Editing Islamism

{{Short description|Politico-religious ideology}}
{{About|an Islamic political ideology|the religion itself|Islam|politics in Islam generally|Political aspects of Islam}}
{{Distinguish|Political Islam}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
[[File:Shahada flag.svg|thumb|300x300px|Islamists tend to adopt variants of the [[Shahada#Usage on flags|shahada flag]], bearing the Muslim testimony of faith]]
{{Islamism sidebar|all}}
{{Islam |related |width=21.5em}}
'''Islamism''' is a range of [[Religion|religious]] and [[Politics|political]] ideological movements that believe that [[Islam]] should influence political systems.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Islamism |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/islamism |website=Cambridge dictionary}}</ref> Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to [[communism]], [[liberal democracy]], [[capitalism]], and other alternatives in achieving a just, successful society.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cox |first=Caroline |date=June 2003 |title=The 'West', Islam and Islamism |url=https://civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs29.pdf |access-date=28 November 2024 |website=Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society}}</ref> Islamism is considered [[Decolonization|anti-colonialist]], [[Anti-Zionism#Islamic perspectives|anti-Zionist]], [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]], and [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]]; Islamists support [[family values]], [[sharia]], the abolition of interest-based finance, and the Quranic command of '[[Enjoining good and forbidding wrong]].'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tibi |first=Bassam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HyEyLXcIXgUC |title=Islamism and Islam |date=2012-05-22 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-16014-7 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Bulac |first=Ali |date=2012 |title=On Islamism: Its Roots, Development and Future |url=https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/it/v14i4/f_0026713_21804.pdf |access-date=28 November 2024 |website=Columbia University}}</ref> The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are usually affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Islamism |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100012444 |access-date=25 August 2023 |website=Oxford Reference|archive-date=25 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230825061146/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100012444 |url-status=live }}</ref> emphasizing the implementation of ''[[sharia]]'',<ref name="eikmeier-2007">{{cite journal |last1=Eikmeier |first1=Dale |title=Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism |journal=The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters |date=2007 |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=85–97 |doi=10.55540/0031-1723.2340|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[pan-Islamic]] political unity,<ref name="eikmeier-2007" /> and the creation of [[Islamic state]]s.<ref>Soage, Ana Belén. "Introduction to Political Islam." Religion Compass 3.5 (2009): 887–96.</ref>

In its original formulation, Islamism described an ideology seeking to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory,<ref name="Burgat-IMiNA-1997" /> purifying it of foreign elements, reasserting its role into "social and political as well as personal life";<ref name="Berman, S 2003, p. 258" /> and in particular "reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" (i.e. Sharia).<ref name="BYERS-2013" /><ref name="shepard-1996-40" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tibi|first=Bassam|date=1 March 2007|title=The Totalitarianism of Jihadist Islamism and its Challenge to Europe and to Islam|journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions|volume=8|issue=1|pages=35–54|doi=10.1080/14690760601121630|issn=1469-0764|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bale|first=Jeffrey M.|date=1 June 2009|title=Islamism and Totalitarianism|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14690760903371313|journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions|volume=10|issue=2|pages=73–96|doi=10.1080/14690760903371313|s2cid=14540501|issn=1469-0764|access-date=10 September 2021|archive-date=6 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806233015/https://doi.org/10.1080/14690760903371313|url-status=live}}</ref> According to at least one observer (author [[Robin Wright (author)|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".<ref name="WRIGHT-SHI-10-1015">{{cite journal|date=10 January 2015|title=A Short History of Islamism|url=http://www.newsweek.com/short-history-islamism-298235|journal=Newsweek|last1=Wright|first1=Robin|access-date=23 December 2015|archive-date=23 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151223165123/http://www.newsweek.com/short-history-islamism-298235|url-status=live}}</ref> Another sole author ([[Graham E. 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."<ref name=Fuller-Future-21>Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 21</ref>

