The future of political Islam: the importance of external variables

Much has been written about the potential of political Islam to affect in major ways the future of Muslim societies and polities around the world. However, most analyses of political Islam that explicitly try to assess its future potential concentrate on its innate characteristics as a political ideology with the propensity to mobilize its adherents for purposes of regime change or social transformation or both. Therefore, these analyses emphasize the inherent nature of, and the in-built contradictions within, Islamism. Far less has been written about the environment external to the phenomenon of Islamism, namely, the milieu in which Islamist groups operate and propagate their ideology. Moreover, only a minuscule portion of the writings on political Islam try explicitly to analyse the impact that variables external to the inherent characteristics of political Islam are likely to have on Islamism's future prospects. This article attempts to fill this gap by putting Islamism in a wider perspective and by analysing the impact of environmental factors external to Islamism as an ideology, and largely outside the control of Islamists, on the future potential of political Islam.