Rached Ghannouchi’s test: Political Islam and democracy in Tunisia

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to closely examine Tunisia’s Rached Ghannouchi (Arabic: Rāshid al-Ghannūshī), the head of the Islamic movement in Tunisia, Ennahdha. Tunisia has a unique experience in Political Islam. I have examined the above personality and his political affiliation as a case study for this paper. Some new incidents have emerged lately in Tunisia that appear to be pointing to new, up-coming changes in the political life in that country. This paper will introduce these changes in Tunisia and their expected effects. For the purpose of this article, modern Islam no longer refers to Islamists as demanding a monopoly of power and imposing sharia law. Rather, it presents it as a means of achieving political goals. How Rāshid al-Ghannūshī has acted and what his thoughts have been since the Tunisian revolution (2011) up until 2017 are discussed in this paper.