Central and prominent figures in 20th-century Islamism include [[Rashid Rida|Sayyid Rashid Riḍā]],<ref name="Zhongmin 2013 23–28">{{Cite journal|last=Zhongmin|first=Liu|year=2013|title=Commentary on "Islamic State": Thoughts of Islamism|journal=Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (In Asia)|publisher=Routledge: Taylor & Francis group|volume=7|issue=3|pages=23–28|doi=10.1080/19370679.2013.12023226|doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Hassan al-Banna]] (founder of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]]), [[Sayyid Qutb]], [[Abul A'la Maududi]],<ref name=Fuller-Future-120>Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 120
</ref> [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] (founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran), [[Hassan Al-Turabi]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Zhongmin|first=Liu|year=2013|title=Commentary on "Islamic State": Thoughts of Islamism|journal=Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (In Asia)|publisher=Routledge: Taylor & Francis group|volume=7|issue=3|pages=38–40|doi=10.1080/19370679.2013.12023226|doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Syrians|Syrian]] [[Sunni]] [[Ulama|cleric]] Muhammad Rashid Riḍā, a fervent opponent of [[Westernization]], [[Zionism]] and [[nationalism]], advocated Sunni internationalism through revolutionary restoration of a [[Pan-Islamism|pan-Islamic]] [[Caliphate]] to politically unite the [[Muslim world]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthiesen |first=Toby |title=The Caliph and the Imam |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-068946-9 |location=New York, NY |pages=270–271, 276–278, 280, 283–285, 295, 310–311 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190689469.001.0001}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Milton-Edwards |first=Beverley |title=Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945 |publisher=Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group |year=2005 |isbn=0-415-30173-4 |location=New York |page=141 }}</ref> Riḍā was a strong exponent of Islamic vanguardism, the belief that [[Muslim community]] should be guided by clerical elites (''[[Ulama|ulema]]'') who steered the efforts for religious education and [[Islamic revival]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=B. Hass |first=Ernst |title=Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: Volume 2 The Dismal Fate of New Nations |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8014-3108-5 |location=Ithaca, New York |pages=91 }}</ref> Riḍā's [[Salafi movement|Salafi]]-[[Arabist]] synthesis and Islamist ideals greatly influenced his disciples like Hasan al-Banna,<ref>{{Cite book |last=B. Hass |first=Ernst |title=Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: Volume 2 The Dismal Fate of New Nations |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8014-3108-5 |location=Ithaca, New York |pages=91 |chapter=2: Iran and Egypt}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthiesen |first=Toby |title=The Caliph and the Imam |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-068946-9 |location=New York, NY |pages=280, 284–285, 295 |chapter=10: The Muslim Response |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190689469.001.0001}}</ref> an [[Egyptians|Egyptian]] schoolteacher who founded the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] movement, and [[Hajj Amin al-Husayni|Hajji Amin al-Husayni]], the [[Anti-Zionism|anti-Zionist]] [[Grand Mufti of Jerusalem]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pappe |first=Ilan |title=The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis 1700–1948 |publisher=University of California Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-520-26839-5 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, United States |pages=147–148 |translator-last=Lotan |translator-first=Yaer}}</ref> Al-Banna and Maududi called for a "[[Reformism|reformist]]" strategy to re-Islamizing society through [[grassroots]] social and political activism.<ref name=ORFPI1994:24>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 24</ref><ref name="Ham">{{cite web |url=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2015/10/01/what-most-people-get-wrong-about-political-islam/ |title=What most people get wrong about political Islam |author=Hamid, Shadi |date=1 October 2015 |access-date=2 December 2017 |archive-date=29 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220929132235/https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2015/10/01/what-most-people-get-wrong-about-political-islam/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Other Islamists (Al-Turabi) are proponents of a "[[revolutionary]]" strategy of [[Islamization|Islamizing]] society through exercise of state power,<ref name=ORFPI1994:24/> or ([[Sayyid Qutb]]) for combining grassroots Islamization with armed revolution. The term has been applied to non-state reform movements, political parties, militias and revolutionary groups.<ref name=Nugent-Wapo-23-6-2014>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/23/what-do-we-mean-by-islamist/ |title=What do we mean by Islamist? |last1=Nugent |first1=Elizabeth |date=23 June 2014 |newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=17 January 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326012347/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/23/what-do-we-mean-by-islamist/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Islamists themselves prefer terms such as "Islamic movement",<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/africa/8087-how-credible-is-the-claim-of-the-failure-of-political-islam|title=How credible is the claim of the failure of political Islam?|date=31 October 2013|author=Rashid Ghannouchi|newspaper=MEMO|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304104630/https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/africa/8087-how-credible-is-the-claim-of-the-failure-of-political-islam|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> or "Islamic activism" to "Islamism", objecting to the insinuation that Islamism is anything other than Islam renewed and revived.<ref name="ICG">{{cite web|title=Understanding Islamism |work=International Crisis Group |url=http://merln.ndu.edu/archive/icg/Islamism2Mar05.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130307123849/http://merln.ndu.edu/archive/icg/Islamism2Mar05.pdf |archive-date=7 March 2013 |page=5}}</ref> In public and academic contexts,<ref name="Poljarevic-def">{{cite encyclopedia|year=2015|title=Islamism|encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://www.academia.edu/6916999|access-date=1 February 2017|author=Emin Poljarevic|editor=Emad El-Din Shahin|quote=Islamism is one of many sociopolitical concepts continuously contested in scholarly literature. It is a neologism debated in both Muslim and non-Muslim public and academic contexts. The term "Islamism" at the very least represents a form of social and political activism, grounded in an idea that public and political life should be guided by a set of Islamic principles. In other words, Islamists are those who believe that Islam has an important role to play in organizing a Muslim-majority society and who seek to implement this belief.|archive-date=25 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220325062108/https://www.academia.edu/6916999|url-status=live}}</ref> the term "Islamism" has been criticized as having been given connotations of violence, extremism, and violations of human rights, by the Western mass media, leading to Islamophobia and stereotyping.<ref name=Shepard>{{cite encyclopedia |author=William E. Shepard |author2=FranÇois Burgat |author3=James Piscatori |author4=Armando Salvatore |title=Islamism |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World |editor=John L. Esposito |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |year=2009 |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195305135.001.0001/acref-9780195305135-e-0888 |url-access=subscription |quote=The term "Islamism/Islamist" has come into increasing use in recent years to denote the views of those Muslims who claim that Islam, or more specifically, the Islamic sharīʿah, provides guidance for all areas of human life, individual and social, and who therefore call for an "Islamic State" or an "Islamic Order." [...] Today it is one of the recognized alternatives to "fundamentalist", along with "political Islam" in particular. [...] Current terminology usually distinguishes between "Islam," [...] and "Islamism", referring to the ideology of those who tend to signal openly, in politics, their Muslim religion. [...] the term has often acquired a quasi-criminal connotation close to that of political extremism, religious sectarianism, or bigotry. In Western mainstream media, "Islamists" are those who want to establish, preferably through violent means, an "Islamic state" or impose sharīʿah (Islamic religious law)—goals that are often perceived merely as a series of violations of human rights or the rights of women. In the Muslim world, insiders use the term as a positive reference. In the academic sphere, although it is still debated, the term designates a more complex phenomenon. |isbn=9780195305135 |access-date=3 February 2017 |archive-date=4 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204102032/http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195305135.001.0001/acref-9780195305135-e-0888 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Prominent Islamist groups and parties across the world include the [[Muslim Brotherhood]], Turkey's [[Justice and Development Party (Turkey)|Justice and Development Party]], [[Hamas]], the Algerian [[Movement of Society for Peace]], the Malaysian [[National Trust Party (Malaysia)|National Trust Party]], [[Jamaat-e-Islami]] in [[Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami|Bangladesh]] and [[Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan)|Pakistan]] and Bosnia's [[Party of Democratic Action]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Abbas |first=Tahir |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r3N0DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Political Muslims: Understanding Youth Resistance in a Global Context |last2=Hamid |first2=Sadek |date=2019-02-11 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-8156-5430-8 |language=en}}</ref> Following the [[Arab Spring]], many [[Post-Islamism|post-Islamist]] currents became heavily involved in democratic politics,<ref name=WRIGHT-SHI-10-1015/><ref name="foreignpolicy1">{{cite web |url= https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/16/the_new_islamists |title= The New Islamists |first= Olivier |last= Roy |publisher= foreignpolicy.com |date= 16 April 2012 |access-date= 7 March 2017 |archive-date= 9 October 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141009193849/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/16/the_new_islamists |url-status= dead }}</ref> while others spawned "the most aggressive and ambitious Islamist [[militia]]" to date, such as the [[Islamic State]] of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).<ref name=WRIGHT-SHI-10-1015/> ISIL has been rejected as blasphemous by the majority of Islamists.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Suspected ISIL chief killed in Syria, says Turkish president |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/1/erdogan-says-turkey-has-killed-suspected-isil-leader |access-date=2024-11-28 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}}</ref>

