Islamism is a concept whose meaning has been
debated in both public and academic contexts.
The term can refer to diverse forms of social
and political activism advocating that public
and political life should be guided by Islamic
principles or more specifically to movements
which call for full implementation of sharia.
It is commonly used interchangeably with the
terms political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism.
In academic usage, the term Islamism does
not specify what vision of "Islamic order"
or sharia are being advocated, or how their
advocates intend to bring them about.
In Western mass media it tends to refer to
groups whose aim is to establish a sharia-based
Islamic state, often with implication of violent
tactics and human rights violations, and has
acquired connotations of political extremism.
In the Muslim world, the term has positive
connotations among its proponents.Different
currents of Islamist thought include advocating
a "revolutionary" strategy of Islamizing society
through exercise of state power, and alternately
a "reformist" strategy to re-Islamizing society
through grass-roots social and political activism.
Islamists may emphasize the implementation
of sharia (Islamic law); pan-Islamic political
unity, including an Islamic state; or selective
removal of non-Muslim, particularly Western
military, economic, political, social, or
cultural influences in the Muslim world that
they believe to be incompatible with Islam.Graham
Fuller has argued for a broader notion of
Islamism as a form of identity politics, involving
"support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity,
broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization
of the community."
Some authors hold the term "Islamic activism"
to be synonymous and preferable to "Islamism",
and Rached Ghannouchi writes that Islamists
prefer to use the term "Islamic movement"
themselves.Central and prominent figures in
twentieth-century Islamism include Hasan al-Banna,
Sayyid Qutb, Abul Ala Maududi, and Ruhollah
Khomeini.
Most Islamist thinkers emphasize peaceful
political processes, which are supported by
the majority of contemporary Islamists.
Others, Sayyid Qutb in particular, called
for violence, and his followers are generally
considered Islamic extremists, although Qutb
denounced the killing of innocents.
According to Robin Wright, Islamist movements
have "arguably altered the Middle East more
than any trend since the modern states gained
independence", redefining "politics and even
borders".
Following the Arab Spring, some Islamist currents
became heavily involved in democratic politics,
while others spawned "the most aggressive
and ambitious Islamist militia" to date, ISIS.
== Terminology ==
The term, which originally denoted the religion
of Islam, first appeared in English as Islamismus
in 1696, and as Islamism in 1712.
The term appears in the U.S. Supreme Court
decision in In Re Ross (1891).
By the turn of the twentieth century it had
begun to be displaced by the shorter and purely
Arabic term "Islam" and by 1938, when Orientalist
scholars completed The Encyclopaedia of Islam,
seems to have virtually disappeared from English
usage.The term "Islamism" acquired its contemporary
connotations in French academia in the late
1970s and early 1980s.
From French, it began to migrate to the English
language in the mid-1980s, and in recent years
has largely displaced the term Islamic fundamentalism
in academic circles.The use of the term Islamism
was at first "a marker for scholars more likely
to sympathize" with new Islamic movements;
however, as the term gained popularity it
became more specifically associated with political
groups such as the Taliban or the Algerian
Armed Islamic Group, as well as with highly
publicized acts of violence."Islamists" who
have spoken out against the use of the term,
insisting they are merely "Muslims", include
Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, the
spiritual mentor of Hizbullah, and Abbassi
Madani, leader of the Algerian Islamic Salvation
Front.A 2003 article in Middle East Quarterly
states:
In summation, the term Islamism enjoyed its
first run, lasting from Voltaire to the First
World War, as a synonym for Islam.
Enlightened scholars and writers generally
preferred it to Mohammedanism.
Eventually both terms yielded to Islam, the
Arabic name of the faith, and a word free
of either pejorative or comparative associations.
There was no need for any other term, until
the rise of an ideological and political interpretation
of Islam challenged scholars and commentators
to come up with an alternative, to distinguish
Islam as modern ideology from Islam as a faith...
To all intents and purposes, Islamic fundamentalism
and Islamism have become synonyms in contemporary
American usage.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations
complained in 2013 that the Associated Press's
definition of "Islamist"—a "supporter of
government in accord with the laws of Islam
[and] who view the Quran as a political model"—had
become a pejorative shorthand for "Muslims
we don't like."
Mansoor Moaddel, a sociologist of Eastern
Michigan University criticized it as "not
a good term" because "the use of the term
Islamist does not capture the phenomena that
is quite heterogeneous."
The AP Stylebook entry for Islamist now reads
as follows: "An advocate or supporter of a
political movement that favors reordering
government and society in accordance with
laws prescribed by Islam.
Do not use as a synonym for Islamic fighters,
militants, extremists or radicals, who may
or may not be Islamists.
Where possible, be specific and use the name
of militant affiliations: al-Qaida-linked,
Hezbollah, Taliban, etc.
Those who view the Quran as a political model
encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream
politicians to militants known as jihadi."
== 
Overview ==
=== 
Definitions ===
Islamism has been defined as:
"the belief that Islam should guide social
and political as well as personal life",
a form of "religionized politics" and an instance
of religious fundamentalism
"political movement that favors reordering
government and society in accordance with
laws prescribed by Islam" (from Associated
Press's definition of "Islamist")
"[the term 'Islamist' has become shorthand
for] 'Muslims we don't like.'"
(from Council on American–Islamic Relations's
complaint about AP's earlier definition of
Islamist)
"a theocratic ideology that seeks to impose
any version of Islam over society by law".
(Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist turned critic).
Subsequently, clarified to be "the desire
to impose any given interpretation of Islam
on society".
"the [Islamic] ideology that guides society
as a whole and that [teaches] law must be
in conformity with the Islamic sharia",
a term "used by outsiders to denote a strand
of activity which they think justifies their
misconception of Islam as something rigid
and immobile, a mere tribal affiliation."
a movement so broad and flexible it reaches
out to "everything to everyone" in Islam,
making it "unsustainable".an alternative social
provider to the poor masses;
an angry platform for the disillusioned young;
a loud trumpet-call announcing "a return to
the pure religion" to those seeking an identity;
a "progressive, moderate religious platform"
for the affluent and liberal;
... and at the extremes, a violent vehicle
for rejectionists and radicals.
an Islamic "movement that seeks cultural differentiation
from the West and reconnection with the pre-colonial
symbolic universe",
"the organised political trend [...] that
seeks to solve modern political problems by
reference to Muslim texts [...] the whole
body of thought which seeks to invest society
with Islam which may be integrationist, but
may also be traditionalist, reform-minded
or even revolutionary"
"the active assertion and promotion of beliefs,
prescriptions, laws or policies that are held
to be Islamic in character,"
a movement of "Muslims who draw upon the belief,
symbols, and language of Islam to inspire,
shape, and animate political activity;" which
may contain moderate, tolerant, peaceful activists
or those who "preach intolerance and espouse
violence."
"All who seek to Islamize their environment,
whether in relation to their lives in society,
their family circumstances, or the workplace,
may be described as Islamists."
=== Varieties ===
Islamism takes different forms and spans a
wide range of strategies and tactics towards
the powers in place—"destruction, opposition,
collaboration, indifference" that have varied
as "circumstances have changed"—and thus
is not a united movement.
Moderate and reformist Islamists who accept
and work within the democratic process include
parties like the Tunisian Ennahda Movement.
Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan is basically a
socio-political and democratic Vanguard party
but has also gained political influence through
military coup d'états in the past.
Other Islamist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon
and Hamas in Palestine participate in the
democratic and political process as well as
armed attacks.
Jihadist organizations like al-Qaeda and the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and groups such as
the Taliban, entirely reject democracy, often
declaring as kuffar those Muslims who support
it (see takfirism), as well as calling for
violent/offensive jihad or urging and conducting
attacks on a religious basis.
Another major division within Islamism is
between what Graham E. Fuller has described
as the fundamentalist "guardians of the tradition"
(Salafis, such as those in the Wahhabi movement)
and the "vanguard of change and Islamic reform"
centered around the Muslim Brotherhood.
Olivier Roy argues that "Sunni pan-Islamism
underwent a remarkable shift in the second
half of the 20th century" when the Muslim
Brotherhood movement and its focus on Islamisation
of pan-Arabism was eclipsed by the Salafi
movement with its emphasis on "sharia rather
than the building of Islamic institutions,"
and rejection of Shia Islam.
Following the Arab Spring, Roy has described
Islamism as "increasingly interdependent"
with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim
world, such that "neither can now survive
without the other."
While Islamist political culture itself may
not be democratic, Islamists need democratic
elections to maintain their legitimacy.
At the same time, their popularity is such
that no government can call itself democratic
that excludes mainstream Islamist groups.
=== Relation to Islam ===
The relationship between the notions of Islam
and Islamism has been subject to disagreement.
Hayri Abaza argues that the failure to distinguish
between Islam and Islamism leads many in the
West to support illiberal Islamic regimes,
to the detriment of progressive moderates
who seek to separate religion from politics.
In contrast, Abid Ullah Jan, writes "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."
