Unlike Orientalists like Bernard Lewis, Olivier Roy's book sees Islamist movements as sharing only a spurious connection with traditional religious texts, law and culture. Instead of arising out of an Islamic religious specificity, for Roy, Islamist movements are direct products of the political sociology of the modern, nation-state era.Other scholars, like Burgat, also make this argument, but Roy departs from Burgat's conclusions in one major area, which is his evaluation of the logic of the Islamists' mission, and its likely political fate. This evaluation forms the major argument of his book; the so-called "failure" of Islamism because of its necessary reliance on the very modernity that it seeks to counter. For Roy, Islamism will fail because it contains internal contradictions that will be the seeds of its own downfall. These contradictions are in the relationship of Islam to politics. Roy claims that Islamism rejects political philosophy, since it sees no separation between religion and politics (unlike traditional Islamic culture, he is careful to point out, differentiating himself from the Orientalists), it sees no role for institutions, and sees "virtue" as the only necessary leadership quality. Thus, Islamism, by self-definition, writes itself out of the very political arena it seeks to enter. "The magical appeal to virtue masks the impossibility of defining the Islamist political program in terms of the social reality" (71). In other words, there can be no Islamic state without virtuous Muslims, but there can be no virtuous Muslims without an Islamic state. Islamist ideas, because they do not match social reality, end up in self-negation, since the arise from and rely upon this social reality.
Empirically, Roy sees this social reality as mainly an urban one, which bears little or no resemblance to traditional Muslim village culture. Not only do Islamists come from urban, educated and non-traditional backgrounds, but they also seek to "construct a new urban space, in which relationships would no longer be mediated solely by family or guild bonds" (59). Thus, those who see Islamists as wanting to return to a medieval or traditional society are misreading the movement's program, which differs from traditional Muslim culture in many areas, such as the acceptance of social differentiation in society, including conceptions of political parties, and new roles for groups such as women and ulamas. However, Roy sees this acceptance of social differentiation as an internal contradiction in the logic of Islamism, since the ideal of Islamist movements is a wholly egalitarian society, without classes or political parties.
Politically, Islamists depart from their own traditions in replacing the concept of the caliph (a religious ruler, of the tribe of the Prophet) with that of the amir, who can of course spring from a new (modern) social elite. This provides evidence against a traditionalist, orientalist reading of the Islamist program, since the amir is elevated to a position above even the ulamas, who are religiously sanctioned interpreters of the holy text. Thus, if the Islamic religion were the causal factor, then we might see the ulama or a neo-caliph touted as leader, instead of an amir that can be adapted to modernity. In fact, Roy claims that Islamists compromise with modernity by departing from the positions of the ulama on three issues: political revolution (they favor it), the role of sharia (they favor it less than the ulama does, and want to go beyond its limited reach), and the role of women (they are more emancipatory).
More generally, Roy argues that there has historically been a de facto autonomous public space in the Muslim world, a separation between religion and politics, with the ulama and the sharia on one side, and the ruler on the other. This goes against cultural arguments that see "despotism" as inherent to Islam throughout history. But the paradox, for modern Islamists, is that in seeking a Muslim state, they break this tradition. By concerning themselves with politics, they reject the autonomous space of politics that the ulama accepted, "specifically, the possibility for the state to elaborate a positive law to legislate in areas not covered by the sharia" (64). Thus, they revive politics even as they seek to negate it. For Roy, "no matter what the actors say, any political action amounts to the automatic creation of a secular space or a return to traditional segmentation" (23). In order to destroy secular space, the Islamists are required to create it.
There are many different ways to phrase these contradictions and paradoxes, which show that Roy has identified some inherent tensions in the logic of political Islam. However, the most pressing critique that can be made of his book is that logical inconsistencies in the ideas of a political movement do not automatically translate into a death sentence for that movement's practice, as Roy seems to want us to believe. One only need think of the contradictions inherent in democracy, i.e. between liberty and equality, or between majoritarianism and minority rights. Would democracy be called a failure because it contains these contradictions? No. Political movements are pragmatic and synthetic, and they often endure despite problematic ideational underpinnings. Followers make compromises and adapt to social realities, while attempting to stay in touch with ideational inspirations as well. Roy seems to hold Islamists to unrealistically high standards, chastising them for failing to rapidly create new societies and states, and even to redraw world borders. If the bar were set lower, Roy might acknowledge that Islamists have achieved substantial political change despite their supposedly contradictory relationship with modernity and the realm of politics.