==Terminology==
Originally the term ''Islamism'' was simply used to mean the religion of Islam, not an ideology or movement. It first appeared in the English language as ''Islamismus'' in 1696, and as ''Islamism'' in 1712.<ref name=OED>{{cite web|title= Islamism, n.|url= http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/99982|work= Oxford English Dictionary|publisher= Oxford University Press|access-date= 27 December 2012|archive-date= 29 November 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141129015810/http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/99982|url-status= live}}</ref> The term appears in the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] decision in ''In Re Ross'' (1891). By the turn of the twentieth century the shorter and purely Arabic term "Islam" had begun to displace it, and by 1938, when Orientalist scholars completed ''The [[Encyclopaedia of Islam]]'', ''Islamism'' seems to have virtually disappeared from English usage.<ref>{{cite web|title= Islamism, n. {{pipe}} Frequency|url= https://www.oed.com/dictionary/islamism_n?tab=frequency|work= Oxford English Dictionary|publisher= Oxford University Press|access-date= 2024-11-24}}</ref> The term remained "practically absent from the vocabulary" of scholars, writers or journalists until the [[Iranian Revolution|Iranian Islamic Revolution]] of 1978–79, which brought [[Ayatollah Khomeini]]'s concept of "Islamic government" to Iran.<ref>{{cite journal |title=What is Islamism? The History and Definition of a Concept |journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions |volume=8 |issue=1 |date=March 2007 |access-date=17 January 2023 |author=Mehdi Mozaffari |url=https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/22326292/What_is_Islamism_Totalitarian_Movements_article.pdf |archive-date=1 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101050824/https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/22326292/What_is_Islamism_Totalitarian_Movements_article.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

