Who are the ‘Islamists’ at the gate?

Dr Hanlie Booysen explains how misrepresenting the term Islamism fuels non-Muslim angst about the Islamic tradition, leading to stigma in Europe and elsewhere

The battle is “between civilisation and barbarism”, said Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz after a terrorist attack in the capital Vienna on Monday 2 November. A month earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that “Islamist separatism”, which exists as a “counter society”, is endangering France. He called the culprit “radical Islamism”, and earlier this week tasked Muslim leaders to produce a charter that confirms Islam as a “religion” and not a “political movement”.

What is Islamism?

Much of the confusion and anger that erupted in capitals and on social media after the two recent terrorist attacks in France have to do with the often ill-defined and complex term Islamism.

French Philosopher Voltaire coined the term islamisme in the eighteenth century. At the time, islamisme (Islamism) did not represent a political-religious ideology, but was the term used for the religion taught and professed by the Prophet Muhammed—that is, Islam.

Moreover, in using the term islamisme and not Mahométisme (Mohammedism), Voltaire countered the Machiavellian notion of Islam as the religion of the Prophet Muhammad. By the mid-20th century, Islamisme meaning the Islamic religion was replaced by the Arabic term Islam, which with its triconsonantal root S-L-M translates as submission, resignation, reconciliation (to the will of God). The same root also gives us peace or salām in Arabic.

In the late 1970s, French scholars resurrected the term islamisme to mean “Islam as a modern ideology and a political program”. This conceptualisation, similar to Macron’s “political-religious project”, leaves much room for interpretation.

In popular media and right-wing nationalist political circles, such ambiguity has been replaced with a crude conflation of Islam, Muslims, radical Islamism, terrorism and violence, which tragically found legal expression in US President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban”.

Scholarship on Islamism, in contrast, asks what motivates diverse Islamist parties to moderate or radicalise their behaviour and actions. These studies have debunked the notion Islamists are “culturally” averse to parliamentary politics. They have further shown that environmental constraints and opportunities, more than ideology, influence the behaviour of Islamists, which has French political scientist Olivier Roy substituting “radicalised Islam” with the “Islamisation of radicalism”.

Islamic state

Islamists share a commitment to an ideal Islamic state, but not a political model.

Militant Islamist groups, such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda, reject democracy. Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri believes parliament assigns its members as partners with God. He posits that “rule by the people for the people” takes the power to legislate away from God (who is sovereign) and places it in the hands of the people. In doing so, members of parliament become idols (partners with God) and the electorate commits idolatry or shirk by voting for them.

Moderate Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movements and parties do not share this view. In fact, with their participation in free and fair elections in Syria (1946–1960), Egypt (2011), Tunisia and Morocco (2011–), they demonstrate a commitment to the ‘democratic game’. Moderate MB Islamists therefore differ from radical Islamists in their commitment to parliamentary elections and upholding the nation-state, but this does not make moderate Islamist politics uniform.

Ideology versus environment

In comparing opposition MB parties, which share a vision of Islam as comprehensive and therefore inclusive of religion and state (din wa dawla), we find very different political trajectories.

For example, the Syrian MB (SMB) participated in parliamentary politics from its inception in 1946 until the Ba’th party military coup in 1963. The Egyptian MB (EMB), in contrast, was prevented from participating in parliamentary elections after its founding in 1928, because of the enduring influence of the British colonial power. These roles were switched in the wake of the 2010-11 Arab uprisings when the EMB won a landslide victory, only to be deposed by a military coup less than a year later, while the SMB’s calls for a democratic Syria were drowned out by the brutal clampdown by Bashar al-Assad’s regime on the Syrian uprising.

The opposition MB in Qatar followed yet another trajectory by freely disbanding in 1999 because it believed the “state was appropriately adhering to its religious obligations”. Most recently, after Tunisia’s successful transition to a liberal democracy, the Tunisian Ennahda party abandoned the label “Islamist” to become Muslim democrats.

Islamism is clearly a complex phenomenon that incorporates diverse behaviour and politics. Moreover, some “Islamists” do not recognise the term and self-identify purely as Muslims.

However, for the purposes of this argument, we will distinguish between Muslims as adherents of the religion Islam and Islamists who pursue an ideal Islamic state. Moreover, Islamists, whether moderate or radical, rely on the Qur’an and Sunna of the Prophet Muhammed in their pursuit of an ideal Islamic state.

Diversity, however, lies in the interpretation of the primary sources, which occurs not in contradiction, but often in response, to the opportunities and constraints offered by the political environment.

To conclude, three points to ponder:

  1. It would be helpful to refrain from presenting Islamism as a monolith.
  2. The political environment, past and present, moulds diverse Islamist movements, individuals and parties.
  3. Misrepresenting the term Islamism fuels non-Muslim angst about the Islamic tradition and stigmatises Muslims in Europe and elsewhere.

Dr Hanlie Booysen is an adjunct research fellow in the Religious Studies programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

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