Islamism

This article is about political Islamism. For the religion of Islam, see Islam.

"Islamist" is sometimes also used for a scholar who studies Islam and Muslim societies.

Islamism is a term used to denote a set of political ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism holds that Islamic law (sharia) must be the basis for all statutory law of society; that Muslims must return to the original teachings and the early models of Islam; and that western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influence in the Muslim world is un-Islamic.

This usage is controversial. Those labeled Islamists often, if not always, oppose use of the term, maintaining they are simply Muslims, and that their beliefs are a straightforward expression of Islam as a way of life. Some people find it troublesome that a word derived from "Islam" is applied to organisations they consider radical and extreme.

Synonyms for Islamism include political Islam and activist Islam.

Islam, Islamism and the west

Relation between Islam and Islamism

Template:Muslims and controversies Some experts on Islam reject the notion that Islam is inherently political (e.g. Fred Halliday and John Esposito). Other commentators (including Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or, and Bernard Lewis), however, disagree, arguing that political stances characterized as Islamist are actually central to Islam as a faith and questioning the validity of the terms "Islamist" and "Islamism". Muslims who do not see a difference between Islamism and Islam ask, "If Islam is a way of life, how can we say that those who want to live by its principles in legal, social, political, economic, and political spheres of life are not Muslims, but Islamists and believe in Islamism, not [just] Islam"? However, the terms "Islamist" and "Islamism" are used often and without apology by Muslim-owned and -run media to describe domestic and trans-national organizations seeking to implement Islamic law. The English-language website of Al Jazeera, for example, uses the term "Islamist" or "Islamism" to refer to, among other groups, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria and Jamaa Islamiya, an Egyptian Islamist group.

Like other religions, Islam promotes a vision of society and provides guidelines for social life. The Qur'an and the hadith outline Islamic governance, including criminal law, family law, and the prohibition of usury (as well as other economic regulations that are highly contentious in the Arab world). A polarizing controversy exists as to whether Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries can fully exercise their religion while living there.

Authors such as the American historian Ira Lapidus define Islamists as Muslim movements having specifically political agendas. Devout Muslims (as well as Muslims who promote Islam socially without entering the political sphere) are thus excluded from the notion of Islamism. Political Islam, whether we choose to label it as Islamism or not, represents a form of ideological protest, solidarity, unity of belief, aspirations, goals and aims and so on, to those people who believe in it. Moreover, "No less significant has been the role of Islamic fundamentalism as an ideology of protest against arbitrary rule and socioeconomic injustice. In the absence of other institutional and ideological channels of opposition, fundamentalism has provided a religiously sanctioned means for the articulation of popular dissatisfaction" Political Islam in this sense represents a 'natural' response to the failure of the political systems in the Muslim countries to address and meet the demands and aspirations of certain groups within the Muslim society. Furthermore, the use of Islam by 'Islamists' is not their innovation. In fact, Islam has been used throughout the Islamic history as a justification tool for political reasons by both governments and oppositions. According to Bernard Lewis who uses the term "activist Muslim" instead of "Islamist":

"There are in particular two political traditions, one of which might be called quietist, the other activist. The arguments in favor of both are based, as are most early Islamic arguments, on the Holy Book and on the actions and sayings of the Prophet. The quietist tradition obviously rests on the Prophet as sovereign, as judge and statesman. But before the Prophet became a head of state, he was a rebel. Before he traveled from Mecca to Medina, where he became sovereign, he was an opponent of the existing order. He led an opposition against the pagan oligarchy of Mecca and at a certain point went into exile and formed what in modern language might be called a "government in exile," with which finally he was able to return in triumph to his birthplace and establish the Islamic state in Mecca...The Prophet as rebel has provided a sort of paradigm of revolution—opposition and rejection, withdrawal and departure, exile and return. Time and time again movements of opposition in Islamic history tried to repeat this pattern."

Controversy

The usage of the words/concepts/terms 'Islam' and 'Islamism' are controversial and highly politicized. Arguably, Islam and Muslims are often subjects to prejudgements and misconceptions. According to the Anti-Orientalist school of thought, this is by no means a result of a new phenomenon. Quoting Edward Said:

For most of the Middle Ages and during the early part of the Renaissance in Europe, Islam was believed to be demonic religion of apostasy, blasphemy, and obscurity. It did not seem to matter that Muslims considered Mohammed a prophet and not a god; what mattered to Christians was that Mohammed was a false prophet, a sower of discord, a sensualist, a hypocrite, an agent of the devil… Real events in the real world made of Islam a considerable political force. For hundreds of years great Islamic armies and navies threatened Europe, destroyed its outposts, colonized its domains… Even when the world of Islam entered a period of decline and Europe a period of ascendancy, fear of 'Mohammedanism' persisted. Closer to Europe than any of the other non-Christian religions, the Islamic world by its very adjacency evoked memories of its encroachments on Europe, and always, of its latent power again and again to disturb the West. Other great civilizations of the East- India and China among them- could be thought of as defeated and distant and hence not a constant worry. Only Islam seemed never to have submitted completely to the West; and when, after the dramatic oil-price rises of the early 1970s, the Muslim world seemed once more on the verge of repeating its early conquests, the whole West seemed to shudder.