This new usage appeared without taking into consideration how the term ''Islamist'' (m. sing.: ''Islami'', pl. nom/acc: ''Islamiyyun'', gen. ''Islamiyyin;'' f. sing/pl: ''Islamiyyah'') was already being used in traditional Arabic scholarship in a theological sense as in relating to the religion of Islam, not a political ideology. In heresiographical, theological and historical works, such as [[Abu Hasan al-Ash'ari|al-Ash'ari]]'s well-known encyclopaedia ''[[Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn]]'' (''The Opinions of The Islamists''), an Islamist refers to any person who attributes himself to Islam without affirming nor negating that attribution. If used consistently, it is for impartiality, but if used in reference to a certain person or group in particular without others, it implies that the author is either unsure whether to affirm or negate their attribution to Islam, or trying to insinuate his disapproval of the attribution without controversy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=تأملات في معنى مصطلح إسلامي |url=https://thenewkhalij.news/article/16712/%D8%AA%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%AD-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A |access-date=4 May 2023 |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504085440/https://thenewkhalij.news/article/16712/%D8%AA%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%AD-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=AYARI |first=Badreddine |date=19 July 2012 |title=بين المسلم والاسلامى:مصطلح ( اسلامى) بين الاجتهاد والبدعة |url=https://drsabrikhalil.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%84%d9%85-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%89%d9%85%d8%b5%d8%b7%d9%84%d8%ad-%d8%a7%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%89-%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86/ |access-date=4 May 2023 |website=الموقع الرسمي للدكتور صبري محمد خليل خيري |language=ar |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504085440/https://drsabrikhalil.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%89%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%AD-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%89-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=31 March 2021 |title=الفرق بين "المسلمين" و"الإسلاميين" |url=http://alharakalseyasi.com/4921/ |access-date=4 May 2023 |website=صحيفة الحراك السياسي |language=ar |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504085441/http://alharakalseyasi.com/4921/ |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Nawal.Alali |title=إسلامي أو إسلاموي: نقلات فوق رقعة من المصطلحات |url=https://www.alaraby.co.uk/%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D9%88-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%8A-%D9%86%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%81%D9%88%D9%82-%D8%B1%D9%82%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA |access-date=4 May 2023 |website=alaraby.co.uk/ |language=ar |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504090936/https://www.alaraby.co.uk/%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D9%88-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%8A-%D9%86%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%81%D9%88%D9%82-%D8%B1%D9%82%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=" مسلم " أم " إسلامي " أم "إسلاموي " .. أين الصواب ..؟ |url=https://montada.echoroukonline.com/showthread.php?t=178006 |website=الشروق |access-date=4 May 2023 |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504085433/https://montada.echoroukonline.com/showthread.php?t=178006 |url-status=live }}</ref> In contrast, referring to a person as a [[Muslims|Muslim]] or a [[Kafir]] implies an explicit affirmation or a negation of that person's attribution to Islam. To evade the problem resulting from the confusion between the Western and Arabic usage of the term Islamist, Arab journalists invented the term ''Islamawi'' (''Islamian'') instead of ''Islami'' (''Islamist'') in reference to the political movement, though this term is sometimes criticized as [[Grammar|grammatically]] incorrect.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ali al-Juzu |first=Mustafa |title=زيادة الألف والواو في النسبة |url=https://alarabi.nccal.gov.kw/Home/Article/19698 |access-date=4 May 2023 |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504085441/https://alarabi.nccal.gov.kw/Home/Article/19698 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Definitions===
Islamism has been defined as:
* "the belief that Islam should guide social and political as well as personal life" ([[Sheri Berman]]);<ref name="Berman, S 2003, p. 258">{{cite journal |last=Berman |first=Sheri |title=Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Society |journal=Perspectives on Politics |volume=1 |issue=2 |year=2003 |page=258 |doi=10.1017/S1537592703000197|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |s2cid=145201910 }}</ref>
* the belief that Islam should influence political systems ([[Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary|Cambridge English Dictionary]]);<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/islamism|title=Islamism |work=Cambridge English Dictionary}}</ref>
* "the [Islamic] ideology that guides society as a whole and that [teaches] law must be in conformity with the [[Islamic Shari'a|Islamic sharia]]", (W. E. Shepard);<ref name=shepard-1996-40>Shepard, W. E. ''Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Activism: A Translation and Critical Analysis of Social Justice in Islam''. Leiden, New York: E.J. Brill. (1996). p. 40</ref>
* a combination of two pre-existing trends 
** movements to revive the faith, weakened by "foreign influence, political opportunism, moral laxity, and the forgetting of sacred texts";<ref name=ORFPI1994:4>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 4</ref>
** the more recent movement against imperialism/colonialism, morphed into a more simple anti-Westernism; formerly embraced by leftists and nationalists but whose supporters have turned to Islam.<ref name=ORFPI1994:4/>
* a form of "religionized politics" and an instance of [[religious fundamentalism]] that imagines an Islamic community claiming global hegemony for its values ([[Bassam Tibi]]);<ref>{{cite book|author=Bassam Tibi|author-link=Bassam Tibi|title=Islamism and Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HyEyLXcIXgUC&pg=PA22|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2012|page=22|isbn=978-0300160147}}</ref>
* "political movement that favors reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" ([[Associated Press]] stylebook);<ref name="BYERS-2013">{{cite news |last1=Byers |first1=Dylan |title=AP Stylebook revises 'Islamist' use |url=https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/04/ap-stylebook-revises-islamist-use-160943 |access-date=6 February 2023 |agency=Politico |date=5 April 2013 |archive-date=3 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230603060733/https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/04/ap-stylebook-revises-islamist-use-160943 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=cair-5-4-2013/>
* a political ideology which seeks to enforce Islamic precepts and norms as generally applicable rules for people's conduct; and whose adherents seek a state based on Islamic values and laws (sharia) and rejecting Western guiding principles, such as freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, artistic freedom and freedom of religion (Thomas Volk);<ref name="Volk-KAS-2015-1">{{cite journal |last1=Volk |first1=Thomas |title=Islam – Islamism Clarification for turbulent times |journal=Konrad Adenauer Stiftung FACTS & FINDINGS |date=February 2015 |issue=164 |page=1 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/resrep10078 |access-date=6 February 2023}}</ref>
* a broad set of political ideologies that use and draw inspiration from Islamic symbols and traditions in pursuit of a sociopolitical objective—also called "political Islam" ([[Encyclopædia Britannica|Britannica]]);<ref name="Zeidan-EB">{{cite web |last1=Zeidan |first1=Adam |title=Islamism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamism |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=15 January 2023 |archive-date=5 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200605040447/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamism |url-status=live }}</ref>
* "[...] [has become shorthand for] 'Muslims we don't like.'" ([[Council on American–Islamic Relations]]—in complaint about AP's earlier definition of Islamist);<ref name=cair-5-4-2013>{{cite web|title=You are here: Home Press Center Press Releases CAIR Condemns Series of Terror Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait CAIR Welcomes AP Stylebook Revision of 'Islamist'|url=https://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/11808-cair-welcomes-ap-stylebook-revision-of-islamist.html|website=Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)|access-date=29 June 2015|date=5 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907184257/https://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/11808-cair-welcomes-ap-stylebook-revision-of-islamist.html|archive-date=7 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> 
** In "Western popular discourse generally uses 'Islamism' when discussing the negative or 'that-which-is-bad' in Muslim communities. The signifier, 'Islam,' on the other hand, is reserved for the positive or neutral." (David Belt).<ref name="Belt-2009">{{cite journal |last1=Belt |first1=David |title=Islamism in Popular Western Discourse |journal=Policy Perspectives |date=July–December 2009 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=1–20 |jstor=42909235 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42909235 |access-date=6 February 2023 |archive-date=6 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206182535/https://www.jstor.org/stable/42909235 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* a movement so broad and flexible it reaches out to "everything to everyone" in Islam, making it "unsustainable" (Tarek Osman);<ref name=Osman.p111/>
** 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.<ref name=Osman.p111>Osman, Tarek, ''Egypt on the brink'', 2010, p. 111</ref>
* an Islamic "movement that seeks cultural differentiation from the West and reconnection with the pre-colonial symbolic universe", ([[François Burgat]]);<ref name=Burgat-IMiNA-1997>Burgat, François, "The Islamic Movement in North Africa", U of Texas Press, 1997, pp. 39–41, 67–71, 309</ref>
* "the active assertion and promotion of beliefs, prescriptions, laws or policies that are held to be Islamic in character," ([[International Crisis Group]]);<ref name="ICG"/>
* 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", ([[Robert Pelletreau|Robert H. Pelletreau]]);<ref>{{cite web |url=http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/bureaus/nea/960508PelletreauMuslim.html |author=Robert H. Pelletreau, Jr. |title=Dealing with the Muslim Politics of the Middle East:Algeria, Hamas, Iran |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010091754/http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/bureaus/nea/960508PelletreauMuslim.html |archive-date=10 October 2017 |work=Council on Foreign Relations |date=8 May 1996}}</ref>
* "All who seek to Islamize their environment, whether in relation to their lives in society, their family circumstances, or the workplace ...", ([[Olivier Roy (political scientist)|Olivier Roy]]).<ref name=cwdi-viii>{{cite book|last1=Roy|first1=Olivier|last2=Sfeir|first2=Antoine|title=The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism|date=2007|publisher=Columbia University Press.|page=viii|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rNrMilgHKKEC&q=principles%20of%20%20islamism&pg=PR8|access-date=15 December 2015|isbn=978-0231146401}}</ref>

