The Islamic Fundamentalism which turned into a major social course in many Arab countries in 1980s, has inspired a wide spectrum of theoretical analyses. In this article we have attempted to evaluate this course by the method of discoursive analyse.
Despite many dissimilarities that differentiate Islamic fundamentalism from other political , and even religious reformist, movements regarding methods of political struggle , organizing and organizational structure , our hypothesis is that its most significant distinctive aspect from previous movements is the conspicuous and unique role of Islamic signifier in shaping and articulating its discourse. Our hypothesis is that Islam did not enter to political arena of Ararb society by Islamic fundamentalism , but it turned into the master signifier or , what we call it here , the point de caption , by fundamentalists.
Therefore , to comprehend the discoursive change , from nationalism to fundamentalism , we describe the components of fundamentalist and Pan- Arabic discourses and compare their main signifiers. We, then investigate the contexts of increasing politicalization of Islam and its turning into master signifier , supremacy of Islamic fundamentalism discourse in contemporary Arab society and the failure of Arab nationalism discourse based on the factor of availability.
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