The Muslim world also shares a very hostile perception about the West as a result of the interpretation of history. This goes back to "the invasion of Iberia in the seventh century, through the crusades which began in the eleventh century, then through the conflicts with the Ottoman empire that lasted from the fifteenth century to the collapse of that last Islamic challenge in 1918", all of which have fed into the belief of Western hostility towards Islam in the hearts and minds of Muslims.

The problematic relationship between the two sides is not solely a result of old history. The end of the Cold War is often believed to have led to the (re)emergence of the 'old' conflict between Islam and the West. "The inner need of western society for a menacing, but subordinated 'other'" is alleged to be an indirect cause allowing the conflict to re-shape itself. However, it is not certain that this 'neo conflict' is a product of the West. The end of the Cold War led to the breakdown of communism worldwide especially its perceived threat to the Third World, including the Muslim countries. This meant the end of a ‘common enemy’. Consequently, there was a steadily diminishing need for continuous high level cooperation, the likes of which existed between the West and the Islamic world during the Cold War. This may have led the latter to (re)direct itself against the West. The (re)adoption of the term jihad and the celebration of the more aggressive meanings of the term, the general acceptance in the Islamic world of the use of harsh rhetoric against non-muslims, and the evidence some Islamic countries lending support (both secret and overt) to terrorist organizations, all contributed towards the affirmation of the perception of an 'Islamic threat' to the Western world.

These two points of the history legacy and the post-Cold War reality led to the politicisation of the term Islamism as indicated earlier. Given that the term applies to a wide range of organizations and groups (including moderates as well as radicals), many Muslims with moderate views find the term troublesome when applied to their own organizations. Many also reject the term because they associate it with political extremism and radicalism, which they do not support: for instance, Islamist groups such as the Egyptian Muslim Brothers participate—though as independent candidates—in democratic elections, and reformers such as Tunisian Rashid Al-Ghanouchi support the idea of democracy and oppose any forced implementation of sharia law.

Post 9/11 Issues

"While ignoring the overwhelming majority of Islamists who have nothing to do with terror and making them virtually irrelevant and stigmatized in Western political discourse… To ignore the complexity of political Islam and tar all Islamists with the same brush of terrorism guarantees Bin Laden's success."

Nazih Ayubi has described the socio-economic impact of this exclusion and alienation. The lack of jobs and therefore lack of purchasing power meant "social defeat". Thus:

…radical Islamists, frustrated over the lack of jobs, houses and commodities, are seeking to turn social defeat into moral victory.

Gilles Kepel goes further, describing Islamists as:

…living symbols, and their numbers are massive, of the failure of the independent state’s modernization projects.

Even though Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Hamas provide important health and social services at a local level, according to Ayubi, Islamists argue that "Islam is the solution" ("al-islam huwa al-hall") and wish simply to "escape upwards" without providing practical solutions.

Fear of Cultural Hegemony of the West

Since the 1970s, an increasing number of movements now identified as Islamist have advocated a re-Islamisation of society, since according to some, "For Islamists, the primary threat of the West is cultural rather than political or economic. Cultural dependency robs one of faith and identity and thus destroys Islam and the Islamic community (ummah) far more effectively than political rule."

History of usage

The term "Islamism" first appeared in eighteenth-century France as a synonym for "Islam". At the turn of the twentieth century, it was being displaced by the latter, and by 1938, when Orientalist scholars completed the Encyclopaedia of Islam, had virtually disappeared from the English language.

It attained its modern connotation in late 1970s French academia, thence to be loaned into English again, where it has largely displaced "Islamic fundamentalism" as the preferred term.

History

Earliest History and Classical Thinkers

Islamist is a modern term that came into popular use towards the end of the twentieth century, but similar movements are to be found throughout Islamic history, including the Wahabis of the 18th century in Saudi Arabia, and Ibn Taimiya (1263-1328), a Damascene law specialist. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, usage of the term "Islamism" dates to 1747.

The End of the 19th Century

The end of the 19th century was the time of the slow disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, a time of religious and cultural decline. The empire was financially and militarily dependent on European powers, including Britain, France, and Germany. In this context, the publications of Jamal ad-din al-Afghani (1837-97), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and Rashid Rida (1865-1935) became popular among small groups of followers who considered their messages important in thinking about indigenous alternatives to the political, economic, and cultural decline of the empire.