===Relationship between Islam and Islamism===
{{further|Political aspects of Islam}}
[[File:A public demonstration demanding Sharia in Britain.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Islamists' public demonstration in the [[United Kingdom]] for [[sharia]], October 2009]]
Islamists simply believe that their movement is either a corrected version or a revival of [[Islam]], but others believe that Islamism is a modern deviation from Islam which should either be denounced or dismissed.

A writer for the [[International Crisis Group]] maintains that "the conception of 'political Islam'" is a creation of Americans to explain the [[Iranian Revolution|Iranian Islamic Revolution]], ignoring the fact that (according to the writer) Islam is by definition political. In fact it is [[Political quietism|quietist]]/non-political Islam, not Islamism, that requires explanation, which the author gives—calling it an historical fluke of the "short-lived era of the heyday of secular Arab nationalism between 1945 and 1970".<ref name="ICGUnderstandingIslam">{{cite web|title=Understanding Islamism|url=http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Understanding%20Islamism.pdf|publisher=[[International Crisis Group]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100808200810/http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Understanding%20Islamism.ashx|archive-date=8 August 2010|date=2 March 2005|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Hayri Abaza argues that the failure to distinguish Islam from Islamism leads many in the West to equate the two; they think that by supporting illiberal Islamic (Islamist) regimes, they are being respectful of Islam, to the detriment of those who seek to [[Secularism|separate religion from politics]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.newsweek.com/it-islamic-or-islamist-73961|title=Is It Islamic or Islamist?|date=22 October 2010|newspaper=Newsweek|author=Hayri Abaza|access-date=12 March 2014|archive-date=4 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004035508/https://www.newsweek.com/it-islamic-or-islamist-73961|url-status=live}}</ref>

Another source distinguishes Islamist from Islam by emphasizing the fact that Islam "refers to a religion and [[Islamic culture|culture]] in existence [[History of Islam|over a millennium]]", whereas Islamism "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".<ref>''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report'', W.W. Norton & Company, New York, (2004), p. 562</ref> [[Daniel Pipes]] describes Islamism as a modern ideology that owes more to European utopian political ideologies and "isms" than to the traditional Islamic religion.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://nationalinterest.org/article/islam-and-islamism-faith-and-ideology-748|title=Islam and Islamism: Faith and Ideology|date=1 March 2000|journal=The National Interest|issue=Spring 2000|author=Daniel Pipes|access-date=12 March 2014|author-link=Daniel Pipes|archive-date=12 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512141047/http://nationalinterest.org/article/islam-and-islamism-faith-and-ideology-748|url-status=live}}</ref>

According to Salman Sayyid, "Islamism is not a replacement of Islam akin to the way it could be argued that [[communism]] and [[fascism]] are secularized substitutes for Christianity." Rather, it is "a constellation of political projects that seek to position Islam in the centre of any [[social order]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sayyid |first=Salman |title=Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order |publisher=Hurst |year=2014 |location=London |pages=9}}</ref>

==Ideology==
===Islamic revival===
{{further|Islamic revival}}
[[File:A public demonstration calling for Sharia Islamic Law in Maldives 2014.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Islamist demonstrators carry signs reading "Islam will dominate the world" and "To hell with democracy" in [[Maldives]], September 2014]]
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. Explanations offered were: that 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. The second explanation being preferred by Muslims, a redoubling of faith and devotion by the faithful was called for to reverse this tide.<ref>Edward Mortimer in ''Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam'', in Wright, ''Sacred Rage'', Simon & Schuster, (1985), pp. 64–66</ref>

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 Israel 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".<ref>Wright, ''Sacred Rage'', pp. 64–66</ref>

Along with the Yom Kippur War came the [[1973 oil crisis|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 throughout the world, and especially in the Muslim world's public imagination.<ref>Wright, ''Sacred Rage'', p. 66 from Pipes, Daniel, ''In the Path of God'', Basic Books, (1983), p. 285</ref> 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.<ref>from interview by Robin Wright of UK Foreign Secretary (at the time) Lord Carrington in November 1981, ''Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam'', by Robin Wright, Simon & Schuster, (1985), p. 67</ref>

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,<ref name="Mu">Murphy, ''Passion for Islam'', (2002), p. 36</ref> giving the movement even more exposure.

