The ontological pitfalls of Islamic exceptionalism: A re-inquiry on El-Bassiouny's (2014, 2015) conceptualization of “Islamic marketing”

Aliakbar Jafari and Özlem Sandıkcı

Journal of Business Research, 2016, vol. 69, issue 3, 1175-1181

Abstract: In response to Jafari and Sandıkcı's (2015a) critique of her 2014 article entitled “The one-billion-plus marginalization”, El-Bassiouny (2015) dismisses the authors' key ontological debate over exceptionalism as a historical and political discourse and diverts attention to new areas of enquiry (e.g., disciplinary legitimacy, Islamic jurisprudence and methodological pluralism) to further her original “transcendental values integration” approach to marketing theory, practice and education. While offering new insights, El-Bassiouny's account is still largely driven by discourses of marginalization, exceptionalism and Islamism. This article therefore: (1) reappraises the oversimplification of the marginalization discourse; (2) reiterates the pitfalls of Islamic exceptionalism at an ontological level; (3) cautions against the consequences of ideological readings of Islam in marketing and consumer research; and (4) re-emphasizes the importance of understanding identity dynamics in the analysis of the complex intersections of Islam, marketing and consumption. In conclusion, the article offers some areas for future research.

Keywords: Islamic marketing; Moslem consumers; Marginalization; Exceptionalism; Ideology; Ontology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315004221
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:69:y:2016:i:3:p:1175-1181

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.09.016

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().