Their ideas included the rejection of any change to Islam after 855, among them the Islamic schools of law (madhhabs) since they were considered deviations from the true Islam. Society should return to the true messages of Islam, remove the wrong interpretations and additions of the past centuries, and create a truly Islamic society under sharia law.

The Deobandi Movement

Main article: Deobandi

In India, the Deobandi movement developed as a reaction to British colonialist actions against Muslims and the influence of Muslim modernist Sayed Ahmad Khan, who advocated the Westernization of Islam. Named after the town of Deoband, where it originated, the movement expanded under the guidance of Maulana Qasim Nanotwi on the traditional methods of Fiqh (jurisprudence), Aqidah (theology). Now the foremost movement of traditional Islamic thought in the subcontinent, it lead to the establishment of thousands of madrasahs throughout India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Deobandi thought is defined foremost by its adherence to the Hanafi Fiqh (and to a lesser extent, the Shafi'i Fiqh) and by its emphasis on Tasawwuf (Spiritual reformation and purification).

In Pakistan, Deobandiism is represented by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam organization/political party and its splinter groups. The thousands of madrasahs these groups established for impoverished Afghan refugees helped spawn the Taliban, a Deobandi-based movement that held power in most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban were renowned particularly for the many restrictions they placed on women, their hosting of Osama bin Laden, despite the attacks he organized targeting the superpower known as the United States, and the eventual American-organized attack and overthrow of the Taliban in retaliation.

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi was a "Deobandi alumni" and an important early twentieth-century figure in the Islamic revival in India, and then after independence from Britain, in Pakistan. Trained as a lawyer he chose the profession of journalism, and wrote about contemporary issues. Most of his writings addressed topics of Islamic law, governance, and human rights. He was instrumental in turning Indian Muslims away from a united India and toward a separate Muslim state of Pakistan, and an inspirational figure for modern Islamist groups in South Asia and elsewhere.

Maududi advocated the creation of an Islamic state governed by sharia, Islamic law, as interpreted by Shura councils. Maududi founded the Jamaat-e-Islami party in 1941 and remained at its head until 1972. Although Maududi had had education at Deobandi institution(s) his party is a long time rival of the Deobandi Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party/group.

Maududi was much more influential in his writing than in his political organizing. His extremely influential book, Towards Understanding Islam (Risalat Diniyat in Arabic), placed Islam in modern context and enabled not only conservative ulema but liberal modernizers such as al-Faruqi, whose "Islamization of Knowledge" carried forward some of Maududi's key principles. Chief among these was an integration of Islam with an ethical scientific view. Quoting from Maududi's own work:

Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys God by submission to His laws... For his entire life, from the embryonic stage to the body's dissolution into dust after death, every tissue of his muscles and every limb of his body follows the course prescribed by God's law. His very tongue which, on account of his ignorance advocates the denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in its very nature 'Muslim'... The man who denies God is called Kafir (concealer) because he conceals by his disbelief what is inherent in his nature and embalmed in his own soul. His whole body functions in obedience to that instinct… Reality becomes estranged from him and he gropes in the dark.

Because Islam is all-encompassing, Maududi believed the Islamic state should not be limited to just the "homeland of Islam". It is for all the world:

Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which Nation assumes the role of the standard bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of Islamic 'Jihad' is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of State rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single State or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution.

Although Maududi talked about Islamic revolution, he was both less revolutionary and less politically/economically populist than later Islamists like Qutb.

The Muslim Brotherhood

Main article: Muslim Brotherhood

Roughly contemporaneous with Maududi was the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailiyah, Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al Banna. His was arguably the first, largest and most influential modern Islamic political/religious organization. Under the motto "the Qur'an is our constitution," [8] it sought Islamic revival through preaching and also by providing basic community services including schools, mosques, and workshops. Like Maududi, Al Banna believed in the necessity of government rule based on Shariah law implemented gradually and by persuasion, and of eliminating all non-Muslim imperialist influence in the Muslim world. Jihad was declared against European colonial powers.

Some elements of the Brotherhood, though perhaps against orders, did engage in violence against the government, and its founder Al-Banna was assassinated in 1949 in retaliation for the assassination of Egypt's premier Mahmud Fami Naqrashi three months earlier. [9] The Brotherhood has undergone periodic repression in Egypt and has been banned several times, in 1948 and several years later following confrontations with Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser, who jailed thousands of members for several years. In Egypt its status is currently usually described as a "semi-legal." [10] Despite periodic repression, the Brotherhood has become one of the most influential movements in the Islamic world, particularly in the Arab world. Along with being the most powerful opposition group in Egypt, it has fostered several offshoot organizations in many other countries. [11]

Sayyid Qutb

Maududi's political ideas influenced Sayyid Qutb, one of the key philosophers of Islamism, and a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Qutb believed things had reached such a state that the Muslim community had literally ceased to exist. It "has been extinct for a few centuries," having reverted to Godless ignorance (Jahiliyya).

