. He asserts that despite its incantation about an "Islamic way", with a specifically Islamic economy and Islamic state, the realities of the Muslim world remain fundamentally unchanged. This text argues that the political regimes of the 1990s are no different from those of the last decade; and the Islamism of the 1980s is still the Third Worldism of the 1960s, that is, populist politics and mixed economies of laissez-faire for the rich, and subsidies for the poor. Roy asserts that the "reds" of yesterday are the Muslim "greens" of today, and there is little prospect that the newcomers will succeed where their predecessors failed. This argument reassesses radical Islam and the set of ideas and assumptions at its core.

Genres: Islam, Politics, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Middle East

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

A professor at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy); he was previously a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (IEP).

From 1984 to 2008, he has acted as a consultant to the French Foreign Ministry.

In 1988, Roy served as a United Nations Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan (UNOCA) consultant.

Beginning in August 1993, Roy served as special OSCE representative to Tajikistan until February 1994, at which time he was selected as head of the OSCE mission to Tajikistan, a position he held until October 1994.

Roy received an "Agrégation" in Philosophy and a Master's in Persian language and civilization in 1972 from the French Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales.

In 1996, he received his PhD in Political Science from the IEP.

Roy is the author of numerous books on subjects including Iran, Islam, Asian politics. These works include Globalized Islam: The search for a new ummah, Today's Turkey: A European State? and The Illusions of September 11.

He also serves on the editorial board of the academic journal Central Asian Survey.

His best-known book, L'Echec de l'Islam politique; The Failure of Political Islam. It is a standard text for students of political Islam.

Roy wrote widely on the subject of the 2005 civil unrest in France saying they should not be seen as religiously inspired as some commentators said.

His most recent work is Secularism Confronts Islam (Columbia, 2007). The book offers a perspective on the place of Islam in secular society and looks at the diverse experiences of Muslim immigrants in the West. Roy examines how Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer."

Reviews

[Lumumba Shakur · Rating 5 out of 5]

The one review of this book on this site does not do it justice. Hence, this is my take: This book is perhaps the best statement and explanation on why Islamism as a political tool has failed miserably. Far from being rooted in the Islamic scholarly tradition, political Islam is a reactionary movement whose ideological philosophy is rooted in Marxism and the violent revolutionary program that gave so much expression to the Independence Movements during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Though I do not agree with 100% of Olivier Roy's conclusions, the book nonetheless is a must read for anyone interested in global politics and the role that Islam is blamed for playing in global terrorism. Far from being the consequences of the teachings of a 7th century Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), it is more of a case of chickens and roosting. Daniel Pipes hates the book. That has to count for something... The fact that critics of the book cannot see how September 11th proves the authors thesis only demonstrates that when people have made up their minds, facts mean absolutely nothing. I would highly recommend that this book be read in conjunction with Imperial Hubris and War at the Top of the World. I am a Muslim and I do not disagree with the author. Not all Orientalists are bad.

[Hosam · Rating 3 out of 5]

المجتمع المتزمت في زمن الحداثة والتكنولوجيا
يواجه فصاما في الخارج والداخل
جيد وواقعي
لولا الترجمة

[Yaser Maadat · Rating 2 out of 5]

أي هراء استشراقي هذا؟!
سطحية في التحليل و ضعف في الرؤية و محاولة استنطاق واقع متخيل،كل هذا و أكثر يدفعني لاسقاط هذا الكتاب من كونه مرجع لنقد فعلي لتجربة الاسلام السياسي ،التي يراها الكاتب فاشلة بناء على معطيات واقعها السياسي و الاجتماعي و الاقتصادي حتى عام 1991 موعد صدور الكتاب،الواقع المتخيل الذي ينطلق منه الكاتب المستشرق اوليفييه روا و الذي مكث فترة لا بأس بها في افغانستان،جعله يستشرق مستقبلا متواضعا للسلفية الصاعدة التي نفى عنها أي امكانية لتحول ثوري،و هو ما حدث عكسه تماما كما نشاهد اليوم من تحول السلفية لبؤرة تصدير للتيارات الراديكالية الثورية التي غيرت جزءا من الواقع السياسي و الديموغرافي و حتى الجغرافي للشرق الأوسط عكس ما تنبئ به الكاتب منطلقا من تحليله العبثي للتجربة السلفية.
النقد الاعتباطي للكاتب جعله يتصور ايران تتجه لنمط علماني حتى في ظل وجود المرجعيات الشيعية،و هو ما جعله يعجب بتجربة الثورة الايرانية في تحولاتها صوب شكل ثيوقراطي خفي عن الكاتب وحده! حتى النقد الاقتصادي الذي طرحه الكاتب لحركات الاسلام السياسي كان قاصرا و منحصرا الى حد بعيد بمواضيع المصارف الاسلامية و التقوى في التعاملات و التي أسبغها على الكثير من أبواب نقده لهذه الحركات،و هو ما جعله يتطرق للاخوان المسلمين مثلا كجماعة دون حزبية لا تمتلك قدرات تنظيمية تمكنها من مجاراة الواقع الوطني في بلدانها على العكس تماما مما حصل بالطبع!

