ABSTRACT
Modern Islamism’s dependence upon the discursive topos of a ‘return’ to a pure originary, its reliance upon the restoration of a foundational verity untouched by chance, facilitates, in Al-Azmeh’s memorable phrase, ‘the elision of history’.2 However, it is the moment of origin, and not subsequent elisions, that mainly preoccupies the Islamist mind. The Islamist’s doctrinal absorption with the inception of Islam as an ideal past, as a ‘luminous purity’ that has arisen from the defining moment of Islam’s origin, manifests itself in the contemporary accent on the trope of authenticity. Accordingly, the birth of Islam is viewed as having brought about the installation of an immaculate order, flawless in its depiction of the ideal society and claiming a fullness and totality which Islamists endeavour to re-institute. The original moment, both as repository of a former utopia and as ultimate reality, denotes an order which once was, and which now rests unequivocally upon, the promise of an authentic recreation.