See also: Qutbism

To eliminate jahiliyya, Qutb argued Sharia, or Islamic law, must be established. Sharia law was not only accessible to humans and essential to the existence of Islam, but also all-encompassing, precluding "evil and corrupt" non-Islamic ideologies like socialism, nationalism, or liberal democracy. Qutb preached that Muslims must engage in a two-pronged attack of converting individuals while also waging jihad to forcibly eliminate the "structures" of Jahiliyya -- not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the earth.

See also: Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq

Qutb was both the most famous member of the brotherhood and enormously influential in the Muslim world at large. Qutb is considered by some to be "the founding father and leading theoretician" of modern jihadis, such as Osama bin Laden. Ironically, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in Europe has not embraced his vision of armed jihad, something for which they have been denounced by more radical Islamists.

The Six Day War of 1967: Reawakening of Islamic Resurgence

The quick and decisive defeat of the Arab troops during the Six Day War by Israeli troops constituted a pivotal event in the Arab Muslim world. The defeat along with economic stagnation in the defeated countries, was credited to the Arab nationalism of the ruling regimes. A steep and steady decline in the popularity and credibility of both secular and nationalist politics ensued. Ba'athism, Arab Socialism, and Arab Nationalism suffered, and Islamist movements inspired by Mawlana Maududi, and Sayyid Qutb gained ground.

Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil War gave radical Shia movements in that country a new power and prominence after 1975. Expatriate Iranian cleric Musa al-Sadr founded the Amal movement well before his native country's own revolution (see below), heading a combination of political party and militia. After his disappearance in 1978 his organization survived, but the opportunity arose for other factions to mobilize potential support from the same social base. The most successful such movement is Hezbollah. Founded in 1985 by Lebanese Shia aided by Iranian Shia Islamists, the movement is dedicated to the expulsion of Western "colonialist entities" from Lebanon and the destruction of Israel, which it sees as an illegal and state usurping Islamic territory. Hezbollah was instrumental in driving the Israeli military from Lebanon in 2000, which heightened its popularity in Lebanon even among non-Shia. In 2006, an Israeli attack on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon attempting to crush the movement sustained serious casualties and was considered by many observers a failure for Israel.

Foundadtion of the first Islamic Republic in Iran

See also: Islamic republic

See also: Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists

The first Islamic state (with the possible exception of Zia's Pakistan) was established not among Sunni but among the Shia of Iran. In what was nothing short of a major shock to the rest of the world, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led an Iranian Revolution of 1979 to overthrow the rapidly Westernizing and pro-American secular dictatorship ruled by Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi.

Khomeini's beliefs were similar to those of Sunni Islamic thinkers like Mawdudi and Qutb: He thought imitation of early Muslims and restoration of Sharia law was essential to Islam, that secular, Westernizing Muslims were actually agents of Western interests, and that "plundering" of Muslim lands was part of a long-term conspiracy against Islam by the Christian West.

But they also differed:

• As a Shia, the early Muslims Khomeini looked to were Ali and Hussein, not Caliphs Abu Bakr, Omar or Uthman.
• Khomeini talked not about restoring the Caliphate but about an Islamic state were the leading role was taken by Islamic jurists (ulama) as the successors of Shia Imams during the occultation of Mahdi. His concept of velayat-e-faqih ("guardianship of the [Islamic] jurist"), held that the leading Shia Muslim cleric in society -- which Khomeini and his followers believed to be himself -- should serve as head of state to protect or "guard" Islam and Sharia law from “innovation" and "anti-Islamic laws" passed "by sham parliaments.”

While initial enthusiasm for the revolution in the Muslim world was intense, it gradually waned.

As a model for potential Islamic states, the Islamic Republic has not been notably successful in achieving many of its goals: raising standards of living; ridding Iran of corruption, poverty, political oppression and Westernization, or even protecting Sharia from innovation. Internally, it has been modestly successful in increasing rate of literacy and health care. It has also maintained its hold on power in Iran in spite of the U.S. economic sanctions, and created or assisted like-minded Shia Islamist groups in Iraq (SCIRI) and Lebanon (Hezbollah), (two Muslim countries that also have large Shiite populations). Currently, the Iranian government has enjoyed something of a resurgence in popularity amongst the predominantly Sunni "Arab street," due to its support for Hezbollah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vehement opposition to the United States and call for the annihilation of Israel.

Pakistan and general Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization campaign

Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization of Pakistan was a socio-political process that was implemented in the country by the ruling military regime, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing throughout the 1980s. On December 2, 1978, the then-President of Pakistan General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq officially called for an Islamic system to be imposed in its totality. The implementation of sharia law, however, came about only in small steps.