===Restoration of the Caliphate===
{{See also|Khilafat Movement|}}
[[File:Cover_of_the_second_issue_of_al-Manar_magazine,_1899.jpg|thumb|''[[Al-Manār (magazine)|Al-Manār]]'' magazine, the most popular 20th century Islamic journal that called for the restoration of Caliphate]]
The [[abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate]] by the [[Grand National Assembly of Turkey]] on 1 November 1922 ended the [[Ottoman Empire]], which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the [[Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923|Conference of Lausanne]], the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly exercised by the [[Ankara Government|Government in Angora]] (now [[Ankara]]) over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, [[Mehmed VI]], departed the Ottoman capital, [[Ottoman Constantinople|Constantinople]] (now [[Istanbul]]), on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the [[Treaty of Lausanne]] on 24 July 1923. In March 1924, [[Abolition of the Caliphate|the Caliphate was abolished]] legally by the Turkish National Assembly, marking the end of Ottoman influence. This shocked the Sunni clerical world, and many felt the need to present Islam not as a traditional religion but as an [[Bidʻah|innovative]] socio-political ideology of a modern nation-state.{{sfn|Rahnema|2005|p=101}}

The reaction to new realities of the modern world gave birth to Islamist ideologues like [[Rashid Rida]] and [[Abul A'la Maududi]] and organizations such as the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] in Egypt and [[Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam]] in India. Rashid Rida, a prominent Syrian-born Salafi theologian based in [[Egypt]], was known as a revivalist of [[Hadith studies]] in Sunni seminaries and a pioneering theoretician of [[Islamic state|Islamism]] in the modern age.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Olidort |first=Jacob |title=In Defense of Tradition: Muḥammad Nāșir AL-Dīn Al-Albānī and the Salafī Method |publisher=Princeton University |year=2015 |location=Princeton, NJ, U.S.A |pages=52–62 |chapter=A New Curriculum: Rashīd Riḍā and Traditionalist Salafism |quote="Rashīd Riḍā presented these core ideas of Traditionalist Salafism, especially the purported interest in ḥadīth of the early generations of Muslims, as a remedy for correcting Islamic practice and belief during his time."}}</ref> During 1922–1923, Rida published a series of articles in seminal ''[[Al-Manār (magazine)|Al-Manar]]'' magazine titled "''[[The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate (book)|The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate]]''". In this highly influential treatise, Rida advocates for the restoration of Caliphate guided by [[Faqīh|Islamic jurists]] and proposes gradualist measures of education, reformation and purification through the efforts of ''[[Salafiyya]]'' reform movements across the globe.<ref name="Willis 2010 711–732">{{Cite journal |last=Willis |first=John |date=2010 |title=Debating the Caliphate: Islam and Nation in the Work of Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25762122 |journal=The International History Review |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=711–732 |doi=10.1080/07075332.2010.534609 |jstor=25762122 |s2cid=153982399 |issn=0707-5332 |access-date=7 May 2023 |archive-date=27 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327015041/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25762122 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Sayyid Rashid Rida had visited India in 1912 and was impressed by the [[Darul Uloom Deoband|Deoband]] and [[Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama|Nadwatul Ulama]] seminaries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Allāh |first='Abd |date=29 February 2012 |title=Shaykh Rashid Rida on Dar al-'Ulum Deoband |url=https://friendsofdeoband.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/rashid-rida-and-dar-al-ulum-deoband/ |access-date=7 May 2022 |website=Friends of Deoband|archive-date=27 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327015044/https://friendsofdeoband.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/rashid-rida-and-dar-al-ulum-deoband/ |url-status=live }}</ref> These seminaries carried the legacy of [[Sayyid Ahmad Shahid]] and his pre-modern Islamic emirate.<ref>B. Metcalf, "Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900", pp. 50–60, Princeton University Press (1982).</ref> In [[British Raj|British India]], the [[Khilafat movement]] (1919–24) following [[World War I]] led by [[Shaukat Ali (politician)|Shaukat Ali]], Maulana [[Mohammad Ali Jauhar]], [[Hakim Ajmal Khan]] and [[Maulana Azad]] came to exemplify South Asian Muslims' aspirations for [[Caliphate]].

===Anti-Westernization===
{{Further|Anti-Western sentiment}}
Muslim alienation from Western ways, including its political ways.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2500?_hi=19&_pos=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120528231208/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2500?_hi=19&_pos=1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=28 May 2012 |title=From the article on westernization in Oxford Islamic Studies Online |publisher=Oxfordislamicstudies.com |access-date=21 April 2012}}</ref>
* 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.<ref>Fuller, E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', (2003), p. 15</ref>
* The proximity of the core of the Muslim world to Europe and Christendom where it first conquered and then was conquered. [[Al-Andalus|Iberia]] in the eighth century, the [[Crusades]] which began in the eleventh century, then for centuries the [[Ottoman Empire]], were all fields of war between Europe and Islam.<ref>''Islam and the Myth of Confrontation'', Fred Halliday; (2003) p. 108</ref>

:In the words of [[Bernard Lewis]]:
:<blockquote>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.<ref>Lewis, Bernard, ''Islam and the West'' Oxford University Press, p. 13, (1993)</ref></blockquote>

