ABSTRACT

Decentralizing the West and reflecting on modernity from its edge, from a nonWestern perspective—and an Islamic one at that—can spell out the limits of modernity, generate new conceptualizations, and raise questions concerning modernity. The cultural significance of contemporary radical Islamism greatly outweighs its political program. Paradoxical though this may seem, its radicalism conveys both a resistance to religious conservatism and a criticism of modernity. If traditionalism implies conservatism, the conservation of traditions, and continuity with the past, Islamist movements are radical in that they aim at revolutionary change, a rupture with the chains of social evolution. Islamism is radical in its desire for a rupture with historical continuity, in its criticism of traditional interpretations and interpreters of Islam, and in its political mode and its conception of change. The radicalization of Islamism engenders a process in which the relations between tradition and modernity are constantly redrawn and blurred.