A Study of the Discourse of Political Islamand Genealogy of Islamism

The purpose of the present study is to review the discourse of political Islam and genealogy of Islamism. The research method is descriptive-analytic and Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory has been used. The results indicate that political Islam is a discourse among Muslims which represents a special formulation of society and politics focusing on the signifier of Islam and it attempts to emphasize on Islam from a political perspective, not within a merely religious hemisphere. It also seeks to turn Islam into the best signifier for Islamic community discourse. Determination of signifiers of Islamic discourse is a battlefield between western modernity and Islamism. For determination of the signifiers of political Islam, intellectual, social, and movement approaches have been used; however, the discourse approach has a more extensive and flexible potential to explain movements in Islamic communities. Among formulations in this discourse, democratic political Islam versus some new categories such as democracy, election, government, and policy-making has attempted to redefine various signs in traditional political Islam including the role of council, consultation, enjoining good and forbidding evil, Jihad, economic justice, the status of non-Muslims and women in Islamic society.