Islamization has brought Islamist political parties into prominence, and all but destroyed the traditional secularism of the Muslim League and its leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan.

Afghanistan: Civil War and Jihad Against the Soviets

In 1979 the Soviet Union deployed its 40th Army into Afghanistan, attempting to suppress an Islamic rebellion against an allied Marxist regime in the Afghan Civil War. The conflict, pitting indigenous impoverished Muslims (mujahideen) against an atheist superpower, galvanized thousands of Muslims around the world to send aid and sometimes to go themselves to fight jihad. One leader of the pan-Islamic effort, Palestinian sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, for example is said to have organizing paramilitary training for more than 20,000 Muslim recruits from about 20 countries around the world.

When the Soviet Union abandoned the Marxist Najibullah regime and withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 (the regime finally fell in 1992), the victory was seen by many Muslims as the triumph of Islamic faith over superior military power and technology that could be duplicated elsewhere.

The jihadists gained legitimacy and prestige from their triumph both within the militant community and among ordinary Muslims, as well as the confidence to carry their jihad to other countries where they believed Muslims required assistance.

The "veterans of the guerrilla campaign" returning home to Algeria, Egypt and other countries "with their experience, ideology, and weapons," were often eager to continue armed jihad.

When the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1992, many Islamists, including Bin Laden, saw it as a defeat of a superpower at the hands of Islam: "[T]he US has no mentionable role" in "the collapse of the Soviet Union ... rather the credit goes to God and the mujahidin" of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Taliban

Sadly, the Afghanistan the jihadists left did not build on its victory over the Soviets, but sank into vicious and destructive civil war between warlords, becoming one of the poorest countries on earth. In 1996, a new movement known as the Taliban, based on Deobandiism and supported by governmental and nongovernmental groups in neighboring Pakistan, rose to defeat many of the warlords and take over roughly 80% of the country.

The Taliban differed somewhat from other Islamist movements to the point where they might be more properly described as Islamic fundamentalist or neofundamentalist. Their ideology was also described as influenced by Pashtunwali tribal law, Wahhabiism, and the jihadist pan-Islamism of their guest Osama bin Laden. Unlike most Islamists, the Taliban enforced very strict prohibitions on women -- employment, schooling, etc. -- and seemed indifferent to social, economic, technological development -- at one time explaining that "We Muslims believe God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another."

The Taliban considered "politics" as against Sharia and did not hold elections. They were led by Mullah Muhammad Omar who was given the title "Amir al-Mu'minin" or Commander of the Faithful, and a pledge of loyalty by several hundred Taliban-selected Pashtun clergy in April 1996. The Taliban were also famous for the wide variety of activities they banned -- music, TV, videos, photographs, pigeons, kite-flying, beard-trimming, etc. -- and for the energy and resources they used to enforce the bans, including hundreds or thousands of religious police armed with "whips, long sticks and Kalashnikovs."

The Taliban opposed Shi'ism and were accused of indiscriminate killing of Shia by human rights groups. They were also overwhelmingly Pashtun and accused of not sharing power with the approximately 60% of Afghans who were from other ethnic groups. (see: Taliban#Ideology)

Although driven from power in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban have launched a vigorous insurgency from their exile in the frontier regions of Pakistan with suicide/homicide bombing on NATO and Afghan government targets.

Islamic Jihad movements of Egypt

While Qutb's ideas became increasingly radical during his imprisonment prior to his execution in 1966, the leadership of the Brotherhood, led by Hasan al-Hudaybi, remained moderate and interested in political negotiation and activism. Fringe or splinter movements, however, did develop and pursued a more radical direction, perhaps inspired by final writings of Qutb in the mid-1960s (e.g. "Milestones," aka Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq). By the 1970s, the Brotherhood renounced violence as a means to their goals.

The path of violence and military struggle was however taken up by such movements as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Unlike earlier anti-colonial movements, Egyptian Islamic Jihad focused its efforts on "apostate" leaders of Muslim states, or those leaders who held secular leanings or introduced or promoted Western/foreign ideas and practices into Islamic societies. Their views were outlined in a pamphlet written by Muhammad Abd al-Salaam Farag, in which he states: "…there is no doubt that the first battlefield for jihad is the extermination of these infidel leaders and to replace them by a complete Islamic Order…"

Islamists in Egypt sometimes employed violence in their struggle for Islamic order. Victims of campaign against the Egyptian state in the 1990s included the head of the counter-terrorism police (Major General Raouf Khayrat), a parliamentary speaker (Rifaat el-Mahgoub), dozens of European tourists and Egyptian bystanders, and over 100 Egyptian police. Ultimately the campaign to overthrow the government was unsuccessful, and the major jihadi group, Jamaa Islamiya (or al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya), renounced violence in 2003.