[Baraa Qudah · Rating 3 out of 5]

تحليل و دراسة للاسلام السياسي المعاصر و تشكيله و طبيعته

للباحث اوليفيه روا نفس طويل في تقسي التفاصيل و التغيرات

كتاب مفيد لفهم جزء ولو بسيط عن زماننا الحالي

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why cannot be Islam accepted like Christianity in the West? Is it because Islam and politics don't mix or is Islam actually a culture in itself?

West has used two methods to deal with Muslim minority, multiculturalism and assimilation. Multiculturalism assumes that the culture remains the same, generation after generation while assimilation means that culture disappears in the mainstream.

The book has probably the best description of Islam-ism and new-fundamentalism I have read thus far.

Check this out, 'Since sovereignty belongs only to God, the Islamists reject the notion of popular sovereignty and accord only contingent value to the elective principle. If no individual comes forward as the evident 'Amir', then he can be elected by an advisory assembly or even by universal suffrage, both of which, in this case, do not express sovereignty, but community consensus.'
Wow, so that's the reason why the Islamists reject all politics and populism movements. Scary stuff, if you hail from Pakistan. But there is good news as well, as most of the leaders of the movement, Maududi, Hasan al-Banna, Syed Qutub, Ali Shariati, Khomeini are dead, with no real decedents leaving only brochures, prayers, feeble glosses and citations of canonical authors. It had to happen when you consider all the leading Islamists apart from Khomeini did not hail from the Ulema heritage, and spent most of their energies taking down recognised Ulema of their eras, therefore it is logical that their fans and supporters had to reject any of their descendants.

Relax Pakistanis, this is only a passing phase. Check out some of the should-be assertions coming out of the current Islamic mouthpiece, 'if everyone is virtuous then harmony automatically exists among men.' Also 'there is no requirement of state, if society is virtuous then it can exist on itself.' And 'in Jihad, there is no obligation to produce result.' The trouble is that Islamists are caught in the vicious cycle of 'no Islamic state without virtuous Muslims and no Muslims without Islamic state?' arguments. I am pretty sure enough individual dialogue will expose the weakness of this Islamic dialogue, eventually.
The book also explains the ideology of the new-fundamentalist, their hate of Western clothing, sports and especially their isolation, where even non-Muslims greeting them with Asalamu Alaikum is frowned upon. They also tend to reject any participation of women in politics and shun intellectual research, replacing it with fideism (reliance on faith), which means that everything Islam says is true and rational.
And what constitutes of a new intellectual of the new fundamentalists? According to Olivier, 'The new intellectual is a mere tinkerer; he creates a montage, as his personal itinerary guides him, of segments of knowledge, using methods that come from a different conceptual universe than the segments he recombines, creating a totality that is more imaginary than theoretical.'

I have found his analysis very relevant and practical when I consider my numerous dialogues with these new intellectuals. Objective analysis like these are instrumental in understanding ever shifting trends in current Islamic thought which are become ever more difficult to grasp in dearth of any literary giants of the now defunct Islamism movement.
The book concludes with a prophetic analysis, how can new fundamentalism succeed when it's predecessor giant Islamists failed to change the mainstream Muslims? The constant hatred and rejection of Western culture is a mere attempt at recognition, with an element of fascination. A fundamentalist society does not represent hated of the other, but rather of oneself and of one's desires. He goes on further, Islamisation is actually an agent in the secularisation of Muslim society because it brings the religious space into the political arena. Wow, what an analysis. Olivier cites Islamic Iran as an example where religious practices are on the down.

