Islam is politically constitutive yet positioned outside the political
Evidence
As paradoxical as it seems, Islam remains the exemplary political enemy, but it is also an enemy that “would no longer even be a political enemy but an enemy of the political.” The site of Islam-its interiority and exteriority vis-a-vis Europe and vis-a-vis the political-is therefore troubled and unsettled insofar as this site, Islam, is both political and nonpolitical. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 287
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: The idea of an enemy who is an enemy of the political itself resonates with the excluded-yet-constitutive logic of the sovereign exception in Agamben and Schmitt.
Related
- Islam resists being placed on either side of Europe’s political boundary (similarity 0.92)
- Christian Europe’s political existence depends constitutively on Islam as enemy (similarity 0.86)
- Islam’s appearance severed Europe’s political being from its theological roots (similarity 0.85)
- Political Islam rejects popular sovereignty, challenging the nation-state’s primacy (similarity 0.80)
- Islamophobia spans the political spectrum and is embedded in empire’s infrastructure (similarity 0.80)
- Europe’s concept of the enemy is structured by the Arab and the Jew (similarity 0.80)
- Islamic doctrine has justified opposite political programs alike (similarity 0.80)
- Rosenzweig casts Islam as pure political war opposed to Judaism (similarity 0.80)
- Enemy distinctions constitute rather than merely reflect the theological-political divide (similarity 0.80)
- State loyalty pressure has rendered public Islam indistinguishable from Judeo-Christian civic discourse (similarity 0.80)
- Europe’s political existence derives from warring against Muslim enemies (similarity 0.79)
- Islamophobia is political rather than religious and must be fought politically (similarity 0.79)
- Political Islam’s challenge predates oil wealth by a full century. (similarity 0.79)
- Europe’s image of Islam tracked its political and military needs, not theology (similarity 0.79)
- Political Islam is a contemporary construct, not a natural outgrowth of Muslim societies. (similarity 0.79)