How Significant Is The Challenge Posed 
How significant is the challenge posed by political Islam?
‘Political Islam is no longer a geostrategic factor; it is at most a societal phenomenon...I believe that the Islamist moment closed a door: that of revolution and the Islamic state. Only the rhetoric remains.’ (Olivier Roy)
Introduction
This essay focuses on the implications of political Islam on the international system since the mid 1970s and assesses the military and ideological challenges posed by political Islam on the Middle-East region. The main objective is to demonstrate that Islam as a political ideology has become an instrument for the expression of popular political dissent against existing regimes. (John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori) It is argued that the rise of political Islam in the Middle East is the consequence of a multidimensional crises experienced by the region including failed economic policies, widespread authoritarianism, increasing unemployment, corruption and rapid urbanization. In order to structure the analysis of the challenge political Islam poses to the political stability of the current regimes, this essay will primarily draw from the works of Olivier Roy and Fred Halliday. Roy argues that there is a drift of political Islam towards a ‘neofundamentalism’ approach whereby a ‘populist, puritan and Messianic Islam’ has taken form by the Islamists, and aims of creating ‘Islamized spaces’ and ‘liberated zones’ have taken priority for the establishment of political Islam, and have clearly ‘weakened’ the ‘Islamist specificity’ thus contributing to the ‘failure of political Islam’. Halliday also states that the Iranian revolution was ‘only to some extent a religious one’ and in fact goes on mention that the factors which lead to the overthrow ‘were eminently secular ones’. He claims that the revolution ‘failed to create a perfect society on earth’, something which is reminiscent to recent political events in Egypt whereby the democratically elected president – backed by an
‘Political Islam is no longer a geostrategic factor; it is at most a societal phenomenon...I believe that the Islamist moment closed a door: that of revolution and the Islamic state. Only the rhetoric remains.’ (Olivier Roy)
Introduction
This essay focuses on the implications of political Islam on the international system since the mid 1970s and assesses the military and ideological challenges posed by political Islam on the Middle-East region. The main objective is to demonstrate that Islam as a political ideology has become an instrument for the expression of popular political dissent against existing regimes. (John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori) It is argued that the rise of political Islam in the Middle East is the consequence of a multidimensional crises experienced by the region including failed economic policies, widespread authoritarianism, increasing unemployment, corruption and rapid urbanization. In order to structure the analysis of the challenge political Islam poses to the political stability of the current regimes, this essay will primarily draw from the works of Olivier Roy and Fred Halliday. Roy argues that there is a drift of political Islam towards a ‘neofundamentalism’ approach whereby a ‘populist, puritan and Messianic Islam’ has taken form by the Islamists, and aims of creating ‘Islamized spaces’ and ‘liberated zones’ have taken priority for the establishment of political Islam, and have clearly ‘weakened’ the ‘Islamist specificity’ thus contributing to the ‘failure of political Islam’. Halliday also states that the Iranian revolution was ‘only to some extent a religious one’ and in fact goes on mention that the factors which lead to the overthrow ‘were eminently secular ones’. He claims that the revolution ‘failed to create a perfect society on earth’, something which is reminiscent to recent political events in Egypt whereby the democratically elected president – backed by an
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