Roxanne L. Euben, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College where she teaches Political
Theory, ComparativePolitical Theory, and Feminist Political thought.
Review
"A piercing book, lending the reader insights into the complex intermingling of religious and political
ideas that are separate in the Western mind, but which form a spiritual union under Islam."
--John A. C. Greppin, The Boston Book Review
"Enemy in the Mirror is a necessary corrective to a good deal of illconsidered polemic, one that has important
implications for understanding all types of fundamentalism. Roxanne Euben makes convincing arguments, encouraging
the reader to reconsider the origins of modern rationalism and antirationalism. Her insistence that political theory
open its doors to consideration of questions drawn from other cultures is also salutaory and long overdue."
--Edmund Burke, III, University of California, Santa Cruz
"Roxanne Euben's argument that one should analyze Islamic fundamentalist thought not only for its function
but also for its meaningthe intrinsic value of its ideasis valid and absolutely timely. Enemy in the Mirror is
a wellresearched and impressive contribution to the analysis of Islamic political thought and to comparative political
philosophy."
--Seyla Benhabib, Harvard University
Submitted by the Publisher, March, 2002
Summary
A firm grasp of Islamic fundamentalism has often eluded Western political observers, many of whom view it in
relation to social and economic upheaval or explain it away as an irrational reaction to modernity. Here Roxanne
Euben makes new sense of this belief system by revealing it as a critique of and rebuttal to rationalist discourse
and postEnlightenment political theories. Euben draws on political, postmodernist, and critical theory, as well
as Middle Eastern studies, Islamic thought, comparative politics, and anthropology, to situate Islamic fundamentalist
thought within a transcultural theoretical context. In so doing, she illuminates an unexplored dimension of the
Islamist movement and holds a mirror up to anxieties within contemporary Western political thought about the nature
and limits of modern rationalismanxieties common to Christian fundamentalists, postmodernists, conservatives, and
communitarians. A comparison between Islamic fundamentalism and various Western critiques of rationalism yields
formerly uncharted connections between Western and Islamic political thought, allowing the author to reclaim an
understanding of political theory as inherently comparative. Her arguments bear on broad questions about the methods
Westerners employ to understand movements and ideas that presuppose nonrational, transcendent truths. Euben finds
that first, political theory can play a crucial role in understanding concrete political phenomena often considered
beyond its jurisdiction; second, the study of such phenomena tests the scope of Western rationalist categories;
and finally, that Western political theory can be enriched by exploring nonWestern perspectives on fundamental
debates about coexistence.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Re-Marking Territories 3
Comparative Political Theory and Foundationalist Political Practice 8
The Politics of Naming: Defining Fundamentalism 16
CHAPTER TWO
Projections and Refractions: Islamic Fundamentalism and Modern Rationalist Discourse 20
The Irrational Rational Actor: Theories of Islamic Fundamentalism 25
Meaning and Power: A Dialogic Model of Intepretation 36
Toward an Understanding of Islamic Fundamentalism 42
CHAPTER THREE
A View from Another Side: The Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb 49
Sayyid Qutb: Radical and Martyr 53
Modernity as Pathology: Analysis and Exhortation in Signposts along the Road 55
Rationalism and Reenchantment 84
Conclusion: Beyond Orientalism 88
CHAPTER FOUR
A View across Time: Islam as the Religion of Reason 93
Afghani and Islamic Philosophy 96
`Abduh and The Theology of Unity 105
Through the Back Door: Rationalism and Islamic Modernism 114
Coda: Khomeini and Shi`ite Fundamentalism 117
CHAPTER FIVE
Inside the Looking Glass: Views within the West 123
The Crisis of Authority 127
The Decay of Morality 133
The Decline of Community 142
Modern Anxieties and Metaphysical Urges 150
CHAPTER SIX
Conclusion: Cultural Syncretism and Multiple Modernities 154