Sudan

For many years Sudan had an Islamist regime under the leadership of Hassan al-Turabi. His National Islamic Front first gained influence when strongman General Gaafar al-Nimeiry invited members to serve in his government in 1979. After al-Nimeiry was overthrown in 1985 the party did poorly in national elections but in 1989 was able to overthrow the elected post-al-Nimeiry government with the help of the military. The NIF regime was noted for strict application of sharia law, intensification of the long-running war in southern Sudan, human rights abuses, harbored Osama bin Laden for a time (before 9/11), and working to unify anti-American Islamist opposition to the American attack on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Main article: National Islamic Front

Eventually Turabi fell from favor of the military and was imprisoned for a time in 2004-5. Some of the NIF policies, such as the war with the non-Muslim south, have been reversed, though the National Islamic Front (now named National Congress Party) is still holds considerable power in the Sudanese government.

Salafism/Wahhabism

An influential strain of Muslim thought came from the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabists, who emerged in the 18th century led by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, also believed that it was necessary to live according to the strict dictates of Islam, which they interpreted to mean living in the manner that the prophet Muhammad and his followers had lived in during the seventh century in Medina. Consequently they were opposed to many religious innovations such as veneration of saints. They were also opposed to the many superstitions that were beginning to spread in Arabia such as the wearing of talismans etc. When King Abdul Aziz al-Saud founded Saudi Arabia, he brought the Wahhabists into power with him. With Saud's rise to prominence, Wahhabism spread, especially following the 1973 oil embargo and the glut of oil wealth that resulted for Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabists were proselytizers and made use of their wealth to spread their interpretation of Islam. Some Salafis are against modern political Islamism, and many have sharply criticized Islamist figures such as Sayed Qutb [12] [13], Abu A`la Maududi [14] [15] and Usamah bin Laden [16]. They have also been critical of Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood [17], and the methods they use, such as the political party system [18], and terrorism. [19] [20]

Algeria

An Islamist movement influenced by Salafism and the jihad in Afghanistan, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, was the FIS or Front Islamique de Salut (the Islamic Salvation Front) in Algeria. Founded as a broad Islamist coalition in 1989 it was led by Abbassi Madani, and a charismatic radical young preacher, Ali Belhadj. Taking advantage of liberalization by the unpopular ruling leftist/nationalist FLN regime, it preached legal system following Sharia law, education in Arabic rather than French, and gender segregation, with women staying home to alleviate the high rate of unemployment among young Algerian men. The FIS swept local elections and was favored to win national elections in 1991 when voting was canceled by a military coup d'etat.

As Islamists took to arms to overthrow the regime, the FIS's leaders were arrested and it became overshadowed by guerilla Islamists groups particularly the Islamic Salvation Army, MIA and Armed Islamic Group (or GIA). A bloody and devastating civil war ensued with between 150,000 and 200,000 killed over the next decade. Civilians -- including foreigners, University academics, intellectual, writers, journalists, and medical doctors -- were targeted by Islamist extremists although government forces were also accused of killing civilians and of manipulating the brutal takfiri GIA.

Main article: List of Algerian massacres of the 1990s

The civil war was not a victory for Islamism. By 2002 the main guerrilla groups had either been destroyed or surrendered. Islamist parties popularity has declined. In the 2004 presidential election, "the Islamist candidate, Abdallah Jaballah, came a distant third with 5% of the vote."

Saudi Arabia

The November 20, 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure at Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, occurred at the holiest site in Islam. The hostage-taking, two week siege, and bloody ending shocked the Muslim world, as hundreds were killed in the ensuing battles and executions. The event was explained as a fundamentalist dissident revolt against the Saudi regime. The Iran hostage crisis had begun only weeks earlier, on November 4, 1979 when a mob of students stormed and seized the U.S. embassy. Immediately following the Mecca event, Iran blamed the U.S., and angry Islamic mobs then burned two more U.S. embassies to the ground, in Islamabad, Pakistan, and at Tripoli, Libya.

In his book Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam Gilles Kepel argues that the central importance of Islamism in the 1990s was a product of the Gulf War. Prior to 1990 organized political Islam had been mostly associated with Saudi Arabia, a nation founded on Wahhabism and an ally of Islamist groups in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, as a close ally of the West and with a strong interest in regional stability, played an important restraining role on Islamist groups.

