Frankly, if the Islamists do not finally begin to articulate what sorts of actual policies Islamism advocates, the project of Political Islam will evaporate. It is no longer going to be acceptable to explain Islamism as advocating Shari’ah, or seeking to establish the Rule of Allah on earth, and so on. That is vague and abstract, and our problems are real and practical. We need real and practical policy solutions.
There is no reason why Political Islam should not take its place among the wider spectrum of political ideologies in the world, and not just be a specialty niche populated and supported by a segment of the public who are generally both disaffected by politics and ignorant about it; and who simply dream of a Utopian Islamic state. If that is all Political Islam is going to be; it will become irrelevant very soon, and it should.
If we sincerely believe that Islam, and Islamic Law, genuinely provides remedies to the injustice and corruption we are facing today (and we should believe this), then we have to start articulating “How”.