ABSTRACT
The end of Islamism or post-Islamism arguments have been the most popular interpretation of Islamism since the early 1990s. As a result, they provide the primary tools for studying Islamism and have become the first encounter and challenge for every alternative reading. However, that these still repeat the end of Islamists rather than post-Islamists at each opportunity after three decades demonstrates the failure arguments have had in construing Islamism. This paper aims to question and present the possibilities of a more profound and comprehensive reading of Islamism by initially presenting and then evaluating these arguments through the conceptualizations of Asef Bayat and Olivier Roy in particular. This evaluation maintains that these arguments have forgotten the ontological (political), which relates the conditions of existence and intelligibility, by focusing on the ontic (politics), which considers beings, rules, conventions, arrangements, and institutions. Lastly, by identifying this oversight as the main problem of the literature, the paper proposes the tools for an ontological (political) study by placing Salman Sayyid’s conceptualization of Islamism into the conversation with Heidegger. In this sense, rather than offering an analysis of Islamism as an experience, the paper attempts to advance the framework for such an analysis.