Islam(ismo), eurocentrismo e ordem mundial

• Main Author: S. Sayyid
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra 2004-10-01
• Series: Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais
• Subjects: Islamism; Eurocentrism; cultural policy; political strategies; international policy; fundamentalism
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rccs/1337

Contemporary political mobilizations under the banner of Islam have been variously described as a form of fascism, as a form of fundamentalism, as a form of resentment, as a form of pathology. The inability to treat Islamism as something more than a set of pathological reactions to developments in the world means that Islamism as an object of analysis remains obscure. This paper places Islamism within the context of the current world order. This world order is centred around the West not only in military and economic but also in cultural terms. This paper is an investigation and an elaboration into the phenomenon of Islamism and its relationship to eurocentrism. Eurocen­trism as strategy of locating the universal within Western cultural practices is challenged by persistence of the use of Islam for political advocacy. This paper examines the extent to which Islamism can be contained within a narrative which sees the history of the West as destiny of the world.