24 Facts About Islamism

Islamism is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is conceived as a revival or a return to authentic Islamic practice in its totality.

Central and prominent figures in 20th-century Islamism include Sayyid Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abul A'la Maududi, Hasan al-Turabi, and Ruhollah Khomeini.

Islamism is a concept whose meaning has been debated in both public and academic contexts.

Term "Islamism" acquired its contemporary connotations in French academia in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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.

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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.

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 those who seek to separate religion from politics.

Moderate Islamism is characterized by pragmatic participation within the existing constitutional and political framework, in the most cases democratic institution.

Moderate Islamism within the democratic institution is a relatively recent phenomenon.

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.

Islamism 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.

Islamism was a critic of the mainstream Indian nationalist and secularist Indian National Congress.

Islamism 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.

Islamism recruited and built a cadre of influential loyalists by placing sympathetic students in the university and military academy while serving as minister of education.

Islamism considers opposition to constitutional democracy as hostility towards the twelfth Imam because an Islamic system of governance can not be established without the infallible Imam leading it.

Islamism prefers collective wisdom over individual opinions, and limits the role of jurist to provide religious guidance in personal affairs of a believer.

Islamism defines democracy as a system of governance that enforces a set of “limitations and conditions” on the head of state and government employees so that they work within “boundaries that the laws and religion of every nation determines”.

Islamism asserts that both religious rulings and the laws outside the scope of religion confront “state despotism”.

Islamism awarded William Knox D'Arcy, a British subject, the rights to oil in most of the country in 1901.

Islamism embodied a mixture of Wahhabism and Fascism and alongside Maududi, theorized the ideology of Islamism.

Islamism saw Islam as a nation-state that sought to mould its citizens and control every private and public expression of their lives, like fascists and communist states.

Islamism gave a series of 19 lectures to a group of his students from January 21 to February 8,1970, on Islamic Government, and elevated Naraqi's idea of Jurist's absolute authority over imitator's personal life to all aspects of social life.

Islamism started giving interviews to western media in which he appeared as a changed man, spoke of a 'progressive islam' and did not mention the idea of 'guardianship of the jurist'.

Islamism severely criticized the way in which a referendum was conducted to establish Khomeini's system of government.