[Boring AbinZ · Rating 1 out of 5]

ندمت على كل دقيقة وأنا أقرأ هذه الترهات !
مع كل صفحة كنت أقول يمكن يتحسن الكتاب في الصفحات القادمة ،يمكن يكتب معلومات موثوقة ، يمكن أرى تحليلات رصينة
لكن
خيب الظن ..أسوأ كتاب قرأته هذا العام

[ılgın]

“Yeni fundamentalizm şeytanını bir başka tanrıda arıyor ama içinde taşıdığı çölü göremiyor.”

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

IS ISLAMIC ‘NEOFUNDAMENTALISM’ INCAPABLE OF CREATING A SOCIETY?

Author Oliver Roy wrote in the Preface to this 1992 book, “This book is neither about Islam in general nor about the place of politics in Islamic culture. It is about contemporary Islamist movements---the activist groups who see in Islam as much a political ideology as a religion, and who are therefore breaking with a certain tradition themselves. These are the movements that … have mounted challenges against both the West and the regimes in place in the Middle East. Does contemporary political Islam offer an alternative to Muslim societies? This is the subject of the pages that follow.” (Pg. vii)

He continues, “I will refer to the contemporary movement that conceives of Islam as a political ideology as ‘Islamism.’ … from Pakistan to Algeria it is spreading… being integrated into politics, leaving its mark on more and conflicts… But it has lost its original impetus. It has ‘social-democratized’ itself. It no longer offers a model for a different society or a brighter future. Today, any Islamist political victory in a Muslim country would produce only superficial changes in customs and law. Islamism has been transformed into a type of neofundamentalism concerned solely with reestablishing Islamic law, the sharia, without inventing new political forms …

“Why didn’t it succeed? The failure is primarily an intellectual one. Islamic thought rests on an initial premise that destroys its own innovative elements… In short, the development of Islamist thought … ends up dissociating itself from the very components of politics (institutions, authorities, an autonomous sphere separate from the private realm), seeing them as mere instruments for raising moral standards and thereby returning, by a different route, to the traditional perception of a ulamas and the reformists… Secon, Islamism is a failure historically: neither in Iran nor in liberated Afghanistan has a new society been established…. Throughout the Muslim world, nation-states are easily resisting the calls for the unity and reforging of the Islamist community… the Islamic revolution is behind us. Yet the crisis still remains… It is manifest in the permanence of autocratic regimes and the influence of tribal, ethnic, and religious segmentation… Islam is not a ‘cause.’ Could it have been a cure? I believe that the Islamist movement closed a door: that of revolution and the Islamic state. Only the rhetoric remains.” (Pg. ix-xi)

In the Introduction, he outlines, “The Muslim responses to the ‘Orientalist’ discourse are often stereotypical and can be sorted into three categories: (1) the nostalgia argument [‘it was Islam that brought civilization to the West’]; (2) rejection of the hypothesis [‘in what way are Western values superior?’]… (3) the apologia for Islam [‘everything is in the Quran and the Sunna, and Islam is the best religion’]. The first two … evade the question while accepting as fact that there is a modernity that produces its own values. The third constitutes the topic of this book.” (Pg. 11)

He states, “the Islamist movement is in keeping with two preexisting tendencies. One, of course, is the call to fundamentalism… The other tendency… is that of anticolonialism, of anti-imperialism, which today has become simply anti-Westernism… The targets are the same: foreign banks, night clubs, local governments accused of complacency toward the West.” (Pg. 4)

He summarizes, “it appears that the political action of the Islamists… falls in either with the logic of the state (Iran), or with traditional, if reconfigured segmentation (Afghanistan)… any political action amounts to the automatic creation of a secular space or a return to traditional segmentation. Herein lies the limit of the politicization of a region, of any religion. Our problem, then, is … to study a coherent ensemble… of texts, practices, and political organizations that deeply marked the political life of Muslim countries and their relationships with the countries of the North, while tending to alter the Muslims’ perception of Islam in a stricter moral direction.” (Pg. 23-24)
He notes, “The Islamists reproach the ulamas for two things. One is their servility to the powers in place, which leads them to accept a secular government and laws that do not conform to the sharia. The other is their compromise with Western modernity; the ulamas shave accepted modernity where the Islamists reject it (acceptance of the separation of religion and politics, which necessarily leads to secularization) and maintained the tradition where the Islamists reject it (indifference to modern science, rigid and casuistic teachings, rejection of political and social action).” (Pg. 37)