A writer for the International Crisis Group
maintains that "the conception of 'political
Islam'" is a creation of Americans to explain
the Iranian Islamic Revolution and apolitical
Islam was a historical fluke of the "short-lived
era of the heyday of secular Arab nationalism
between 1945 and 1970", and it is quietist/non-political
Islam, not Islamism, that requires explanation.Another
source distinguishes Islamist from Islamic
"by the fact that the latter refers to a religion
and culture in existence over a millennium,
whereas the first is a political/religious
phenomenon linked to the great events of the
20th century".
Islamists have, at least at times, defined
themselves as "Islamiyyoun/Islamists" to differentiate
themselves from "Muslimun/Muslims".
Daniel Pipes describes Islamism as a modern
ideology that owes more to European utopian
political ideologies and "isms" than to the
traditional Islamic religion.
=== Influence ===
Few observers contest the influence of Islamism
within the Muslim world.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
political movements based on the liberal ideology
of free expression and democratic rule have
led the opposition in other parts of the world
such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and
many parts of Asia; however "the simple fact
is that political Islam currently reigns as
the most powerful ideological force across
the Muslim world today".People see the unchanging
socioeconomic condition in the Muslim world
as a major factor.
Olivier Roy believes "the socioeconomic realities
that sustained the Islamist wave are still
here and are not going to change: poverty,
uprootedness, crises in values and identities,
the decay of the educational systems, the
North-South opposition, and the problem of
immigrant integration into the host societies".The
strength of Islamism also draws from the strength
of religiosity in general in the Muslim world.
Compared to Western societies, "[w]hat is
striking about the Islamic world is that ... it
seems to have been the least penetrated by
irreligion".
Where other peoples may look to the physical
or social sciences for answers in areas which
their ancestors regarded as best left to scripture,
in the Muslim world, religion has become more
encompassing, not less, as "in the last few
decades, it has been the fundamentalists who
have increasingly represented the cutting
edge" of Muslim culture.Even before the Arab
Spring, Islamists in Egypt and other Muslim
countries had been described as "extremely
influential.
... They determine how one dresses, what one
eats.
In these areas, they are incredibly successful.
... Even if the Islamists never come to power,
they have transformed their countries."
Democratic, peaceful and political Islamists
are now dominating the spectrum of Islamist
ideology as well as the political system of
the Muslim world.
Moderate strains of Islamism have been described
as "competing in the democratic public square
in places like Turkey, Tunisia, Malaysia and
Indonesia".
== Types ==
=== Moderate Islamism ===
Moderate Islamism is a term denoting the emerging
Islamist discourses and movements which considered
deviated from the traditional Islamist discourses
of the mid-20th century.
Moderate Islamism is characterized by pragmatic
participation within the existing constitutional
and political framework, in the most cases
democratic institution.
Moderate Islamists make up the majority of
the contemporary Islamist movements.
From the philosophical perspective, their
discourses are represented by reformation
or reinterpretation of modern socio-political
institutions and values imported from the
West including democracy.
This had led to the conception of Islamic
form of such institutions, and Islamic interpretations
are often attempted within this conception.
In the example of democracy, Islamic democracy
as an Islamized form of the system has been
intellectually developed.
In Islamic democracy, the concept of shura,
the tradition of consultation which considered
as Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad, is invoked
to Islamically reinterpret and legitimatize
the institution of democracy.Performance,
goal, strategy, and outcome of moderate Islamist
movements vary considerably depending on the
country and its socio-political and historical
context.
In terms of performance, most of the Islamist
political parties are oppositions.
However, there are few examples they govern
or obtain the substantial amount of the popular
votes.
This includes National Congress of Sudan,
National Iraqi Alliance of Iraq and Justice
and Development Party (PJD) of Morocco.
Their goal also ranges widely.
The Ennahda Movement of Tunisia and Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS) of Indonesia formally
resigned their vision of implementing sharia.
In Morocco, PJD supported King Muhammad VI's
Mudawana, a "startlingly progressive family
law" which grants women the right to a divorce,
raises the minimum age for marriage to 18,
and, in the event of separation, stipulates
equal distribution of property.
To the contrary, National Congress of Sudan
has implemented the strict interpretation
of sharia with the foreign support from the
conservative states.
Movements of the former category are also
termed as Post-Islamism (see below).
Their political outcome is interdependent
with their goal and strategy, in which what
analysts call "inclusion-moderation theory"
is in effect.
Inclusion-moderation theory assumes that the
more lenient the Islamists become, the less
likely their survival will be threatened.
Similarly, the more accommodating the government
be, the less extreme Islamists become.Moderate
Islamism within the democratic institution
is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Throughout the 80s and 90s, major moderate
Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood
and the Ennahda were excluded from democratic
political participation.
Islamist movements operated within the state
framework were markedly scrutinized during
the Algerian Civil War (1991-2002) and after
the increase of terrorism in Egypt in the
90s.
Reflecting on these failures, Islamists turned
increasingly into revisionist and receptive
to democratic procedures in the 21st century.
The possibility of accommodating this new
wave of modernist Islamism has been explored
among the Western intellectuals, with the
concept such as Turkish model was proposed.
The concept was inspired by the perceived
success of Turkish Justice and Development
Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
harmonizing the Islamist principles within
the secular state framework.
Turkish model, however, has been considered
came "unstuck" after recent purge and violations
of democratic principles by the Erdogan regime.
Critics of the concept hold that Islamist
aspirations are fundamentally incompatible
with the democratic principles, thus even
moderate Islamists are totalitarian in nature.
As such, it requires strong constitutional
checks and the effort of the mainstream Islam
to detach political Islam from the public
discourses.
==== Post-Islamism ====
Post-Islamism is a term proposed by Iranian
political sociologist Asef Bayat, referring
to the Islamist movements which marked by
the critical departure from the traditional
Islamist discourses of the mid-20th century.
Bayat explained it as "a condition where,
following a phase of experimentation, the
appeal, energy, symbols and sources of legitimacy
of Islamism get exhausted, even among its
once-ardent supporters.
As such, post-Islamism is not anti-Islamic,
but rather reflects a tendency to resecularize
religion."
It originally pertained only to Iran, where
"post-Islamism is expressed in the idea of
fusion between Islam (as a personalized faith)
and individual freedom and choice; and post-Islamism
is associated with the values of democracy
and aspects of modernity".
A 2008 Lowy Institute for International Policy
paper suggests that PKS of Indonesia and AKP
of Turkey are post-Islamist.
The characterization can be applied to Malaysian
Islamic Party (PAS), and used to describe
the "ideological evolution" within the Ennahda
of Tunisia.
=== Salafi movement ===
The contemporary Salafi movement encompasses
a broad range of ultraconservative Islamist
doctrines which share the reformist mission
of Ibn Taymiyyah.
From the perspective of political Islam, the
Salafi movement can be broadly categorized
into three groups; the quietist (or the purist),
the activist (or haraki) and the jihadist
(Salafi jihadism, see below).
The quietist school advocates for societal
reform through religious education and proselytizing
rather than political activism.
The activist school, to the contrary, encourages
political participation within the constitutional
and political framework.
The jihadist school is inspired by the ideology
of Sayyid Qutb (Qutbism, see below), and rejects
the legitimacy of secular institutions and
promotes the revolution in order to pave the
way for the establishment of a new Caliphate.The
quietist Salafi movement is stemming from
the teaching of Nasiruddin Albani, who challenged
the notion of taqlid (imitation, conformity
to the legal precedent) as a blind adherence.
As such, they alarm the political participation
as potentially leading to the division of
the Muslim community.
This school is exemplified by Madkhalism which
based on the writings of Rabee al-Madkhali.
Madkhalism was originated in the 90s Saudi
Arabia, as a reaction against the rise of
the Salafi activism and the threat of Salafi
Jihadism.
It rejects any kind of opposition against
the secular governance, thus endorsed by the
authoritarian governments of Egypt and Saudi
Arabia during the 90s.
The influence of the quietist school has waned
significantly in the Middle East recently,
as the governments began incorporating Islamist
factions emanating from the popular demand.The
politically active Salafi movement, Salafi
activism or harakis, is based on the religious
belief that endorses non-violent political
activism in order to protect God's Divine
governance.
This means that politics is a field which
requires Salafi principles to be applied as
well, in the same manner with other aspects
of society and life.
Salafi activism was originated in the 50s
to 60s Saudi Arabia, where many Muslim Brothers
had taken refuge from the prosecution by the
Nasser regime.
There, Muslim Brothers' Islamism had synthesized
with Salafism, and led to the creation of
the Salafi activist trend exemplified by the
Sahwa movement in the 80s, promulgated by
Safar Al-Hawali and Salman al-Ouda.
Today, the school makes up the majority of
Salafism.
There are many active Salafist political parties
throughout the Muslim world, including Al
Nour Party of Egypt, Al Islah of Yemen and
Al Asalah of Bahrain.
==== Wahhabism ====
The antecedent of the contemporary Salafi
movement is Wahhabism, which traces back to
the 18th-century reform movement in Najd by
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
Although having different roots, Wahhabism
and Salafism are considered more or less merged
in the 60s Saudi Arabia.