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.<ref name="Haddad/Esposito1">Haddad/Esposito p. xvi</ref>

===Strength of identity politics===
Islamism is described by Graham E. Fuller as part of [[identity politics]], specifically the religiously oriented nationalism that emerged in the Third World in the 1970s: "[[Hindu nationalism|resurgent Hinduism]] in India, [[Religious Zionism]] in Israel, [[Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war|militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka]], resurgent [[Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale|Sikh nationalism]] in the [[Punjab region|Punjab]], '[[Liberation Theology]]' of [[Catholicism]] in Latin America, and Islamism in the Muslim world."<ref>Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), pp. 70–71</ref>

===Anti-communist stances===
{{Further|Anti-communism}}
By the late 1960s, non-Soviet Muslim-majority countries had won their independence and they tended to fall into one of the two cold-war blocs – with "Nasser's Egypt, Baathist Syria and Iraq, Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya, Algeria under Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumedienne, [[South Yemen|Southern Yemen]], and Sukarno's Indonesia" aligned with Moscow.<ref>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p.46</ref> Aware of the close attachment of the population with Islam, "school books of the 1960s in these countries "went out of their way to impress upon children that socialism was simply Islam properly understood."<ref>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p. 47</ref>
[[Olivier Roy (political scientist)|Olivier Roy]] writes that the "failure of the 'Arab socialist' model ... left room for new protest ideologies to emerge in deconstructed societies ..."<ref name=ORFPI1994:52>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 52</ref> Gilles Kepel notes that when a collapse in oil prices led to widespread violent and destructive rioting by the urban poor in Algeria in 1988, what might have appeared to be a natural opening for the left, was instead the beginning of major victories for the Islamist [[Islamic Salvation Front]] (FIS) party. The reason being the corruption and economic malfunction of the policies of the [[Third World socialism|Third World socialist]] ruling party (FNL) had "largely discredited" the "vocabulary of socialism".<ref>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, pp. 160–1</ref>
In the [[Postcolonialism|post-colonial]] era, many Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, were ruled by authoritarian regimes which were often continuously dominated by the same individuals or their cadres for decades. Simultaneously, the military played a significant part in the government decisions in many of these states ([[Deep state in Turkey|the outsized role played by the military]] could be seen also in democratic Turkey).<ref name="Wi">''The History of the Modern Middle East'' by William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, 2008, p. 371.</ref>

The authoritarian regimes, backed by military support, took extra measures to silence leftist opposition forces, often with the help of foreign powers. Silencing of leftist opposition deprived the masses a channel to express their economic grievances and frustration toward the lack of democratic processes.<ref name="Wi"/> As a result, in the [[Post–Cold War era|post-Cold War era]], civil society-based Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood were the only organizations capable to provide avenues of protest.<ref name="Wi"/>

The dynamic was repeated after the states had gone through a [[democratization|democratic transition]]. In Indonesia, some secular political parties have contributed to the enactment of religious bylaws to counter the popularity of Islamist oppositions.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/11/19/political-parties-clash-over-sharia-based-bylaws.html |title=Political parties clash over sharia-based bylaws |work=The Jakarta Post |access-date=6 March 2021 |archive-date=11 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411130737/https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/11/19/political-parties-clash-over-sharia-based-bylaws.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In Egypt, during the short period of the [[2012 Egyptian presidential election|democratic experiment]], Muslim Brotherhood seized the momentum by being the most cohesive political movement among the opposition.<ref>The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood: Grim Prospects for a Liberal Egypt. by Eric Trager, ''Foreign Affairs'', 2011.</ref>

==Influence==
[[File:Tahar Djaout 1980.jpg|thumb|Algerian [[secularism|secularist]] journalist [[Tahar Djaout]] was assassinated in 1993 by the [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria|Armed Islamic Group]]]]
Few observers contest the immense influence of Islamism within the [[Muslim world]].<ref name="murphy-160">Murphy, Caryle, ''Passion for Islam'', (c. 2002), p. 160</ref><ref name="cook">Cook, Michael, ''The Koran: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press, (2000)</ref><ref name="murphy-161">Murphy, Caryle, ''Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience'', Scribner, (c. 2002), p. 161</ref> Following the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|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 [circa 2002-3] as the most powerful ideological force across the Muslim world today".<ref>Fuller, ''The Future of Political Islam'', (2003), p. 67</ref><ref>Referring to the success of radical transnational Islamism and specifically the party [[Hizb ut-Tahrir]], [[Zeyno Baran]] writes that "all religions have radicals, but in contemporary Islam the radicals have become the mainstream, and the moderates are pushed to the sides of the debate." (source: {{cite web |last1=Baran |first1=Zeyno |url=http://www.bits.de/public/documents/US_Terrorist_Attacks/Hizbut-ahrirIslam'sPoliticalInsurgency.pdf |title=Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency |publisher=Nixon Center |date=December 2004 |access-date=30 March 2016 |page=13 |ref=ZBHTIPI2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210214407/http://www.bits.de/public/documents/US_Terrorist_Attacks/Hizbut-ahrirIslam%27sPoliticalInsurgency.pdf |archive-date=10 December 2015 |url-status=dead }})</ref>

The strength of Islamism also draws from the strength of [[religiosity]] in general in the Muslim world. Compared to other societies around the globe, "[w]hat is striking about the Islamic world is that ... it seems to have been the least penetrated by [[irreligion]]".<ref name="cook-43"/> 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.<ref name="cook-43">Cook, Michael, ''The Koran: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press, (2000), p.42-3</ref>