The Shi'ite clerics in Iran had long argued that Saudi Arabia was an apostate state, a puppet of the West that espoused a corrupted Islam. During the 1980s these accusations had little effect, largely because of their Shi'ite origin. However, Kepel argues that when Saddam Hussein turned on his former allies, he embraced this rhetoric, arguing that Saudi Arabia had betrayed its duty to protect the holiest sites of Islam. Kepel states that Saddam Hussein embraced Islamic rhetoric and trappings and tried to draw leading scholars and activists to his camp. Some of the main Islamist groups remained loyal to Saudi Arabia, but a number such as parts of the Muslim Brotherhood and Afghani mujahideen aligned themselves with Saddam. Far more groups declared themselves neutral in the struggle.

According to Kepel the rapid defeat of Saddam did not end this rift. As Saddam had likely predicted Saudi Arabia had found itself in a severe dilemma, the only way to counter the Iraqi threat was to seek help from the west, which would immediately confirm the Iraqi allegations of Saudi Arabia being a friend to the west. To ensure the regime's survival Saudi Arabia accepted a massive western presence in the country and de facto cooperation with Israel causing great offense to many in Islamist circles.

After the war, Saudi Arabia launched a two-pronged strategy to restore its security and leadership in Islamist circles. Those Islamist groups who refused to return under the Saudi umbrella were persecuted and any Islamists who had criticized Saudi regime were arrested or forced into exile, with most going to London. At the same time, Saudi oil money began to flow freely to those Islamist groups who continued to work with the kingdom. Islamist madrassas around the world saw their funding greatly increased. More covertly, Saudi money began to fund more violent Islamist groups in areas such as Bosnia and the former Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia's western allies mostly looked the other way — seeing the survival of their crucial ally as more important than the problem of more money and resources flowing to Islamist groups.

Hizb ut-Tahrir

An influential international Islamist movement is the 'party' Hizb ut-Tahrir, founded in 1953 by a Sufi and Islamic Qadi (judge) Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. HT is unique from most other Islamist movements in that the party concentrates not on local issues or providing social services, but on the unification of the Muslim world under its vision of a new Islamic caliphate spanning from North Africa and the Middle East to much of central and South Asia. To this end it has drawn up and published a constitution for its proposed caliphate state. The constitution's 187 articles specify such policies as sharia law, a "unitary ruling system" headed by a caliph elected by Muslims, an economy based on the gold standard, and Arabic as the "sole language of the State." In its focus on the Caliphate, HT takes a different view of Muslim history than some other Islamists such as Muhammad Qutb. Rather than the end of one the four rightly guided Caliphs in the 7th century being the pivotal turning point of Islam, it see the 1918 or 1922 abolition of the Ottoman caliphate as the end of the true Islamic system, something for which they blame Mustafa Kamal and Western imperialism.

HuT does not engage in armed jihad or vote-getting, but works to take power through "ideological struggle" to change Muslim public opinion, and in particular elites who will "facilitate" a "change of the government," i.e. launch a bloodless coup. It allegedly attempted and failed such coups in 1968 and 1969 in Jordan, and in 1974 in Egypt, and is now banned in both countries.

The party is sometimes described as "Leninist" and "rigidly controlled by its central leadership," with its estimated one million members required to spend "at least two years studying party literature under the guidance of mentors (Murshid)" before taking "the party oath." HuT is particularly active in the ex-soviet republics of Central Asia and in Europe. In the UK its rallies have drawn thousands of Muslims, and the party is said to have outpaced the Muslim Brotherhood in both membership and radicalism.

Other countries

In the 1990s, Islamist conflicts erupted around the world in areas such as Algeria, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, and Nigeria. In 1995 a series of terrorist attacks were launched against France. The most important development was the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996. In the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan a number of anti-Saudi and anti-Western Islamist groups found refuge. Significantly, Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi influenced by Wahhabism and the writings of Sayed Qutb, joined forces with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad under Ayman al-Zawahiri to form what is now called al-Qaeda.

A considerable effort has been made to fight Western targets, especially the United States. The United States, in particular, was made a subject of Islamist fire because of its support for Israel, its presence on Saudi Arabian soil, what Islamists regard as its aggression against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its support of the regimes Islamists oppose. In addition, some Islamists have concentrated their activity against Israel, and nearly all Islamists view Israel with hostility. Osama bin Laden, at least, believes that this is of necessity due to historical conflict between Muslims and Jews, and considers there to be a Jewish/American alliance against Islam.

There is some debate as to how influential Islamist movements remain. Some scholars assert that Islamism is a fringe movement that is dying, following the clear failures of Islamist regimes like the regime in Sudan, the Habitué's Saudi regime and the Deobandi Taliban to improve the lot of Muslims. However, others (such as Ahmed Rashid) feel that the Islamists still command considerable support and cite the fact that Islamists in Pakistan and Egypt regularly poll 10 to 30 percent in electoral polls, despite the fact they are prosecuted and that many believe the polls are rigged against them.

