К пониманию сущности феномена современного "политического ислама". Часть 1

В статье представлен авторский взгляд на современный политический ислам как на исторический феномен, развернутый во времени и проявляющийся как в собственно политическом, так и, что наиболее существенно, в цивилизационном пространстве взаимоотношений западного и исламского миров. Особое внимание уделено проблеме классификации современных исламских политических движений; предложена новая версия классификации.

Towards Understanding the Essence of the Phenomenon of Modern ‘Political Islam’. Part 1

This article is the second part of the general study about the modern Islamic phenomena. It continues the main ideas discussed in the previous article, in which I am tried to prove that the contemporary Islamic phenomena contains Islam itself as well as its history. It means that an Islamic phenomenon contains in itself a very complicated historical, cultural and intellectual problem, which cannot be solved by any single standard no matter what its scientific foundation is. In this case, the contemporary Islamic phenomena may be one of the most paradoxical issues. It is not only an issue of theory, but a practical one. In it we can see the political, economic, cultural reality of the contemporary Muslim world and the dramatic side of modern globalization. The new Islamic phenomenon is nothing but religious expression of what I called a new Islamic centrism. Islamic centrism in my opinion is a part of historical and cultural development of contemporary Muslim world. It has its inner permanent motivation and foundation, which reflects the fact that the domination of politics is in fact a political manifestation of this historical and cultural centrism. The domination of politics in this phenomenon during the past half century was reflected by what I called the transformation of social consciousness from theological-religious level to the political-religious level. This methodological approach can explain the fact of arise and development of the new ‘political Islam’, its inner ability and future. The last five decades represents the culmination of a lifetime of this political-religious phenomenon. So this article is dedicated to the analysis of ‘political Islam’ as a term, concept and specific manifestations of contemporary Islamic centrism. It examines the problem of classification of modern Islamic political movements. It puts also a new version of the classification. If we trace the meaning of ‘political Islam’ in modern various studies, so we find that the term was applied to the different, sometimes opposite ideological trends and political movements. The same thing we find in the diversity of classification of ‘political Islam’. So we can reduced them to five general classifications: a class-social, ideological, religious, sociological and the fifth which can be called a ‘unifying classification’, it means the one which reduce all the complexity of contemporary ‘political Islam’ to one universal term such as Islamism, fundamentalism, terrorism and radicalism. The same thing we can say about the definition of ‘political Islam’. ‘Political Islam’ is nothing but a visible and practical embodiment of a complex process in the world of Islam. The modern ‘political Islam’ manifests itself in a new environment as a result of immanent evolution of the contemporary Islamic world. From a historical point of view, rising modern ‘political Islam’ was connected with the ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran. It has become one of the major turning points in the history of modern Islam in general and ‘political Islam’ in particular. ‘Islamic revolution’ in Iran has made the ‘political Islam’ prominent and self-existing phenomena on a global scale. At the same time, I show the essence of ‘political Islam’ is a historical phenomenon, which combines a variety of problems of the past, present and future. So the polemic waged around this ‘politicization’ is an echo of the ideologically delimitation arising from the absence or weakness of the understanding of the ‘phenomenon of Islamism’. ‘Phenomenon of Islamism’ is the most complex and largest cultural and political problem of the Muslim world. “Political Islam’ is one of the strongest manifestations of Islamic centrism. This centrism gives the key to the understanding of the specifics and prospects of the Islamic phenomena in general and its political forms in particular. Everything happened and happening nowadays in the ‘Muslim world’ over the past two centuries, is a sort of historical phenomena of this new Islamic centrism. This centrism is necessary and transitory phenomena. It is a link in the chain of the historical evolution of the cultural Islamic centrism. Practical (political) expansion of the Islamic phenomena reflects primarily the intensification and expansion of the boundaries of the historical and political self-awareness. This process has led to the emergence of a new Islamic world as a young political world, but without strong culture. The first results of this historical process led to the defeat of traditional forces. But the failure of modern state in Muslim world gave rise to an alternative ‘political Islam’. This process has forced traditional powers to leave the political theatre, but they rose again after the fail of the new national projects (‘secular’). Since then began to crystallize the first features of a new socio-political and cultural movement represented in the Islamic forces. Then there would a new state of religious and political consciousness, which found its practical and theoretical expression in the phenomena of ‘political Islam’.