Report NISIS/ Clingendael Workshop “The Political Relevance of Islamism in the Contemporary Middle East”, 3 April, 2025

On a bright Spring day, academics, students and policy makers gathered at the beautiful Clingendael Institute in the Hague for a study day on “The Political Relevance of Islamism in the Contemporary Middle East”. Once there, we were welcomed by Matteo Colombo, a research fellow at the Clingendael Institute, and Joas Wagemakers, academic director of the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS).

The first session of this study day, chaired by Joas Wagemakers, focussed on “Development of Political Islam: Crisis and Opportunity”, which was kicked off by dr Joud Alkorani, an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, and an anthropologist with extensive experience researching Islam in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In her presentation, she concentrated on how social and seemingly non-political activities organised by Muslim organisations provide all kinds of services to citizens and non-citizens in the UAE, but are simultaneously closely watched by a regime that is wary of political Islamist activism. The female activist Alkorani focussed on in her presentation is therefore compelled to frame their views in religious and divine terms, rather than explicitly political ones, which – in this case – effectively relieves the state of any responsibility for the problems that people experience.

The second speaker of this session was dr Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, who is also an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, and a political scientist who has worked on Islamism in the Middle East and in Europe for years. Adraoui started his presentation with a short YouTube clip of a Tunisian man singing a nashid (an acapella song) about why he is an Islamist and advocates a greater role for Islam in Tunisian society. After this brief and very succinct explanation, he moved on to an empirical analysis of factors influencing the success or failure of Islamism in the Arab world and provided many examples of how this has played out in various countries. His talk was followed by a long question-and-answer session.

After a healthy lunch, we continued with the second session of the day, which focussed on “Narratives of Religion and Violence” and which was chaired by Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at Clingendael and the co-organiser of this study day. The first presentation in this session was given by dr Younes Saramifar, an assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam with extensive experience researching militias. Challenging existing views of Islamism, Saramifar argued that the role of Islam in Islamism should be seen as minimal. Instead, he stated, Islamism should be viewed as nationalism because it has the same mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and unifies people on the basis of issues that have little to do with Islamic beliefs. Saramifar traced the unwillingness to see Islamism as nationalism back to the anti-Muslim views of people who see Islam as fundamentally different from religions like Judaism and Christianity.

The second presentation in this session was given by dr Pieter Nanninga, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen who has worked on militant Islamist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) for years. Arguing along partly similar lines as the previous speaker, Nanninga stated that Islamic doctrine is of less importance than is often thought in the propaganda spread by IS. Focussing on the notions of honour and purity, he showed how IS tries to appeal to widely shared feelings among its base of supporters, rather than delving into theological or ideological details. This session, too, was followed by questions from the audience.

The final session of the day, chaired by Joas Wagemakers, consisted of a public lecture by Professor Maurits Berger, who is the Sultan of Oman Professor of Oriental Studies with a focus on Islam and the West. Berger gave a presentation on “The Relevance of ‘Soft’ Islamism”, in which he concentrated on aspects of Islam that get less attention in policy circles and the media, namely feminist Islam, Islamic economy, green Islam and the notion of an Islamic state. He pointed out that looking at religions – including Islam – is very useful and rewarding for policy makers and that we ignore them at our peril. Berger discussed the influence of Muslim feminists on legislation, Islamic faith-based organisations and the enormous amounts of money spent through them, the growth of Islam-based sustainability initiatives and the huge diversity of views on what an Islamic state looks like.

It was interesting to see how several lines of inquiry merged at the end of the day, showing the coherence of the different presentations and how well they related to each other. The end result was an interesting, stimulating and lively day that was informative to scholars and policy makers as well as to junior academics and their more seasoned counterparts. It was also a showcase of how academic researchers and more policy-oriented analysts can collaborate around a topic of mutual interest. All in all, we can look back on a successful workshop and a stimulating and rewarding partnership between NISIS and the Clingendael Institute.