In the process, Salafism had been greatly
influenced by Wahhabism, and today they share
the similar religious outlook.
Wahhabism is also described as a Saudi brand
of Salafism.
From the political perspective, Wahhabism
is marked in its teaching of bay'ah (oath
to allegiance), which requires Muslims to
present an allegiance to the ruler of the
society.
Wahhabis have traditionally given their allegiance
to the House of Saud, and this has made them
apolitical in Saudi Arabia.
However, there are small numbers of other
strains including Salafi Jihadist offshoot
which decline to present an allegiance to
the House of Saud.
Wahhabism is also characterized by its disinterest
in social justice, anticolonialism, or economic
equality, expounded upon by the mainstream
Islamists.
Historically, Wahhabism was state-sponsored
and internationally propagated by Saudi Arabia
with the help of funding from mainly Saudi
petroleum exports, leading to the "explosive
growth" of its influence (and subsequently,
the influence of Salafism) from the 70s (a
phenomenon often dubbed as Petro-Islam).
Today, both Wahhabism and Salafism exert their
influence worldwide, and they have been indirectly
contributing to the upsurge of Salafi Jihadism
as well.
=== Militant Islamism/Jihadism ===
==== Qutbism ====
Qutbism is an ideology formulated by Sayyid
Qutb, an influential figure of the Muslim
Brotherhood during the 50s and 60s, which
justifies the use of violence in order to
push the Islamist goals.
Qutbism is marked by the two distinct methodological
concepts; one is takfirism, which in the context
of Qutbism, indicates the excommunication
of fellow Muslims who are deemed equivalent
to apostate, and another is "offensive Jihad",
a concept which promotes violence in the name
of Islam against the perceived kuffar (infidels).
Based on the two concepts, Qutbism promotes
engagement against the state apparatus in
order to topple down its regime.
Fusion of Qutbism and Salafi Movement had
resulted in the development of Salafi jihadism
(see below).Qutbism is considered a product
of the extreme repression experienced by Qutb
and his fellow Muslim Brothers under the Nasser
regime, which was resulted from the 1954 Muslim
Brothers plot to assassinate Nasser.
During the repression, thousands of Muslim
Brothers were imprisoned, many of them, including
Qutb, tortured and held in concentration camps.
Under this condition, Qutb had cultivated
his Islamist ideology in his seminal work
Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones), in which
he equated the Muslims within the Nasser regime
with secularism and the West, and described
them as regression back to jahiliyyah (period
of time before the advent of Islam).
In this context, he allowed the tafkir (which
was an unusual practice before the rejuvenation
by Qutb) of said Muslims.
Although Qutb was executed before the completion
of his ideology, his idea was disseminated
and continuously expanded by the later generations,
among them Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ayman
Al-Zawahiri, who was a student of Qutb's brother
Muhammad Qutb and later became a mentor of
Osama bin Laden.
Al-Zawahiri was considered "the purity of
Qutb's character and the torment he had endured
in prison," and had played an extensive role
in the normalization of offensive Jihad within
the Qutbist discourse.
Both al-Zawahiri and bin Laden had become
the core of Jihadist movements which exponentially
developed in the backdrop of the late 20th-century
geopolitical crisis throughout the Muslim
world.
==== Salafi Jihadism ====
Salafi jihadism is a term coined by Gilles
Kepel in 2002, referring to the ideology which
actively promotes and conducts violence and
terrorism in order to pursue the establishment
of an Islamic state or a new Caliphate.
Today, the term is often simplified to Jihadism
or Jihadist movement in popular usage according
to Martin Kramer.
It is a hybrid ideology between Qutbism, Salafism,
Wahhabism and other minor Islamist strains.
Qutbism taught by scholars like Abdullah Azzam
provided the political intellectual underpinnings
with the concepts like takfirism, and Salafism
and Wahhabism provided the religious intellectual
input.
Salafi Jihadism makes up a tiny minority of
the contemporary Islamist movements.
Distinct characteristics of Salafi Jihadism
noted by Robin Wright include the formal process
of taking bay'ah (oath of allegiance) to the
leader, which is inspired by the Wahhabi teaching.
Another characteristic is its flexibility
to cut ties with the less-popular movements
when its strategically or financially convenient,
exemplified by the relations between al-Qaeda
and al-Nusra Front.
Other marked developments of Salafi Jihadism
include the concepts of "near enemy" and "far
enemy".
"Near enemy" connotes the despotic regime
occupying the Muslim society, and the term
was coined by Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag in
order to justify the assassination of Anwar
al-Sadat by the Salafi Jihadi organization
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) in 1981.
Later, the concept of "far enemy" which connotes
the West was introduced and formally declared
by al-Qaeda in 1996.Salafi Jihadism emerged
out during the 80s when the Soviet invaded
Afghanistan.
Local mujahideen had extracted financial,
logistical and military support from Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and the United States.
Later, Osama bin Laden established al-Qaeda
as a transnational Salafi Jihadi organization
in 1988 to capitalize this financial, logistical
and military network and to expand their operation.
The ideology had seen its rise during the
90s when the Muslim world experienced numerous
geopolitical crisis, notably the Algerian
Civil War (1991–2002), Bosnian War (1992–1995),
and the First Chechen War (1994–1996).
Within these conflicts, political Islam often
acted as a mobilizing factor for the local
belligerents, who demanded financial, logistical
and military support from al-Qaeda, in the
exchange for active proliferation of the ideology.
After the 1998 bombings of US embassies, September
11 attacks (2001), the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), Salafi
Jihadism had seen its momentum.
However, it got devastated by the US counterterrorism
operations, culminated in bin Laden's death
in 2011.
After the Arab Spring (2011) and subsequent
Syrian Civil War (2011–present), the remnants
of al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq had restored
their capacity, which rapidly developed into
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
spreading its influence throughout the conflict
zones of MENA region and the globe.
== History ==
=== Predecessor movements ===
Some Islamic revivalist movements and leaders
pre-dating Islamism include:
Ahmad Sirhindi (~1564–1624) was part of
a reassertion of orthodoxy within Islamic
Mysticism (Taṣawwuf) and was known to his
followers as the 'renovator of the second
millennium'.
It has been said of Sirhindi that he 'gave
to Indian Islam the rigid and conservative
stamp it bears today.'
Ibn Taymiyyah, a Syrian Islamic jurist during
the 13th and 14th centuries who is often quoted
by contemporary Islamists.
Ibn Taymiyya argued against the shirking of
Sharia law, was against practices such as
the celebration of Muhammad's birthday, and
"he believed that those who ask assistance
from the grave of the Prophet or saints, are
mushrikin (polytheists), someone who is engaged
in shirk."
Shah Waliullah of India and Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab
of Arabia were contemporaries who met each
other while studying in Mecca.
Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab advocated doing
away with the later accretions like grave
worship and getting back to the letter and
the spirit of Islam as preached and practiced
by Muhammad.
He went on to found Wahhabism.
Shah Waliullah was a forerunner of reformist
Islamists like Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal
and Muhammad Asad in his belief that there
was "a constant need for new ijtihad as the
Muslim community progressed and expanded and
new generations had to cope with new problems"
and his interest in the social and economic
problems of the poor.
Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi was a disciple and successor
of Shah Waliullah's son who emphasized the
'purification' of Islam from un-Islamic beliefs
and practices.
He anticipated modern militant Islamists by
leading an extremist, jihadist movement and
attempted to create an Islamic state based
on the enforcement of Islamic law.
While he battled Sikh fundamentalist rule
in Muslim-majority North-Western India, his
followers fought against British colonialism
after his death and allied themselves with
the Indian Mutiny.
After the failure of the Indian Mutiny, some
of Shah Waliullah's followers turned to more
peaceful methods for preserving India's Islamic
heritage and founded the Dar al-Ulum seminary
in 1867 in the town of Deoband.
From the school developed the Deobandi movement
which became the largest philosophical movement
of traditional Islamic thought on the subcontinent
and led to the establishment of thousands
of madrasahs throughout modern-day India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh.
=== Early history ===
The end of the 19th century saw the dismemberment
of most of the Muslim Ottoman Empire by non-Muslim
European colonial powers.
The empire spent massive sums on Western civilian
and military technology to try to modernize
and compete with the encroaching European
powers, and in the process went deep into
debt to these powers.
In this context, the publications of Jamal
ad-din al-Afghani (1837–97), Muhammad Abduh
(1849–1905) and Rashid Rida (1865–1935)
preached Islamic alternatives to the political,
economic, and cultural decline of the empire.
Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida formed the
beginning of the Islamist movement, as well
as the reformist Islamist movement.
Their ideas included the creation of a truly
Islamic society under sharia law, and the
rejection of taqlid, the blind imitation of
earlier authorities, which they believed deviated
from the true messages of Islam.
Unlike some later Islamists, Early Salafiyya
strongly emphasized the restoration of the
Caliphate.
