Islamism Quotes

Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. ~ Maajid Nawaz

In describing the ways that religious and other types of communities appropriate and understand their histories, among both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, the sociologist Anthony Giddens utilizes the term "reflexivity" and states that it is the characteristic of "all human action." Reflexivity takes place when individuals and/or communities utilize their perceptions of their histories as a way of guiding their present and future actions. For Giddens, tradition is a means of "handling time and space, which asserts any particular activity or experience with the community of past, present, and future, these in turn being structured by recurrent social practices." In light of this, tradition is a set of entities which religious communities and cultures continually reconstruct within certain parameters. Religions are not completely static in that almost every new generation reinvents the religious and cultural inheritance from the generations that preceded it. ~ Jon Armajani

I was in prison with pretty much the who's who of the jihadist and Islamist scene of Egypt at the time, and Egypt was the cradle of Islamism for the world - it's where it began and where jihadism began as well. ~ Maajid Nawaz

We can see that immigration has become favorable terrain for the development of Islamism. ~ Marion Marechal-Le Pen

I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

This body of thought represents an almost total inversion of Westphalian world order. In the purist version of Islamism, the state cannot be the point of departure for an international system because states are secular, hence illegitimate; at best they may achieve a kind of provisional status en route to a religious entity on a larger scale. Noninterference in other countries' domestic affairs cannot serve as a governing principle, because national loyalties represent deviations from the true faith and because jihadists have a duty to transform dar al-harb, the world of unbelievers. Purity, not stability, is the guiding principle of this conception of world order. ~ Henry Kissinger

A common error of western commentators who seek to interpret Islamism sympathetically is to view it as a form of localised resistance to globalisation. In fact, Islamism is also a universalist political project. Along with Neoliberals and Marxists, Islamists are participants in a dispute about how the world as whole is to be governed. None is ready to entertain the possibility that it should always contain a diversity of regimes. On this point, they differ from non-western traditions of thinking in India, China and Japan, which are much more restrained in making universal claims.

In their unshakeable faith that one way of living is best for all humankind, the chief protagonists in the dispute about political Islam belong to a way of thinking that is quintessentially western. As in Cold War times, we are led to believe we are locked in a clash of civilisations: the West against the rest. In truth, the ideologues of political Islam are western voices, no less than Marx or Hayek. The struggle with radical Islam is yet another western family quarrel. ~ John N. Gray

When Erdogan assumed control, he gave power to a wave of Islamism, strengthened by Ozal, that had been creeping back into Turkish life under the radar screen of official Kemalism. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The principal sponsors of the terrorists are not religious fanatics. "Palestine's Yasser Arafat, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Syria's Assad family have made themselves the icons of Islamism despite the fact that they are well-known atheists who live un-Muslim lives and have persecuted unto death the Muslim movements in their countries." ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

No one is as murderously 'Islamophobic' as Islamists are. ~ Nick Cohen

As he continued to talk to me, I realized one of the fundamental points about Islamism that so many people fail to understand. The way Osman was speaking wasn't in the orthodox, religious way of the imam with a stick; he was talking about politics, about events that were happening now. That's crucial to understanding what Islamism is all about: it isn't a religious movement with political consequences, it is a political movement with religious consequences. ~ Maajid Nawaz

The United States finds itself with forces of reaction. Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women? ~ Christopher Hitchens

Identity politics is killings free speech on campus, silencing Muslim women struggle, boosting both Islamism and the far Right and pushing reconciled Muslim voices to the fringes. It makes implicit assumptions about Islam - from an Islamist, Left or Right- perspective - and insists all Muslims must adhere to that definition or be regarded not truly Muslim. It ignores the fact that most ordinary Muslims are not in favour of a violent and that in surveys and polls they support British values more than the general UK population. Yet the myth persists that the ideology of Islamism is the true expression of what it means to be Muslim. ~ Tony McMahon, Sara Khan

I can tell you squat about Islamism. But I know a lot about Al Quaeda, and they need to burn in hell. ~ Frank Miller

Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the West,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Half the published articles on Gaza contain a standard reference to its resemblance to a vast open-air prison (and when I last saw it under Israeli occupation it certainly did deserve this metaphor). The problem is that, given its ideology and its allies, Hamas qualifies rather too well in the capacity of guard and warder. ~ Christopher Hitchens

In general, Europeans need to get a wider perspective on the problem of Islamism. Even if the Israel-Palestine question were solved - and I think and hope that one day soon it will be - this wouldn't stop one person from becoming a terrorist. ~ Bernard-Henri Levy

