Imaginative landscapes of Islamist politics: An introduction to takhayyul

While there is a tendency to use the word imaginary loosely in the broader social sciences, often referring to the unrealistic and irrational realms of life, its value as a political currency is palpable. This paper offers takhayyul (tahayyul/تخيل) as a heuristic concept to study imaginative elements in populist Islamist movements. Takhayyul refers to the terrestrial imagination that is realistic and worldly yet also prophetic. It informs doxastic thinking and political action and offers a particular relationship with reality and the ability to comprehend and expand possibilities. This paper explores how this non-Eurocentric theory evolved in the geography that it studies, the Balkans-to-Bengal Complex. In order to develop a theory that can encapsulate the nuances embedded in the intangible aspects of political formations including the imaginaries, cosmological references, and emotive attachments, this paper argues that it is essential to centralize theories that emerge from the very geographies we are ethnographically and historically focusing on.