==== Muhammad Iqbal ====
Muhammad Iqbal was a philosopher, poet and
politician in British India who is widely
regarded as having inspired the Islamic Nationalism
and Pakistan Movement in British India.
Iqbal is admired as a prominent classical
poet by Pakistani, Iranian, Indian and other
international scholars of literature.
Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet,
he is also a highly acclaimed "Islamic philosophical
thinker of modern times".While studying law
and philosophy in England and Germany, Iqbal
became a member of the London branch of the
All India Muslim League.
He came back to Lahore in 1908.
While dividing his time between law practice
and philosophical poetry, Iqbal had remained
active in the Muslim League.
He did not support Indian involvement in World
War I and remained in close touch with Muslim
political leaders such as Muhammad Ali Johar
and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
He was a critic of the mainstream Indian nationalist
and secularist Indian National Congress.
Iqbal's seven English lectures were published
by Oxford University press in 1934 in a book
titled The Reconstruction of Religious Thought
in Islam.
These lectures dwell on the role of Islam
as a religion as well as a political and legal
philosophy in the modern age.Iqbal expressed
fears that not only would secularism and secular
nationalism weaken the spiritual foundations
of Islam and Muslim society, but that India's
Hindu-majority population would crowd out
Muslim heritage, culture and political influence.
In his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, Palestine
and Syria, he promoted ideas of greater Islamic
political co-operation and unity, calling
for the shedding of nationalist differences.
Sir Mummad Iqbal was elected president of
the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in
Allahabad as well as for the session in Lahore
in 1932.
In his Allahabad Address on 29 December 1930,
Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent
state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern
India.
This address later inspired the Pakistan movement.
The thoughts and vision of Iqbal later influenced
many reformist Islamists, e.g., Muhammad Asad,
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and Ali Shariati.
==== Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi ====
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi was 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 and most importantly about Islam and
Islamic law.
Maududi founded the Jamaat-e-Islami party
in 1941 and remained its leader until 1972.
However, Maududi had much more impact through
his writing than through his political organising.
His extremely influential books (translated
into many languages) placed Islam in a modern
context, and influenced not only conservative
ulema but liberal modernizer Islamists such
as al-Faruqi, whose "Islamization of Knowledge"
carried forward some of Maududi's key principles.
Maududi believed that Islam was all-encompassing:
"Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for
it obeys God by submission to His laws...
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."Maududi also believed that Muslim
society could not be Islamic without Sharia,
and Islam required the establishment of an
Islamic state.
This state should be a "theo-democracy," based
on the principles of: tawhid (unity of God),
risala (prophethood) and khilafa (caliphate).
Although Maududi talked about Islamic revolution,
by "revolution" he meant not the violence
or populist policies of the Iranian Revolution,
but the gradual changing the hearts and minds
of individuals from the top of society downward
through an educational process or da'wah.
==== 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,"
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 imperialist influence in the Muslim world.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.
The Brotherhood has suffered 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.
Despite periodic repression, the Brotherhood
has become one of the most influential movements
in the Islamic world, particularly in the
Arab world.
For many years it was
described as "semi-legal" and was the only
opposition group in Egypt able to field candidates
during elections.
In the Egyptian parliamentary election, 2011–2012,
the political parties identified as "Islamist"
(the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party,
Salafi Al-Nour Party and liberal Islamist
Al-Wasat Party) won 75% of the total seats.
Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist of Muslim Brotherhood,
was the first democratically elected president
of Egypt.
He was deposed during the 2013 Egyptian coup
d'état.
==== Sayyid Qutb ====
Maududi's political ideas influenced Sayyid
Qutb a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood
movement, and one of the key philosophers
of Islamism and highly influential thinkers
of Islamic universalism.
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).
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 communism,
nationalism, or secular democracy.
Qutb preached that Muslims must engage in
a two-pronged attack of converting individuals
through preaching Islam peacefully and also
waging what he called militant jihad so as
to forcibly eliminate the "power structures"
of Jahiliyya—not only from the Islamic homeland
but from the face of the earth.
Qutb was both a member of the brotherhood
and enormously influential in the Muslim world
at large.
Qutb is considered by some (Fawaz A. Gerges)
to be "the founding father and leading theoretician"
of modern jihadists, such as Osama bin Laden.
However, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
in Europe has not embraced his vision of undemocratic
Islamic state and armed jihad, something for
which they have been denounced by radical
Islamists.
=== Ascendance on international politics ===
==== Six-Day War (1967) ====
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 blamed on the
secular Arab nationalism of the ruling regimes.
A steep and steady decline in the popularity
and credibility of secular, socialist and
nationalist politics ensued.
Ba'athism, Arab socialism, and Arab nationalism
suffered, and different democratic and anti-democratic
Islamist movements inspired by Maududi and
Sayyid Qutb gained ground.
==== Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) ====
The 
first modern "Islamist state" (with the possible
exception of Zia's Pakistan) was established
among the Shia of Iran.
In a major shock to the rest of the world,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led the Iranian
Revolution of 1979 in order to overthrow the
oil-rich, well-armed, Westernized and pro-American
secular monarchy ruled by Shah Muhammad Reza
Pahlavi.
The views of Ali Shariati, the ideologue of
the Iranian Revolution, resembled those of
Mohammad Iqbal, the ideological father of
the State of Pakistan, but Khomeini's beliefs
are perceived to be placed somewhere between
the beliefs of Shia Islam and the beliefs
of Sunni Islamic thinkers like Mawdudi and
Qutb.
He believed that complete imitation of the
Prophet Mohammad and his successors such as
Ali for the restoration of Sharia law was
essential to Islam, that many secular, Westernizing
Muslims were actually agents of the West and
therefore serving Western interests, and that
acts such as the "plundering" of Muslim lands
was part of a long-term conspiracy against
Islam by Western governments.His views differed
from those of Sunni scholars in:
As a Shia, Khomeini looked to Ali ibn Abī
Tālib and Husayn ibn Ali Imam, but not Caliphs
Abu Bakr, Omar or Uthman.
Khomeini talked not about restoring the Caliphate
or Sunni Islamic democracy, but about establishing
a state where the guardianship of the democratic
or the dictatorial political system was performed
by Shia jurists (ulama) as the successors
of Shia Imams until the Mahdi returns from
occultation.
His concept of velayat-e-faqih ("guardianship
of the [Islamic] jurist"), held that the leading
Shia Muslim cleric in society—which Khomeini's
mass of followers believed and chose to be
himself—should serve as the supervisor of
the state in order to protect or "guard" Islam
and Sharia law from "innovation" and "anti-Islamic
laws" passed by dictators or democratic parliaments.The
revolution was influenced by Marxism through
Islamist thought and also by writings that
sought either to counter Marxism (Muhammad
Baqir al-Sadr's work) or to integrate socialism
and Islamism (Ali Shariati's work).
A strong wing of the revolutionary leadership
was made up of leftists or "radical populists",
such as Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur.While initial
enthusiasm for the Iranian revolution in the
Muslim world was intense, it has waned as
critics hold and campaign that "purges, executions,
and atrocities tarnished its image".The Islamic
Republic has also maintained its hold on power
in Iran in spite of US economic sanctions,
and has created or assisted like-minded Shia
terrorist groups in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan
(SCIRI) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) (two Muslim
countries that also have large Shiite populations).
During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, the
Iranian government enjoyed something of a
resurgence in popularity amongst the predominantly
Sunni "Arab street," due to its support for
Hezbollah and to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
vehement opposition to the United States and
his call that Israel shall vanish.
==== Grand Mosque seizure (1979) ====
The strength of the Islamist movement was
manifest in an event which might have seemed
sure to turn Muslim public opinion against
fundamentalism, but did just the opposite.
In 1979 the Grand Mosque in Mecca Saudi Arabia
was seized by an armed fundamentalist group
and held for over a week.
Scores were killed, including many pilgrim
bystanders in a gross violation of one of
the most holy sites in Islam (and one where
arms and violence are strictly forbidden).Instead
of prompting a backlash against the movement
from which the attackers originated, however,
Saudi Arabia, already very conservative, responded
by shoring up its fundamentalist credentials
with even more Islamic restrictions.
Crackdowns followed on everything from shopkeepers
who did not close for prayer and newspapers
that published pictures of women, to the selling
of dolls, teddy bears (images of animate objects
are considered haraam), and dog food (dogs
are considered unclean).In other Muslim countries,
blame for and wrath against the seizure was
directed not against fundamentalists, but
against Islamic fundamentalism's foremost
geopolitical enemy—the United States.
Ayatollah Khomeini sparked attacks on American
embassies when he announced:
It is not beyond guessing that this is the
work of criminal American imperialism and
international Zionism despite the fact that
the object of the fundamentalists' revolt
was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, America's
major ally in the region.
Anti-American demonstrations followed in the
Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, India, the
UAE, Pakistan, and Kuwait.
The US Embassy in Libya was burned by protesters
chanting pro-Khomeini slogans and the embassy
in Islamabad, Pakistan was burned to the ground.
==== Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989)
====
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 anti-religious
superpower, galvanized thousands of Muslims
around the world to send aid and sometimes
to go themselves to fight for their faith.