Preoccupation with real evil is the greatest difference between right and left. The right was preoccupied with fighting Communism while the left (not liberals such as JFK, but the left) was preoccupied with fighting anti-Communists. The right today is preoccupied with fighting Islamism; the left is preoccupied with fighting 'Islamophobia ~ Dennis Prager

Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If he is terrorising the terrorists, if he is terrorising America the terrorist [ ... ] I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist. ~ Zakir Naik

Don't hate the Muslims or Islam. Hate if you must, the fundamentalists who consistently compel the human society to turn away from even the peace loving Muslims. However, the term hate would be an understatement when we are referring to the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists are the biggest enemies of the human race. Without the presence of the fundamentalist inspiration, no violence in the name of religion shall ever fester on this planet. People from all religious, spiritual and non-religious background shall live in harmony, enriching each other's lives, if there are no fundamentalists to divide them apart. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols - and using women as pawns in a political game. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society. ~ Maajid Nawaz

We can't remain silent on gender rights and personal freedoms. ~ Maajid Nawaz

The bigots, whether they are of the Islamist variety or the anti-Muslim variety, essentially agree on a few matters. One is their belief that Islam itself - not Islamism - is a supremacist ideology that is here to take over the world; another is that, therefore, Muslims and non-Muslims can never live equally and peacefully together, but must separate into religiously defined entities. ~ Sam Harris

The bullet that has hit us Muslims today left the gun centuries ago when we let the clergy decide that knowledge and education were not important. ~ Nadeem Aslam

The only way we can challenge Islamism is to engage with one another. We need to make it as abhorrent as racism has become today. Only then will we stem the tide of angry young Muslims who turn to hate. ~ Maajid Nawaz

The greatest evils since World War II have been Communism and, since the demise of Communism in the Soviet Union and most other Communist countries, violent Islam - or, as it often called, Islamism. Islamism is the belief that Sharia (Islamic law) must be imposed wherever possible on a society, beginning, of course, with Muslim-majority countries. These Islamists are, as the British historian Andrew Roberts has noted, the fourth incarnation of fascism - first there was fascism, then Nazism, then communism, and now Islamism. ~ Dennis Prager

I draw a distinction between traditional Islam and Islamism. Islamism emerged in its modern form in the 1920s and is driven by a belief that Muslims can be strong and rich again if they follow the Islamic law severely and in its entirety. This is a response to the trauma of modern Islam. ~ Daniel Pipes

As we have discussed, however, Islam is just a religion. Islamism is the ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. Islamism is, therefore, theocratic extremism. Jihadism is the use of force to spread Islamism. Jihadist terrorism is the use of force that targets civilians to spread Islamism. The Islamic State is merely one jihadist terrorist group. The problem was never "al-Qaeda-inspired" extremism, because extremism itself inspired al-Qaeda, and then inspired the Islamic State. It is this extremism that must be named - as Islamism - and opposed. ~ Sam Harris

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I think there is no reason for us to bring to Islamism or political Islam the fear and ignorance of Western commentators and their hysterical vocabulary. ~ Pankaj Mishra

In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism. ~ Maajid Nawaz

What I see now is that even with the Islamists, who have been portraying themselves as the alternative to corruption and dictatorship and in defence of more transparency, there is one respect in which they have now changed completely. Since the beginning of the 1920's, Islamism was very close in positioning in some respects to 'liberation theology'. But that is no longer the case. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Today I want to puke when I hear the word 'radical' applied so slothfully and stupidly to Islamist murderers; the most plainly reactionary people in the world. ~ Christopher Hitchens

[T]his is an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life. ~ Christopher Hitchens

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan!

No, Erdogan, you're not welcome in Algeria.

We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion - you're a member of it - you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader.

Islamism is your livelihood

Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your "Sublime Door." You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands.

But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your "Muslim Brothers" in this country, who used to show us God's Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other.

No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or pri ~ Kamel Daoud

Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry. ~ Nick Cohen

Zen Buddhism, for example, as practiced by Suzuki, the excellent Japanese mystic, has nothing to do with the superstitious and predjudiced Buddhism that infested Asia for centuries. Sufism, as boasted by the subtle Gurdjeff, totally differs from the Islamism that shouts death to the "infidels." The doctrine of Vivekananda, inspired by his master Ramakrishna, is nothing like the Hinduism that suffocated India for centures of superstious and stupid passivity; the noble mysticism of Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, is nothing like the bloody cultural narrowness and tribal elitism of the mosaic orthodoxy. ~ Marcelo Ramos Motta

Nothing - not even the US Army - more threatens the future of a democratic, pluralistic and (dare we wish, secular) Iraq than the political ascendancy of Islamic fascists like Al Sadr. ~ Marc Cooper

Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn't the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them. ~ Maajid Nawaz

A timely and incisive look into the history, politics, and future of the Muslim Brotherhood by the foremost expert on Islamism in Egypt. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham has constructed a detailed account of how the Brotherhood confronts the challenges before it, and why and when it embraces change. Everyone concerned with the future of Egypt should read this book. ~ Vali Nasr

Whether most Muslims are peaceable is irrelevant. The fact is that fanatics rule Islam now & act-out what the Qur'an truly says ... maul, march, & murder every Infidel if they won't convert! ~ Gary Patton

President Barack Obama and many liberal-minded commentators have been hesitant to call this Islamist ideology by its proper name. They seem to fear that both Muslim communities and the religiously intolerant will hear the word "Islam" and simply assume that all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the jihadist few.

I call this the Voldemort effect, after the villain in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. Many well-meaning people in Ms. Rowling's fictional world are so petrified of Voldemort's evil that they do two things: They refuse to call Voldemort by name, instead referring to "He Who Must Not Be Named," and they deny that he exists in the first place. Such dread only increases public hysteria, thus magnifying the appeal of Voldemort's power.

The same hysteria about Islamism is unfolding before our eyes. But no strategy intended to defeat Islamism can succeed if Islamism itself and its violent expression in jihadism are not first named, isolated and understood.

From: Maajid Nawaz's article titled, 'How to Beat Islamic State', December 11th, 2015. ~ Maajid Nawaz

Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism. ~ Maajid Nawaz

The Society of Muslim Brothers was founded in 1928 by a young schoolteacher named Hasan al-Banna. As a Sunni Islamic revivalist movement, its establishment followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent end of the caliphate system of government that had united the Muslims for many hundreds of years. Al-Banna, who was just twenty-two years old, believed Islam was not only a religion but a fully comprehensive way of life, based on the tenets of Wahhabism, a strict and repressive form of the religion better known these days as Islamism and espoused by the Saudis, as well as unsavory characters such as Osama bin Laden. ~ Dan Eaton

Good people in the West have often failed to distinguish between Islam and Islamism ... ~ Phyllis Chesler

Unlike the student protests in the 1960s, by using religion and multiculturalism as a cover, we brought an entirely foreign lexicon to the table. We knowingly presented political demands disguised as religion and multiculturalism, and deliberately labelled any objection to our demands as racism and bigotry. Even worse, we did this to the very generation who had been socialist sympathisers in their youth, people sympathetic to charges of racism, who were now in middle-career management posts; people like Dave Gomer. It is no wonder then that the authorities were unprepared to deal with politicised religion as ideological agitation, and felt racist if they tried to stop us. ~ Maajid Nawaz

Increased sympathy for an Islamist cause, lack of integration, and the absence of acceptance of Muslims into British society makes it harder for Muslims to challenge Islamism and tough for non-Muslims to understand it. ~ Maajid Nawaz

Britain has become a net exporter of Islamism and jihadism. My former Islamist group didn't exist in Pakistan until we exported it from Britain. ~ Sam Harris

The left is far more concerned with attacking America - its alleged racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and economic inequality - than with fighting Islamism. ~ Dennis Prager

....It was to complete his marriage with Maimuna, the daughter of Al Hareth, the Helalite. He had become betrothed to her on his arrival at Mecca, but had post-poned the nuptials until after he had concluded the rites of pilgrimage. This was doubtless another marriage of policy, for Maimuna was fifty-one years of age, and a widow, but the connection gained him two powerful proselytes. One was Khaled Ibn al Waled, a nephew of the widow, an intrepid warrior who had come near destroy-
ing Mahomet at the battle of Ohod. He now became one of the most victorious champions of Islamism, and by his prowess obtained the appellation of " The Sword of God." The other proselyte was Khaled's friend, Amru Ibn al Aass ; the same who assailed Mahomet with poetry and satire at the commencement of his prophetic career ; who had been an ambassador from the Koreishites to the king of Abyssinia, to obtain the surrender of the fugitive Moslems, and who was henceforth destined with his sword to carry victoriously into foreign lands the faith he had once so strenuously opposed.
Note. - Maimuna was the last spouse of the prophet, and, old as she was at her marriage, survived all his other wives. She died many years after him, in a pavilion at Serif, under the same tree in the shade of which her nuptial tent had been pitched, and was there interred. The pious historian, Al Jannabi, who styles himself "a poor servant of Allah, hoping for the pardon of his sins through the mercy of God," vis ~ Washington Irving

Big government is a national security threat: it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you'll be able to summon the will to rebuff it. ~ Mark Steyn