He asserts, “There is no true Islamist political thought, because Islamism rejects political philosophy and the human sciences as such. The magical appeal to virtue masks the impossibility of defining the Islamist political program in terms of the social reality.” (Pg. 71)

He points out, “One of the most striking differences between Islamism and neofundamentalism is the status of women… Islamist politicization allowed women access to the public sphere, which the neofundamentalists are taking away… The question of personal status (wives, family, divorce) is becoming the principal area of neofundamentalist assertions, which brutally reestablish the letter of the sharia without the social and educational measures that the Iranian or Egyptian Islamists favored.” (Pg. 83)

He summarizes, “Thus the impact of Islamism, aside from the parentheses of the Iranian revolution and the war in Afghanistan, is essentially sociocultural: it marks the streets and customs but has no power relationship in the Middle East. It does not influence either state borders of interests. It has not created a ‘third force’ in the world. It has not even been able to offer the Muslim masses a concrete expression for their anticolonialism. Can it offer an economic alternative or deeply transform a society? The answer seems to be no.” (Pg. 131)

He concludes, “Islamism now faded into neofundamentalism, is not a geostrategic factor: it will neither unify the Muslim world nor change the balance of power in the Middle East… the Islamists have molded themselves into the framework of existing states, adopting their modes of exercising power, their strategic demands, and their nationalism… Islamism is above all a sociocultural movement embodying the protest and frustration of a generation of youth that has not been integrated socially or politically.” (Pg. 194)

He argues, “The politics in which contemporary Islamist movements operates is thus a consequence of a new world-space and not of the return to a traditional cultural space. The triumphant neofundamentalism will be incapable of ensuring the insularity of Islamic societies; it depends economically on the world-space in the very exercise of its power; its society is too permeated with Western models, and no one can stop radio, television, cassettes, and travelers.” (Pg. 202)

He continues, “The culture that threatens Muslim society is neither Jewish nor Christian; it is a world culture of consumption and communication, a culture that is secular, atheist, and ultimately empty; it has no values or strategies, but it is already here, in the cassette and the transistor, present in the most remote village. This culture can withstand any reappropriation and reading. It is a code and not a civilization.” (Pg. 203)

This book will interest those studying contemporary Islamic politics and society.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roy's The Failure of Political Islam is an interesting prelude to his later work, Globalised Islam. The former raises many important concepts, such as neofundamentalism and how political 'Islam' failed, that will be further expanded in the latter. Roy's important contribution is his not taking anything for granted approach in dissecting the phenomenon of political Islam. Using a wide range of resources from history to sociology to agents and discourse, Roy provides a compelling (and necessarily diverse) picture of political Islam: what it is, what it is not, and most importantly, what it will never become- specifically the transnational, supra-politics, pan-Muslim polity that many Islamist actors and supporters yearned for and feared by the secularist and 'Western' actors.

Roy's contribution lies in his willingness not only to take the various Islamisms (which forms an integral factor to its 'failure') in their own terms but also to critique the project on those terms. One may argue that the individual chapters on Afghanistan and Iran, which probably reflects the author's geographical area of expertise rather than carefully selected case studies, undermines the coherence of the book, or the fact that less attention was given to political Islam that developed at the 'periphery' of the Muslim world (i.e. Indonesia/Malaysia), or that the term neofundamentalism is used too loosely and arbitrary (for example, how is the FIS which contested elections a neofundamentalist as opposed to being just an Islamist?).

Yet, there is no denying this is a book of paramount importance to those committed to a grounded study of Islamism. It does so without exociticising the phenomenon to the point of orientalist essentialism, nor rendering it so flat that the contours, richness, and the exceptional qualities of this tour de force (to a point, if according to Roy) called political Islam cannot be analysed systematically. Failure is certainly a bold statement to make of a phenomenon that saw no abatement. The pulling power of the so-called Caliphate somewhat reified by ISIS puts to the test his theory that the status quo of nationhoods will defeat any calls for a revolutionary statehood. But I believe Roy, through his comprehensive engagements that ranged from the lumpenintelligentsia to the mullahs and the warlords, from imaginations to materialist social life, has earned the credentials to pass such a judgement.

[Reyhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seeing Islam from another point of view (orientalist that is)is what we get by reading this book. This book shows us why the Islam political movement (this term is different with Islamic politic) always faces it's obstacle (if failure being to harsh) in the attempt to realize the idealistic Islam 'khilafah'. Case example were showed from the event happened in Algeria, Iran, and other countries. The content is debatable and most Muslims will surely disagree the author's argument, but what more important is that history holds the fact doing political Islam is still not the rightest answer to achieve the goal to create an Islamic society. Still again it's a 'khilafiyah' term, can't blame the author, it's his point of view though.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roy offers a very good sociological study of Political Islam in the 20th Century with special attention as to why it failed as a political movement. The book does a good job of covering the sources, background, and ideology of the movement. It also distinguishes between Fundamentalism, Islamism (Political Islam), and Neo-Fundamentalism, explaining the often porous boundaries--something badly needed to understand much of the conflict taking place in the world today. Although written in the mid-90s, the book still makes for essential reading and debunks the myth that terror is inherently Islamic, showing rather that it is the result of the geo-politics of the last (roughly) century.

[Mohamed Elnazir · Rating 5 out of 5]

الكتاب مُحكم علمياً وحلل الاسام السياسي في كيفية ادارة الدولة والمجتمع واختلافه على الاخير حيث ذهب جزء منهم لأسلمة الدولة وجزء لأسلمة المجتمع في خلق المؤمن الذي يرتقى الى الفضيلة كما حدث عندنا في اخوان السودان، القارئ للكتاب يفهم كيف يفكر جماعة الاسلام السياسي وكيف تبرع تلك الجماعات في البراغماتية ولكن حين تأتي الجيوستراتيجية ينهزم المشروع في اول اختبار . الخلاصة التي خرجت بها والمشهد امامي فأن الاسلاموية السياسية اخذت تجربتها التي حُكم عليها بالفشل ممارسة وفكراً قد تختفي من المشهد تماماً كانما انتهت حقبتها تاريخياً

[P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roy is an expert in examining subtleties within Islam and this book holds up remarkably well. Islamists have gained power after the Arab Spring, but they did not cause it and Roy provides a partial explanation as to why. Moreover, his discussion of Islamic economics is spot-on.

[Muhammad M. Alaraby]

The coming to power of movements such as FIS will only make more apparent the emptiness of the phantasm of "Islamic state" #Roy

[Ararat Kostanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I don't agree that political islam failed, but I would say this author is one of the top specialist in the field. his argument makes sense. I must read.

[Damned Snake · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good one, as it shows the Muslim way of enlightenment. What made them fail really isn't really taken into account by the book, but social scientists are rarely interested in HBD, therefore it can be forgiven, especially since it already has extensive research. Failed intellectuals are the bedrock of the Muslim revolution, but because of IQ inequality all around the globe, they can't be successful globally because whatever they'll do, whites or asians will do it better. They fail at the start, that's why they turn to the sky in hope for deliverance from the cold embrace of global capitalism. But then again, they fail as the mass education in the west produces midwits, as they're standard deviation lower, they're educating dum-dums. This made the islamic political movements even more dysfunctional and subjected to those Arab movements that have money, Saudis, and their fundamentalism.

[Omar Khodr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about the post-WW2 political actors in the Arab & Muslim world, and it's a highly relevant to the current state of that region.

[Priyo Jatmiko · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book contains many good data, insighful questions and discussion, it fails to argue on his primary thesis on the failure of political islam, simply because he fails to define what is and in what terms is he referring about "political islam". Without this definition and clear distinction on semantic conceptual, he falls on fallacy that all of the phenomenon he received as the supporting proof of his hypothesis, which is unfair: look at these examples:

- when the Al Azhar prominent issuing a fatwas to save politics to politician, he refer to "politic islam is fail"
- when MB changing in both practical and conceptual political expression and movement through the times, he simply refer to "political islam is fail"
- when most of the parties in South East Asian (moslem countries) do not refer their platform of politics to "strict islamic terms" he refer to "politic islam is fail"
- when Al Qaeda and alike acting their "war and terrorism to the west, and "opposing the ruler of moslem country" he refer to "politic islam is now fail"

So what is the meaning? This is a verification fallacy, without clear meaning of politic islam and what is the condition for his hypothesis of the failure of political islam, it cannot be falsified and his verfication on fact are basically useless, and scientifically cheating to.

However it is still a good book.

[David Elizardi]

French author. the perversion of Muslim faith into utopian political mvmt ... unable to remain in power very long - 1992

Also wrote Holy Ignorance - when religion and culture part

[Emre · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this time we have more feel the political Islam in our geography. This book help me understand for past century's political area in middle east, Iraq, Syria, Iran and their people's react.