Leading this pan-Islamic effort was Palestinian
sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.
While the military effectiveness of these
"Afghan Arabs" was marginal, an estimated
16,000 to 35,000 Muslim volunteers came from
around the world to fight in Afghanistan.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.
The collapse of the Soviet Union itself, in
1991, was seen by many Islamists, including
Bin Laden, as the defeat of a superpower at
the hands of Islam.
Concerning the $6 billion in aid given by
the US and Pakistan's military training and
intelligence support to the mujahideen, bin
Laden wrote: "[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.
==== Persian Gulf War (1990–1991) ====
Another factor in the early 1990s that worked
to radicalize the Islamist movement was the
Gulf War, which brought several hundred thousand
US and allied non-Muslim military personnel
to Saudi Arabian soil to put an end to Saddam
Hussein's occupation of Kuwait.
Prior to 1990 Saudi Arabia played an important
role in restraining the many Islamist groups
that received its aid.
But when Saddam, secularist and Ba'athist
dictator of neighboring Iraq, attacked Saudi
Arabia (his enemy in the war), western troops
came to protect the Saudi monarchy.
Islamists accused the Saudi regime of being
a puppet of the west.
These attacks resonated with conservative
Muslims and the problem did not go away with
Saddam's defeat either, since American troops
remained stationed in the kingdom, and a de
facto cooperation with the Palestinian-Israeli
peace process developed.
Saudi Arabia attempted to compensate for its
loss of prestige among these groups by repressing
those domestic Islamists who attacked it (bin
Laden being a prime example), and increasing
aid to Islamic groups (Islamist madrassas
around the world and even aiding some violent
Islamist groups) that did not, but its pre-war
influence on behalf of moderation was greatly
reduced.
One result of this was a campaign of attacks
on government officials and tourists in Egypt,
a bloody civil war in Algeria and Osama bin
Laden's terror attacks climaxing in the 9/11
attack.
=== Rise of Islamism by country ===
==== 
Afghanistan (Taliban) ====
In Afghanistan, the mujahideen's victory against
the Soviet Union in the 1980s did not lead
to justice and prosperity, due to a vicious
and destructive civil war between political
and tribal warlords, making Afghanistan one
of the poorest countries on earth.
In 1992, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
ruled by communist forces collapsed, and democratic
Islamist elements of mujahdeen founded the
Islamic State of Afghanistan.
In 1996, a more conservative and anti-democratic
Islamist movement known as the Taliban rose
to power, defeated most of the warlords and
took over roughly 80% of Afghanistan.
The Taliban were spawned by the thousands
of madrasahs the Deobandi movement established
for impoverished Afghan refugees and supported
by governmental and religious groups in neighboring
Pakistan.
The Taliban differed from other Islamist movements
to the point where they might be more properly
described as Islamic fundamentalist or neofundamentalist,
interested in spreading "an idealized and
systematized version of conservative tribal
village customs" under the label of Sharia
to an entire country.
Their ideology was also described as being
influenced by Wahhabism, and the extremist
jihadism of their guest Osama bin Laden.The
Taliban considered "politics" to be against
Sharia and thus did not hold elections.
They were led by Mullah Mohammed 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.
Taliban were overwhelmingly Pashtun and were
accused of not sharing power with the approximately
60% of Afghans who belonged to other ethnic
groups.
(see: Taliban#Ideology)The Taliban's hosting
of Osama bin Laden led to an American-organized
attack which drove them from power following
the 9/11 attacks.
Taliban are still very much alive and fighting
a vigorous insurgency with suicide bombings
and armed attacks being launched against NATO
and Afghan government targets.
==== 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
Islamist young preacher, Ali Belhadj.
Taking advantage of economic failure and unpopular
social liberalization and secularization by
the ruling leftist-nationalist FLN government,
it used its preaching to advocate the establishment
of a legal system following Sharia law, economic
liberalization and development program, 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 won sweeping victories in local elections
and it was going to win national elections
in 1991 when voting was canceled by a military
coup d'état.
As Islamists took up arms to overthrow the
government, the FIS's leaders were arrested
and it became overshadowed by Islamist guerrilla
groups, particularly the Islamic Salvation
Army, MIA and Armed Islamic Group (or GIA).
A bloody and devastating civil war ensued
in which between 150,000 and 200,000 people
were killed over the next decade.
The civil war was not a victory for Islamists.
By 2002 the main guerrilla groups had either
been destroyed or had surrendered.
The popularity of Islamist parties has declined
to the point that "the Islamist candidate,
Abdallah Jaballah, came a distant third with
5% of the vote" in the 2004 presidential election.
==== Bangladesh ====
Currently, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) is the second largest party in the Parliament
of Bangladesh and the main opposition party,
followed by Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, who
supports the implementation of Sharia law
throughout Bangladesh.
The BNP promotes a center-right policy combining
elements of conservatism, Islamism, nationalism
and anti-communism.
Since 2000, it has been allied with the Islamic
parties Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and Islami
Oikya Jote.
Some of their leaders and supporters, including
former ministers and MPs, have been hanged
for demanding an Islamic legal system and
speaking against the ruling Bangladesh Awami
League.
==== Belgium ====
In the 2012, the party named Islam had four
candidates and they were elected in Moelenbeek
and Anderlecht.
In 2018, the candidated in 28 municipalities.
Its goals are an Islamic state.
Its policies include men and women to be separated
on public transport, schools must be forced
to offer halal meatand anyone must be able
to wear a headscarf anywhere.
==== Egypt (Jihadism) ====
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 inspired by the
final writings of Qutb in the mid-1960s (particularly
the manifesto Milestones, a.k.a. Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq)
did, however, develop and they pursued a more
radical direction.
By the 1970s, the Brotherhood had renounced
violence as a means of achieving its goals.
The path of violence and military struggle
was then taken up by the Egyptian Islamic
Jihad organization responsible for the assassination
of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
Unlike earlier anti-colonial movements the
extremist group directed its attacks against
what it believed were "apostate" leaders of
Muslim states, leaders who held secular leanings
or who had introduced or promoted Western/foreign
ideas and practices into Islamic societies.
Its 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...
Another of the Egyptian groups which employed
violence in their struggle for Islamic order
was al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group).
Victims of their campaign against the Egyptian
state in the 1990s included the head of the
counter-terrorism police (Major General Raouf
Khayrat), a parliamentary speaker (Rifaat
al-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.
Other lesser known groups include the Islamic
Liberation Party, Salvation from Hell and
Takfir wal-Hijra, and these groups have variously
been involved in activities such as attempted
assassinations of political figures, arson
of video shops and attempted takeovers of
government buildings.
==== Gaza (Hamas) ====
Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization
that governs the Gaza Strip where it has moved
to establish sharia law in matters such as
separation of the genders, using the lash
for punishment, and Islamic dress code.
Hamas also has a military resistance wing,
the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.For some
decades prior to the First Palestine Intifada
in 1987, the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine
took a "quiescent" stance towards Israel,
focusing on preaching, education and social
services, and benefiting from Israel's "indulgence"
to build up a network of mosques and charitable
organizations.
As the First Intifada gathered momentum and
Palestinian shopkeepers closed their shops
in support of the uprising, the Brotherhood
announced the formation of HAMAS ("zeal"),
devoted to Jihad against Israel.
Rather than being more moderate than the PLO,
the 1988 Hamas charter took a more uncompromising
stand, calling for the destruction of Israel
and the establishment of an Islamic state
in Palestine.
It was soon competing with and then overtaking
the PLO for control of the intifada.
The Brotherhood's base of devout middle class
found common cause with the impoverished youth
of the intifada in their cultural conservatism
and antipathy for activities of the secular
middle class such as drinking alcohol and
going about without hijab.Hamas has continued
to be a major player in Palestine.
From 2000 to 2007 it killed 542 people in
140 suicide bombing or "martyrdom operations".
In the January 2006 legislative election—its
first foray into the political process—it
won the majority of the seats, and in 2007
it drove the PLO out of Gaza.
Hamas has been praised by Muslims for driving
Israel out of the Gaza Strip, but criticized
for failure to achieve its demands in the
2008–09 and 2014 Gaza Wars despite heavy
destruction and significant loss of life.
==== Pakistan ====
Early in the history of the state of Pakistan
(12 March 1949), a parliamentary resolution
(the Objectives Resolution) was adopted in
accordance with the vision of founding fathers
of Pakistan (Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan).
proclaiming:
Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He
has delegated it to the State of Pakistan
through its people for being exercised within
the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.
The State shall exercise its powers and authority
through the elected representatives of the
people.
The principles of democracy, freedom, equality,
tolerance and social justice, as enunciated
by Islam, shall be fully observed.
Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives
in the individual and collective spheres in
accordance with the teachings of Islam as
set out in the Quran and Sunnah.
Provision shall be made for the religious
minorities to freely profess and practice
their religions and develop their cultures.
This resolution later became a key source
of inspiration for writers of the Constitution
of Pakistan, and is included in the constitution
as preamble.
