(the reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet) (Akhavi 1997 ; Carre ́and
Michaud 1983 , 84 , 223 ). Similarly, Khomeini’s work is not the expression of
some kind of pure unadulterated Islamic thought: close reading reveals a
quite innovative reading of Shi‘i political theory which incorporates concep-
tualizations of nationalism, alienation, the state, and the idea of ‘‘the people’’
as an agent which emerge from traditions within modern Western political
thought (Abrahamian 1993 , 13 – 38 ; Fischer 1980 , 169 ; Zubaida 1989 , 18 – 20 ).
What this means is that these tracts are the intellectual products of the
interaction of Khomeini’s and Qutb’s version of Islamic thought with the
contemporary world, a world where colonialism and the inXuence of Western
culture set the terms of debate even for those who seek to critique, eradicate,
or ignore such inXuence.
4 Pluralizing Islam
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Intent on recuperating a pure Islamic essence from a world hopelessly soiled
by human arrogance, Islamist thinkers such as Khomeini and Qutb tend to
reject the authority of religious commentaries and textual interpretations in
favor of what the text ‘‘really says,’’ thereby denying that determining what the
text ‘‘really says’’ is itself an act of interpretation. They thus claim for
themselves and for a few select Muslims the status of one who, like Plato’s
Philosopher-King, has ceased to watch shadows on the wall, who has
ascended beyond the mouth of the cave and into the blinding light of the
sun. Such an anti-hermeneutical stance places Islamists—along with their
counterparts in, for example, Jewish fundamentalism or the radical Christian
right in US politics—in an epistemologically privileged position from which
to determine, once and for all, the one and only authentic way to live in a
collectivity as a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, an American patriot. This is a far
cry from the (qualiWed) embrace ofijtihad(independent judgment or inter-
pretation) and political sensibilities of Islamic modernists. Yet inasmuch as
the Islamism of a Qutb and the modernism of an ‘Abduh both represent
attempts to disentangle the ‘‘real’’ from the ‘‘false’’ Islam, in another sense,
they may both be seen as participating in the discourse of Islamic authenti-
city which transforms history into a warp and woof of decadence and health
modern and contemporary islamic political theory 307