Event and Horizon-Opening: A Phenomenological Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in Social Movements

Sharifi, Saeid; Vahabzadeh, Peyman

doi:10.22059/jstmt.2026.420788.1921

Event and Horizon-Opening: A Phenomenological Critique of Ultimate Referentiality in Social Movements

Document Type : Research Article / Original Article

Authors

Saeid Sharifi ¹

Peyman Vahabzadeh ²

¹ Department of Cultural Management and Planning, Isf.C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran. &Visiting Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, BC, Canada.

² Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, BC, Canada.

10.22059/jstmt.2026.420788.1921

Abstract

This article examines the dialogue between structuralist and phenomenological approaches in contemporary Islamic social thought through the lens of Peyman Vahabzadeh’s radical phenomenology. Adopting a qualitative, descriptive–analytical approach, the study draws on documentary and conceptual analysis of primary sources, including Vahabzadeh’s Articulated Experiences (2003), Kuntowijoyo’s Islam Sebagai Ilmu (2006), and Hanafi’s Min al-‘Aqidah ila al-Thawrah (1966), as well as secondary literature on these thinkers. The research addresses a theoretical gap: while structuralist frameworks such as Kuntowijoyo’s transcendental structuralism and phenomenological approaches such as Hanafi’s actual theology have shaped Islamic social theory, both remain entangled with forms of “ultimate referentiality” that foreclose the “evental” and “horizon-opening” dimensions of social movements. Drawing on Vahabzadeh’s critique of foundationalism and his “sociology of possibilities,” the study develops a synthetic framework that integrates structural analysis with phenomenological attention to lived experience. The analysis proceeds in four phases: conceptual identification, comparative analysis, critique of ultimate referentiality, and synthesis. It argues that Kuntowijoyo’s framework treats divine revelation as an ultimate referent, while Hanafi’s phenomenological theology remains committed to theocentric foundations. The proposed framework combines structural analysis as horizon-mapping, phenomenological attention to lived experience, evental rupture and horizon-opening, and reflexive critique of ultimate referentiality. It offers analytical resources for understanding contemporary social movements in Muslim societies as generative phenomena that disrupt sedimented meanings while gesturing toward new possibilities. By bridging phenomenological social theory and social movement studies, this inquiry contributes to a post-foundational Islamic social theory that takes seriously the “open expanse of possible futures” toward which social movements gesture.

Keywords

Event

Horizon-Opening

Islamic Thought

Social Movements

Ultimate Referentiality

Subjects

Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers

The Holy Qur’an.

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