In July 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew
Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's regime
in Pakistan.
Ali Bhutto, a leftist in democratic competition
with Islamists, had announced banning alcohol
and nightclubs within six months, shortly
before he was overthrown.
Zia-ul-Haq was much more committed to Islamism,
and "Islamization" or implementation of Islamic
law, became a cornerstone of his eleven-year
military dictatorship and Islamism became
his "official state ideology".
Zia ul Haq was an admirer of Mawdudi and Mawdudi's
party Jamaat-e-Islami became the "regime's
ideological and political arm".
In Pakistan this Islamization from above was
"probably" more complete "than under any other
regime except those in Iran and Sudan," but
Zia-ul-Haq was also criticized by many Islamists
for imposing "symbols" rather than substance,
and using Islamization to legitimize his means
of seizing power.
Unlike neighboring Iran, Zia-ul-Haq's policies
were intended to "avoid revolutionary excess",
and not to strain relations with his American
and Persian Gulf state allies.
Zia-ul-Haq was killed in 1988 but Islamization
remains an important element in Pakistani
society.
==== 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.
Turabi built a powerful economic base with
money from foreign Islamist banking systems,
especially those linked with Saudi Arabia.
He also recruited and built a cadre of influential
loyalists by placing sympathetic students
in the university and military academy while
serving as minister of education.After al-Nimeiry
was overthrown in 1985 the party did poorly
in national elections, but in 1989 it was
able to overthrow the elected post-al-Nimeiry
government with the help of the military.
Turabi was noted for proclaiming his support
for the democratic process and a liberal government
before coming to power, but strict application
of sharia law, torture and mass imprisonment
of the opposition, and an intensification
of the long-running war in southern Sudan,
once in power.
The NIF regime also harbored Osama bin Laden
for a time (before 9/11), and worked to unify
Islamist opposition to the American attack
on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
After Sudanese intelligence services were
implicated in an assassination attempt on
the President of Egypt, UN economic sanctions
were imposed on Sudan, a poor country, and
Turabi fell from favor.
He was imprisoned for a time in 2004–05.
Some of the NIF policies, such as the war
with the non-Muslim south, have been reversed,
though the National Islamic Front still holds
considerable power in the government of Omar
al-Bashir and National Congress Party, another
Islamist party in country.
==== Turkey ====
Turkey had a number of Islamist parties, often
changing names as they were banned by the
constitutional court for anti-secular activities.
Necmettin Erbakan (1926-2011) was the leader
of several of the parties, the National Order
Party (Milli Nizam Partisi, 1970–1971),
the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet
Partisi, 1972–1981), and the Welfare Party
(Refah Partisi, 1983-1998); he also became
a member of the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi,
2003–2011).
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which
has dominated Turkish politics since 2002,
is sometimes described as Islamist, but rejects
such classification.
=== Contemporary era ===
==== By country ====
Various Islamist political groups are dominant
forces in the political systems of Afghanistan,
Iran and Iraq.
The Green Algeria Alliance is an Islamist
coalition of political parties, created for
the legislative election of 2012 in Algeria.
It includes the Movement of Society for Peace
(Hamas), Islamic Renaissance Movement (Ennahda)
and the Movement for National Reform (Islah).
The alliance is led by Bouguerra Soltani of
Hamas.
However, the incumbent coalition, comprising
the FLN of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
and the RND of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia,
held on to power after winning a majority
of seats, and the Islamist parties of the
Green Algeria Alliance lost seats in the legislative
election of 2012.
Shia Islamist Al Wefaq, Salafi Islamist Al
Asalah and Sunni Islamist Al-Menbar Islamic
Society are dominant democratic forces in
Bahrain.
In Indonesia, Prosperous Justice Party is
the major Islamist political party in the
country's democratic process.
Islamic Action Front is Jordan's Islamist
political party and largest democratic political
force in the country.
The IAF's survival in Jordan is primarily
due to its flexibility and less radical approach
to politics.
Hadas or "Islamic Constitutional Movement"
is Kuwait's Sunni Islamist party.
Islamic Group (Lebanon) is a Sunni Islamist
political party in Lebanon.
Hezbollah is a Shia Islamist political party
in Lebanon.
The Justice and Construction Party is the
Muslim Brotherhood's political arm in Libya
and the second largest political force in
the country.
The National Forces Alliance, the largest
political group in country, doesn't believe
the country should be run entirely by Sharia
law or secular]] law, but does hold that Sharia
should be "the main inspiration for legislation."
Party leader Jibril has said the NFA is a
moderate Islamic moveme that recognises the
importance of Islam in political life and
favours Sharia as the basis of the law.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party is a major
opposition party in Malaysia which espouses
Islamism.
The Justice and Development Party (Morocco)
is the ruling party in Morocco since 29 November
2011, advocating Islamism and Islamic democracy.
The Muslim Brotherhood of Syria is a Sunni
Islamist force in Syria and very loosely affiliated
to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
It has also been called the "dominant group"
or "dominant force" in the Arab Spring uprising
in Syria.
The group's stated political positions are
moderate and in its most recent April 2012
manifesto it "pledges to respect individual
rights", to promote pluralism and democracy.
The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan
is Tajikistan's Islamist party and main opposition
and democratic force in the country.
The Ennahda Movement, also known as Renaissance
Party or simply Ennahda, is a moderate Islamist
political party in Tunisia.
On 1 March 2011, after the government of Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali collapsed in the wake of
the 2011 Tunisian revolution, Tunisia's interim
government granted the group permission to
form a political party.
Since then it has become the biggest and most
well-organized party in Tunisia, so far outdistancing
its more secular competitors.
In the Tunisian Constituent Assembly election
of 2011, the first honest election in the
country's history with a turnout of 51% of
all eligible voters, the party won 37% of
the popular vote and 89 (41%) of the 217 assembly
seats, far more than any other party.
Eastern Africa has become a hotbed of violent
Islamic extremism since the late 1990s, one
of the relevant movements being al-Shabaab,
active in Somalia and Kenya, which emerged
in response to the 2006–09 Ethiopian intervention
in Somalia.
West Africa has seen the rise of influential
Islamic extremist organizations, notably Boko
Haram in Northern Nigeria and al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb in Mali.
==== Hizb ut-Tahrir ====
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an influential international
Islamist movement, founded in 1953 by an Islamic
Qadi (judge) Taqiuddin al-Nabhani.
HT is unique from most other Islamist movements
in that the party focuses not on implementation
of Sharia on local level or on providing social
services, but on unifying 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 186-article constitution for its proposed
caliphate-state specifying specific policies
such as sharia law, a "unitary ruling system"
headed by a caliph elected by Muslims, an
economy based on the gold standard, public
ownership of utilities, public transport,
and energy resources, death for apostates
and Arabic as the "sole language of the State."In
its focus on the Caliphate, the party takes
a different view of Muslim history than some
other Islamists such as Muhammad Qutb.
HT sees Islam's pivotal turning point as occurring
not with the death of Ali, or one of the other
four rightly guided Caliphs in the 7th century,
but with the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate
in 1924.
This is believed to have ended the true Islamic
system, something for which it blames "the
disbelieving (Kafir) colonial powers" working
through Turkish modernist Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.HT
does not engage in armed jihad or work for
a democratic system, but works to take power
through "ideological struggle" to change Muslim
public opinion, and in particular through
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."
HT 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 has been described
by two observers (Robert S. Leiken and Steven
Brooke) to have outpaced the Muslim Brotherhood
in both membership and radicalism.
==== Post-Arab Spring (2011-present) ====
One observer (Quinn Mecham) notes four trends
in Islamism rising from the Arab Spring of
2010-11:
The repression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Primarily by the Egyptian military and courts
following the forcible removal of Morsi from
office in 2013; but also by Saudi Arabia and
a number of Gulf countries (not Qatar).
Rise of Islamist "state-building" where "state
failure" has taken place—most prominently
in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.
Islamists have found it easier than competing
non-Islamists trying to fill the void of state
failure, by securing external funding, weaponry
and fighters—"many of which have come from
abroad and have rallied around a pan-Islamic
identity".
The norms of governance in these Islamist
areas are militia-based, and the population
submit to their authority out of fear, loyalty,
other reasons, or some combination.
The "most expansive" of these new "models"
is the Islamic State.
Increasing sectarianism at least in part from
Proxy Wars.
Fighters are proxies primarily for Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf states and for Iran.
Islamists are fighting Islamists across sectarian
lines in Lebanon (Sunni militants targeting
Hezbollah positions), Yemen (between mainstream
Sunni Islamists of Islah and the Shiite Zaydi
Houthi movement), in Iraq (Islamic State and
Iraqi Shiite militias)
Increased caution and political learning in
countries such as Algeria and Jordan where
Islamist have chosen not to lead a major challenge
against their governments.
In Yemen Islah "has sought to frame its ideology
in a way that will avoid charges of militancy".Another
observer (Tarek Osman) notes with concern
that
the failure to take power during the Arab
Spring has led not to "soul-searching" in
major Islamist groups about what went wrong,
but instead to "antagonism and fiery anger"
and a thirst for revenge.
