ABSTRACT
The association of Islam and politics in recent studies is the result of the shock provoked by the Iranian revolution, which declared itself an “Islamic revolution.” We are concerned here with the merging into a single block of two concepts, one relating to the sphere of politics and another that is attributed to the religious domain. Our problem is not to ask which comes first, which predominates, or whether there is a concordance or a conflict of one element in relation to the other, but to take note of the conspicuous, strong manifestation of a connection between the two spheres. It is nevertheless important to note that the connection between Islam and politics, which is a commonplace, was operated this time in the revolutionary mode, as this is defined, more or less approximately, by two examples: the French and the Russian. Achieving a pure revolution; achieving a pure Islam: the novelty and the striking force of the phenomenon come from that. For in the past, there have been many upheavals in Muslim countries; for example, the project of Atatürk, liberation movements in North Africa, Arab nationalism; these have occurred on the political plane. As far as religion is concerned, it is important to recall the fundamentalism of ‘Abdu, the Salafist movement exemplified by the school of Manār, Sudanese Mahdism and, before that, Wahhābism: a whole gamut of reformist activity.