An alternative direction has been taken by many Islamists in Turkey, where the Islamist movement split into reformist and traditionalist wings in 2001. The reformists formed the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (Ak Party), which gained an overall majority in the Turkish parliament in 2002, and has sought to balance Islamic values with the requirements of a secular and democratic political system. Some in the Justice and Development Party see the Christian Democrat parties of Western Europe as a model, which has led some to question whether it is a genuinely Islamist movement.

Islamism and modern political theory

The development of modern Islamism was also both a reaction to and influenced by the other ideologies of the modern world. Modern Islamism began in the colonial period, and it was overtly anti-imperialist. It was also opposed to the local elites who wanted independence, but who also supported adopting western liberal ideals. Writers like the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and the Pakistani Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi saw western style individualism as counter to centuries of tradition, and also as inevitably leading to a debauched and licentious society.

In the years after independence, the most important ideological currents in the Muslim world were nationalism, socialism and communism. This influenced Islamism in two ways. Much Islamist thought and writing during this era was directly addressed to countering Marxism. For instance, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's main works are detailed critiques of Marxism, paying much less attention to capitalism and liberalism. Another option was to try to integrate socialism and Islamism. This was most notably done by Ali Shariati. At several points, Islamist and leftist groups found common cause and several organizations, such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran and Islamic Socialist Front in Syria, were both overtly Marxist and overtly Islamist. While most Islamists reject Marxism, the influence of socialist ideologies during the formative period of modern Islamism means that Islamist works continue to be infused with Marxist language and concepts. For instance, Qutb's view of an elite vanguard to lead an Islamic revolution is borrowed directly from Lenin's Vanguard of the Proletariat.

During the 1930s, a number of fascistic groups arose in the Middle East. Some, such as the SSNP and the Kataeb Party, were mostly supported by Christians and other minority groups; others, such as the Egyptian Misr al-Fatat, were mainly Sunni Arab. The fascist method of seizing power did inspire Islamist Hassan al-Banna, who founded organizations directly based on the Brownshirts and Blackshirts to try and seize power. This method proved ineffective, and most Islamists have since used the cell based structure commonly used by leftist groups. Ideologically there is little evidence that fascism had much influence on the development of Islamism.

Islamist movements

• International — Al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hizb ut-Tahrir
• Afghanistan — Taliban
• Algeria — Groupe Islamique Armé, Islamic Salvation Front, Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat
• Egypt — Gama'at Islamiya
• Lebanon — Hizballah
• Iraqi Kurdistan — Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, Islamic Group of Kurdistan, Islamic Union of Kurdistan
• Iran Kurdistan — Khabat
• Palestinian Territories — Hamas
• Central Asia — Hizb ut-Tahrir
• South Asia — Jamaat-e-Islami (there are Jamaats in India, Pakistan and Wahhabism), Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
• Turkey — Justice and Development Party (disputed), Felicity Party
• Bahrain — Al Wefaq Asalat

See also

• Clash of Civilizations
• Extremism
• Fundamentalism
• Islam
• Political aspects of Islam
• Terrorism
• Islamofascism
• European Council for Fatwa and Research ('ECFR')
• Global Islamic Insurgency

Further reading

• The Legacy of Jihad by Andrew G. Bostom
• Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Ye'or
• Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or
• The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse by Paul L. Williams
• An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism]] by Victor Davis Hanson
• Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel
• The War for Muslim Minds by Gilles Kepel
• Gilles Kepel, The Roots of Radical Islam London: Saqi, 2005 (originally published in French as Le Prophete et Pharaon, 1984)
• Esposito, John L. (2003). Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-516886-0.
• Paul Berman: Terror And Liberalism W. W. Norton & Company, New York 2003
• Robert Dreyfuss: Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, November 2005
• Philip S. Khoury:, "Islamic Revival and the Crisis of the Secular State in the Arab World: an Historical Appraisal." in Arab Resources: The Transformation of a Society. ed. I. Ibrahim. London: Croom Helm, 1983.
• Bernard Lewis: The Political Language of Islam. University of Chicago, 1988
• Bernard Lewis: The Emergence of Modern Turkey London, Oxford University Press, 1961
• Beverley Milton-Edwards: Islamic fundamentalism since 1945. London: Routledge, 2005
• Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam (London: Routledge, 1991).
• John Esposito, Voices of Resurgent Islam Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
• John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992.
• John Esposito and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Islam, Gender, and Social Change.
• Fred Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation London: I.B. Tauris, 1996.
• Khomeini, Ruhollah (1981). Algar, Hamid (translator and editor). Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Berkeley: Mizan Press.
• Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, "The Fundamentalist Impact on Law, Politics and Constitution in Iran, Pakistan and the Sudan", In: Fundamentalism and the State, Martin Marty & S. Appleby (eds.)

External links

• Islamism in Europe
• Coming to Terms, Fundamentalists or Islamists? Martin Kramer