Partisans of political Islam (although this
does not include some prominent leaders such
as Rached Ghannouchi but is particularly true
in Egypt) see themselves as victims of an
injustice whose perpetrators are not just
"individual conspirators but entire social
groups".
==== Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
====
"The Islamic State", formerly known as the
"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" and
before that as the "Islamic State of Iraq",
(also called by the Arabic acronym Daesh),
is a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant
group which is led by and mainly composed
of Sunni Arabs from Syria and Iraq.
In 2014, the group proclaimed itself a caliphate,
with religious, political and military authority
over all Muslims worldwide.
As of March 2015, it had control over territory
occupied by ten million people in Syria and
Iraq, and has nominal control over small areas
of Libya, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.
(While a self-described state, it lacks international
recognition.)
ISIL also operates or has affiliates in other
parts of the world, including North Africa
and South AsiaOriginating as the Jama'at al-Tawhid
wal-Jihad in 1999, ISIL pledged allegiance
to al-Qaeda in 2004, participated in the Iraqi
insurgency that followed the invasion of Iraq
by Western coalition forces in 2003, joined
the fight in the Syrian Civil War beginning
in 2011, and was expelled from al-Qaeda in
early 2014, (which complained of its failure
to consult and "notorious intransigence").
ISIL gained prominence after it drove Iraqi
government forces out of key cities in western
Iraq in an offensive in June that same year.
The group is adept at social media, posting
Internet videos of beheadings of soldiers,
civilians, journalists and aid workers, and
is known for its destruction of cultural heritage
sites.
The United Nations (UN) has held ISIL responsible
for human rights abuses and war crimes, and
Amnesty International has reported ethnic
cleansing by the group on a "historic scale".
The group has been designated a terrorist
organisation by the UN, the European Union
(EU) and member states, the United States,
India, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria
and other countries.
== Sources of strength ==
=== Charitable work ===
Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood,
"are well known for providing shelters, educational
assistance, free or low cost medical clinics,
housing assistance to students from out of
town, student advisory groups, facilitation
of inexpensive mass marriage ceremonies to
avoid prohibitively costly dowry demands,
legal assistance, sports facilities, and women's
groups."
All this compares very favourably against
incompetent, inefficient, or neglectful governments
whose commitment to social justice is limited
to rhetoric.
=== Dissatisfaction with the status quo ===
The Arab world—the original heart of the
Muslim world—has been afflicted with economic
stagnation.
For example, it has been estimated that in
the mid 1990s the exports of Finland, a country
of five million, exceeded those of the entire
Arab world of 260 million, excluding oil revenue.
This economic stagnation is argued to have
commenced with the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate
in 1924, with trade networks being disrupted
and societies torn apart with the creation
of new nation states; prior to this, the Middle
East had a diverse and growing economy and
more general prosperity.Strong population
growth combined with economic stagnation has
created urban agglomerations in Cairo, Istanbul,
Tehran, Karachi, Dhaka, and Jakarta each with
well over 12 million citizens, millions of
them young and unemployed or underemployed.
Such a demographic, alienated from the westernized
ways of the urban elite, but uprooted from
the comforts and more passive traditions of
the villages they came from, is understandably
favourably disposed to an Islamic system promising
a better world—an ideology providing an
"emotionally familiar basis for group identity,
solidarity, and exclusion; an acceptable basis
for legitimacy and authority; an immediately
intelligible formulation of principles for
both a critique of the present and a program
for the future."
=== 
Identity politics ===
Islamism can also be described as part of
identity politics, specifically the religiously-oriented
nationalism that emerged in the Third World
in the 1970s: "resurgent Hinduism in India,
Religious Zionism in Israel, militant Buddhism
in Sri Lanka, resurgent Sikh nationalism in
the Punjab, 'Liberation Theology' of Catholicism
in Latin America, and of course, Islamism
in the Muslim world."
These all challenged Westernized ruling elites
on behalf of 'authenticity' and tradition.
=== Islamic revival ===
The modern revival of Islamic devotion and
the attraction to things Islamic can be traced
to several events.
By the end of World War I, most Muslim states
were seen to be dominated by the Christian-leaning
Western states.
It is argued that either the claims of Islam
were false and the Christian or post-Christian
West had finally come up with another system
that was superior, or Islam had failed through
not being true to itself.
Thus, a redoubling of faith and devotion by
Muslims was called for to reverse this tide.The
connection between the lack of an Islamic
spirit and the lack of victory was underscored
by the disastrous defeat of Arab nationalist-led
armies fighting under the slogan "Land, Sea
and Air" in the 1967 Six-Day War, compared
to the (perceived) near-victory of the Yom
Kippur War six years later.
In that war the military's slogan was "God
is Great".Along with the Yom Kippur War came
the Arab oil embargo where the (Muslim) Persian
Gulf oil-producing states' dramatic decision
to cut back on production and quadruple the
price of oil, made the terms oil, Arabs and
Islam synonymous—with power—in the world,
and especially in the Muslim world's public
imagination.
Many Muslims believe as Saudi Prince Saud
al Faisal did that the hundreds of billions
of dollars in wealth obtained from the Persian
Gulf's huge oil deposits were nothing less
than a gift from God to the Islamic faithful.As
the Islamic revival gained momentum, governments
such as Egypt's, which had previously repressed
(and was still continuing to repress) Islamists,
joined the bandwagon.
They banned alcohol and flooded the airwaves
with religious programming, giving the movement
even more exposure.
=== State-sponsorship ===
==== Saudi Arabia ====
Starting in the mid-1970s the Islamic resurgence
was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi
Arabian oil exports.
The tens of billions of dollars in "petro-Islam"
largesse obtained from the recently heightened
price of oil funded an estimated "90% of the
expenses of the entire faith."Throughout the
Muslim world, religious institutions for people
both young and old, from children's maddrassas
to high-level scholarships received Saudi
funding,
"books, scholarships, fellowships, and mosques"
(for example, "more than 1500 mosques were
built and paid for with money obtained from
public Saudi funds over the last 50 years"),
along with training in the Kingdom for the
preachers and teachers who went on to teach
and work at these universities, schools, mosques,
etc.The funding was also used to reward journalists
and academics who followed the Saudis' strict
interpretation of Islam; and satellite campuses
were built around Egypt for Al Azhar, the
world's oldest and most influential Islamic
university.The interpretation of Islam promoted
by this funding was the strict, conservative
Saudi-based Wahhabism or Salafism.
In its harshest form it preached that Muslims
should not only "always oppose" infidels "in
every way," but "hate them for their religion
... for Allah's sake," that democracy "is
responsible for all the horrible wars of the
20th century," that Shia and other non-Wahhabi
Muslims were infidels, etc.
While this effort has by no means converted
all, or even most Muslims to the Wahhabist
interpretation of Islam, it has done much
to overwhelm more moderate local interpretations,
and has set the Saudi-interpretation of Islam
as the "gold standard" of religion in minds
of some or many Muslims.
==== Qatar ====
Qatar stands out among state sponsors of Islamism
as well.
Over the past two decades, the country has
exerted a semi-formal patronage for the international
movement of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Former Qatari Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani
in particular has distinguished himself as
one of the most dedicated supporter of the
Muslim Brotherhood and of Islamist movements
in general both in the Middle Eastern region
and across the globe.In 1999 the Muslim Brotherhood
was disbanded in Qatar.
The country's longstanding support for the
group has been often explained as determined
by a strategic calculus that limited the role
played by religion in Qatar.
As the director of the Center for International
and Regional Studies at the Doha-based branch
of Georgetown University, Mehran Kamrava,
posited, Qatar presenting itself as the state
patron of the Muslim Brotherhood has caused
religion in Qatar to not "play any role in
articulating or forming oppositional sentiments."Qatar's
patronage has been primarily expressed through
the ruling family's endorsement of Muslim
Brotherhood's most representative figures,
especially Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Qaradawi is a prominent, yet controversial
Sunni preacher and theologian who continues
to serve as the spiritual leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
An Egyptian citizen, Qaradawi fled Egypt for
Qatar in 1961 after being imprisoned under
President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
In 1962 he chaired the Qatari Secondary Institute
of Religious Studies, and in 1977 he founded
and directed the Shariah and Islamic Studies
department at the University of Qatar.
He left Qatar to return to Egypt shortly before
the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.For twenty years,
Qaradawi has hosted a popular show titled
Shariah and Life on the Qatari-based media
channel al-Jazeera, a government sponsored
channel notoriously supportive of the Muslim
Brotherhood and Islamism and often designated
as a propaganda outlet for the Qatari government.
From that platform, he has promoted his Islamist—and
often radical views—on life, politics, and
culture.
His positions, as well as his controversial
ties to extremist and terrorist individuals
and organizations, made him persona non grata
to the U.S., UK and French governments respectively
in 1999, 2008, and 2012.Beyond the visibility
and political protection granted to Yussuf
al-Qaradawi, Qatar has historically hosted
several Muslim Brothers especially after Egyptian
President Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood
representative, was overthrown in July 2013.
