In the aftermath of the Arab Spring of 2011, what formative lessons can be drawn on an epistemological level? What can these uprisings stand to teach us about Arab thought more broadly, its historical underpinnings, and especially, what the revolutionary rupture with the past portends for the future of the Arab world and its politics? Indeed, much ink has been spilled in attempting to wrestle with these existential concerns. For instance, in his Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism, Hamid Dabashi stresses that the Arab uprisings, in their transnational spirit, drive us to analyze the Arab consciousness, or rather the transformation of it, against the ‘mystified consciousness’ fixated to it by colonial powers. This transcendent spirit catalyzes a quest for ‘new metaphors’ beyond the world of sheer binarism that marks the condition of postcoloniality, ‘the false dawn of liberation from European colonialism and the decline of the Ottoman Empire’, and its ideological formations and structures of domination. Under this Arab mode of defiance or protest, Dabashi’s argument would go, national boundaries thaw and transnational connections reconfigure accordingly. Much like socialism, nationalism and Islamism are ideological formations inherited from colonial rule, which coalesce to produce the hegemonic center-periphery illusion of the West and the Rest.

This paper investigates the academic narratives within Middle Eastern studies specifically on the issue of democratic transition in the region. By scrutinizing scholarship on the region from 1989 until 2017 using interpretative content analysis, the paper seeks to discern where, in point of actual fact, the scholarly community stands on the issue of democracy in the region. In so doing, he sheds light on key concerns facing the field, particularly the putative role of Islamists in furthering (or impeding) democratization efforts, on the emphasis on foreign intervention and assistance as a precursor to Middle East democracy, and other crucial paradigms and methodological frameworks.

The contemporary new social movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) emerged in a post-Islamist condition and are characterized as post-Islamist movements. These movements are, however, in deep crises and the MENA region is experiencing multidimensional predicaments. It is not, therefore, surprising to get lost in the midst of such catastrophic conditions, dismissing what were the original quests of the MENA social movements: the popular quest for overthrowing the dominant regime (Ash-sha?b yur?d? isq?? an-ni??m)— not only the political regime, but more importantly, the hegemonic regime of knowledge and dominant apologetic post-colonial paradigms of pan-Arabism and other forms of state-sponsored nationalism, the outdated discourse of Third World socialism, and the exhausted da’wah of Islamism (Dabashi). Equally important was the quest for Hurriyya (freedom), ‘Ad?la ijtim?‘iyya (social justice), and Kar?m? (dig- nity). Millions of ordinary people—men and women, religious and secular, Muslims and non-Muslims—chanted such post-Islamist slogans in the Arab streets. This paper argues that a new discourse/paradigm of post- Islamism best captures the mode of the MENA movements. Although these movements are in crisis, post-Islamism represents the “social” (not necessarily political) climate and conditions of the region. The memory and momentum of the MENA movements are still alive (Bayat), and the substantive structural/social transformations will eventually bring new changes to the region. But what is post-Islamism? Why is this a paradigm shift from dominant discourses, and how do we characterize and problematize it in the post- Arab Spring MENA? In this paper, I will first shed light on the many faces of Islamism and problematize the rise and crisis of Islamism in the context of Muslims’ encounter with colonial modernity. Next, I will conceptualize post-Islamism as a third alternative discourse to both the autocratic secular/colonial modernity and the essentialist/nativist discourse of Islamism. The paper argues that post-Islamism promotes a critical dialogue between tradition and modernity, expedites the possibility of emerging Muslim modernities, encourages civil/public religion but discards the concept and practice of Islamic state. The third section demonstrates the many faces of post-Islamism in post-Arab Spring MENA. It suggests that post-Islamism is a significant paradigm shift from Islamism as it rejects the concept of divine state. Moreover, it argues that post- Islamists are as diverse as conservative, (neo)liberal, and progressive forces. Post-Islamism is neither monolithic nor necessarily progressive. It has its own limitations. The conclusion sheds light on post-Islamism and its enemies in the post-Arab Spring era.