Before 2013, however, Qatar had made a substantial
investment on Morsi's leadership and had devolved
about $10 million to Egypt since Morsi was
elected, allegedly also to "buy political
advantage" in the country.Qatar's political
and financial support for Islamist movements
and factions was not limited to the Egyptian
case.
Qatar is known to have backed Islamist factions
in Libya, Syria and Yemen.
In Libya in particular, Qatar has supported
the Islamist government established in Tripoli.
During the 2011 revolution that ousted President
Muammar Gaddafi, Qatar provided "tens of millions
of dollars in aid, military training and more
than 20,000 tons of weapons" to anti-Gaddafi
rebels and Islamist militias in particular.
The flow of weapons was not suspended after
Gaddafi's government was removed.
Qatar maintained its influence through key
facilitators on the field, including cleric
Ali al-Sallabi, the leader of the Islamist
militia "February 17 Katiba" Ismail al-Sallabi,
and the Tripoli Military Council leader Abdel
Hakim Belhaj.Hamas, as well, has been among
the primary beneficiaries of Qatar's financial
support.
Not only does the Gulf emirate host Hamas'
politburo continuously since 2012; Hamas leader
Khaled Meshaal has often met with international
delegations on Qatari territory.More recently,
Qatar has channeled material support to Hamas'
terrorist operations by exploiting its official
commitment to finance Gaza reconstruction.
Mostly through "truckloads of construction
material being shipped into Gaza", Qatar has
funneled dual-use substances that could be
employed to produce explosives into Gaza.In
a 2003 interview with Al-Hayat Hamas politburo
declared that most of Qatar's support was
collected through charities and popular committees.
Qatar's largest NGO, Qatar Charity, in particular
has played a great role in Qatar's mission
to support Islamist worldwide.
Officially through its "Ghaith" initiative
but also through conspicuous donations that
preceded the "Ghaith" program, Qatar Charity
has financed the building or reconstruction
of mosques and cultural institutes across
the globe.
Just like Saudi Arabia, Qatar has devolved
considerable energies to spreading Salafism
and to "win areas of influence" in the countries
that beneficiated from its support.
In France in particular Qatar has heavily
invested in the Union des Organisations Islamiques
des France (UOIF), an umbrella organization
informally acting as the representative of
the Muslim Brotherhood in the country through
which Qatar Charity has channeled funds for
the Assalam mosque in Nantes (€4.4 million)
and the mosque in Mulhouse (€2 million).
==== Western patronage ====
During the 1970s and sometimes later, Western
and pro-Western governments often supported
sometimes fledgling Islamists and Islamist
groups that later came to be seen as dangerous
enemies.
Islamists were considered by Western governments
bulwarks against—what were thought to be
at the time—more dangerous leftist/communist/nationalist
insurgents/opposition, which Islamists were
correctly seen as opposing.
The US spent billions of dollars to aid the
mujahideen Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the
Soviet Union, and non-Afghan veterans of the
war returned home with their prestige, "experience,
ideology, and weapons", and had considerable
impact.Although it is a strong opponent of
Israel's existence, Hamas, officially created
in 1987, traces back its origins to institutions
and clerics supported by Israel in the 1970s
and 1980s.
Israel tolerated and supported Islamist movements
in Gaza, with figures like Ahmed Yassin, as
Israel perceived them preferable to the secular
and then more powerful al-Fatah with the PLO.Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat – whose policies included
opening Egypt to Western investment (infitah);
transferring Egypt's allegiance from the Soviet
Union to the United States; and making peace
with Israel—released Islamists from prison
and welcomed home exiles in tacit exchange
for political support in his struggle against
leftists.
His "encouraging of the emergence of the Islamist
movement" was said to have been "imitated
by many other Muslim leaders in the years
that followed."
This "gentlemen's agreement" between Sadat
and Islamists broke down in 1975 but not before
Islamists came to completely dominate university
student unions.
Sadat was later assassinated and a formidable
insurgency was formed in Egypt in the 1990s.
The French government has also been reported
to have promoted Islamist preachers "in the
hope of channeling Muslim energies into zones
of piety and charity."
=== 
Western alienation ===
Muslim alienation from Western ways, including
its political ways.
The memory in Muslim societies of the many
centuries of "cultural and institutional success"
of Islamic civilization that have created
an "intense resistance to an alternative 'civilizational
order'", such as Western civilization,
The proximity of the core of the Muslim world
to Europe and Christendom where it first conquered
and then was conquered.
Iberia in the seventh century, the Crusades
which began in the eleventh century, then
for centuries the Ottoman Empire, were all
fields of war between Europe and Islam.In
the words of Bernard Lewis:For almost a thousand
years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain
to the second Turkish siege of Vienna, Europe
was under constant threat from Islam.
In the early centuries it was a double threat—not
only of invasion and conquest, but also of
conversion and assimilation.
All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic
realm had been taken from Christian rulers,
and the vast majority of the first Muslims
west of Iran and Arabia were converts from
Christianity ... Their loss was sorely felt
and it heightened the fear that a similar
fate was in store for Europe.The Islamic world
was aware of this European fear and hatred
and also felt its own anger and resentment
at the much more recent technological superiority
of westerners who,are the perpetual teachers;
we, the perpetual students.
Generation after generation, this asymmetry
has generated an inferiority complex, forever
exacerbated by the fact that their innovations
progress at a faster pace than we can absorb
them.
... The best tool to reverse the inferiority
complex to a superiority complex ... Islam
would give the whole culture a sense of dignity.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.The end of the Cold War and
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has eliminated
the common atheist Communist enemy uniting
some religious Muslims and the capitalist
west.
== Response ==
=== Criticism ===
Islamism, or elements of Islamism, have been
criticized for: repression of free expression
and individual rights, rigidity, hypocrisy,
lack of true understanding of Islam, misinterpreting
the Quran and Sunnah, antisemitism, and for
innovations to Islam (bid'ah), notwithstanding
proclaimed opposition to any such innovation
by Islamists.
=== Counter-response ===
The U.S. government has engaged in efforts
to counter militant Islamism (Jihadism), since
2001.
These efforts were centred in the U.S. around
public diplomacy programmes conducted by the
State Department.
There have been calls to create an independent
agency in the U.S. with a specific mission
of undermining Jihadism.
Christian Whiton, an official in the George
W. Bush administration, called for a new agency
focused on the nonviolent practice of "political
warfare" aimed at undermining the ideology.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called
for establishing something similar to the
defunct U.S. Information Agency, which was
charged with undermining the communist ideology
during the Cold War.
== Parties and organizations ==
== See also ==
Clash of Civilizations
Dominionism
Islamicism (disambiguation)
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Roy, Olivier (1994).
The Failure of Political Islam.
Harvard University Press.
ISBN 978-0674291416.
Retrieved 2 April 2015.
Ayubi, Nazih (1991).
Political Islam.
London: Routledge.
Esposito, John (1998).
Islam and Politics (Fourth ed.).
Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press.
Mura, Andrea (2015).
The Symbolic Scenarios of Islamism: A Study
in Islamic Political Thought.
London: Routledge.
Yazbeck Haddad, Yvonne; Esposito, John (eds.)
(1998).
Islam, Gender, and Social Change.
New York: Oxford University Press.CS1 maint:
Extra text: authors list (link)
Halliday, Fred (2003).
Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (2nd ed.).
London, New York: I.B.
Tauris.
Hassan, Riaz (2002).
Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and
Society.
Oxford University Press.
Hassan, Riaz (2008).
Inside Muslim Minds.
Melbourne University Press.
Mandaville, Peter (2007).
Transnational Muslim Politics.
Abingdon (Oxon), New York: Routledge.
Martin, Richard C.; Barzegar, Abbas (eds.)
(2010).
Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political
Islam.
Stanford University Press.CS1 maint: Extra
text: authors list (link)
Rashwan, Diaa (ed.) (2007).
The spectrum of Islamist movements.
Schiler.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list
(link)
Sayyid, S. (2003).
A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and Emergence
of Islamism (2nd ed.).
London, New York: Zed Press.
Strindberg, Anders; Wärn, Mats (2011).
Islamism.
Cambridge, Malden MA: Polity Press.
Tausch, Arno (2015).
The political algebra of global value change.
General models and implications for the Muslim
world.
With Almas Heshmati and Hichem Karoui (1st
ed.).
Nova Science Publishers, New York.
ISBN 978-1629488998.
Teti, Andrea; Mura, Andrea (2009).
Jeff Haynes, ed.
Sunni Islam and politics.
Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics.
Abingdon (Oxon), New York: Routledge.
Volpi, Frédéric (2010).
Political Islam Observed.
Hurst.
Volpi, Frédéric (ed.) (2011).
Political Islam: A Critical Reader.
Routledge.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list
(link)
Kepel, Gilles (2002).
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.
Harvard University Press.
ISBN 978-0674010901.
== External links ==
Media related to Islamism at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of Islamism at Wiktionary
Quotations related to Islamism at Wikiquote