Writing in 2009, German journalist Sonja Zekri described Islamists in Egypt and other Muslim countries 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."<ref name="qantara">{{cite web |url=http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-924/i.html |title=The Islamism Debate: God's Counterculture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080403133042/http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-924/i.html |archive-date=3 April 2008 |author=Sonja Zekri |author-link=Sonja Zekri |work=Süddeutsche Zeitung |date=2008 |translator=Phyllis Anderson}}</ref> Political Islamists were described as "competing in the democratic public square in places like [[Turkey]], [[Tunisia]], [[Malaysia]] and [[Indonesia]]".<ref>Farr, Thomas F. "Islam's Way to Freedom", ''First Things'', November 2008, pp. 24–28 [26]</ref>

==Types==
Islamism is not a united movement and takes different forms and spans a wide range of strategies and tactics towards the powers in place—"destruction, opposition, collaboration, indifference"<ref name=ORFPI1994:24/>—not because (or not just because) of differences of opinions, but because it varies as circumstances change.<ref name=ORFPI1994:109>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 109</ref><ref name="Valbjørn-POMEPS"/><sup>p.&nbsp;54</sup>

Moderate and reformist Islamists who accept and work within the democratic process include parties like the Tunisian [[Ennahda Movement]]. Some Islamists can be religious [[Populism|populists]] or far-right.<ref name="k356">{{cite journal | last1=Barton | first1=Greg | last2=Yilmaz | first2=Ihsan | last3=Morieson | first3=Nicholas | title=Religious and Pro-Violence Populism in Indonesia: The Rise and Fall of a Far-Right Islamist Civilisationist Movement | journal=Religions | volume=12 | issue=6 | date=29 May 2021 | issn=2077-1444 | doi=10.3390/rel12060397 | doi-access=free | page=397}}</ref> 
[[Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan|Jamaat-e-Islami]] of Pakistan is basically a socio-political and "[[vanguard party]]" working with in Pakistan's Democratic political process, but has also gained political influence through military coup d'états in the past.<ref name=ORFPI1994:24/> Other Islamist groups like [[Hezbollah]] in [[Lebanon]] and [[Hamas]] in [[Palestine]] claim to participate in the democratic and political process as well as armed attacks by their powerful paramilitary wings. [[Jihadist]] organizations like [[al-Qaeda]] and the [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]], and groups such as the [[Taliban]], entirely reject democracy, seeing it as a form of ''[[kufr]]'' (disbelief) calling for [[offensive jihad]] on a religious basis.

Another major division within Islamism is between what [[Graham E. Fuller]] has described as the ''conservative'' "guardians of the tradition" ([[Salafism|Salafis]], such as those in the [[Wahhabi]] movement) and the ''revolutionary'' "vanguard of change and Islamic reform" centered around the [[Muslim Brotherhood]].<ref name="Fuller, 2003 pp. 194">Fuller, ''The Future of Political Islam'', (2003), pp. 194–95</ref> [[Olivier Roy (professor)|Olivier Roy]] argues that "[[Sunni Islam|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".<ref>Roy, Olivier, ''The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East'', Columbia University Press, (2008), pp. 92–93</ref> Following the [[Arab Spring]] (starting in 2011), Roy has described Islamism as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy in much of the [[Arab world|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.<ref name="foreignpolicy1"/>

Arguing distinctions between "radical/moderate" or "violent/peaceful" Islamism were "simplistic", circa 2017, scholar Morten Valbjørn put forth these "much more sophisticated typologies" of Islamism:<ref name="Valbjørn-POMEPS">{{cite web |last1=Valbjørn |first1=Morten |title=Bringing the 'Other Islamists' back in: Sunni and Shia Islamism(s) in a sectarianized new Middle East |url=https://pomeps.org/bringing-the-other-islamists-back-in-sunni-and-shia-islamisms-in-a-sectarianized-new-middle-east |website=POMEPS, Project on Middle East Political Science |publisher=Elliott School of International Affairs |access-date=27 January 2023 |date=c. 2017}}</ref>
{{blockquote| 
* resistance/revolutionary/reformist Islamism,<ref name="Robinson, 2007">Robinson, Glenn E. (2007). "The battle for Iraq: Islamic insurgencies in comparative perspective". Third World Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 261–273.</ref> 
* Islahi-Ikhwani/Jihadi-Ikhwani/Islah-salafi/Jihadi-salafi Islamism,<ref name="Utvik, 2011">Utvik, Bjørn Olav (2011). Islamismen, Oslo: Unipub.</ref>
* reformist/revolutionary/societal/spiritual Islamism,<ref name="Yavuz, 2003">Yavuz, M. Hakan (2003). Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> 
* Third Worldist/Neo-Third Worldist Islamism,<ref name="Strindberg and Wärn, 2005">Strindberg, Anders & Mats Wärn (2005). "Realities of Resistance: Hizballah, the Palestinian rejectionists, and al-Qa'ida compared". Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 23–41.</ref> 
* Statist/Non-Statist Islamism,<ref name="Volpi-and-Stein-2015">Volpi, Frédéric & Ewan Stein (2015). "Islamism and the state after the Arab uprisings: Between people power and state power". Democratization, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 276–293.</ref> 
* Salafist Jihadi/Ikhwani Islamism,<ref name="Lynch, 2010">Lynch, Marc (2010). "Islam Divided Between 'Salafi-jihad' and the 'Ikhwan'". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, vol. 33, no. 6, pp. 467–487.</ref> or 
* mainstream/irredentist jihadi/doctrinaire jihadi Islamism.<ref name="Gerges, 2005">Gerges, Fawaz (2005). The Far Enemy : why jihad went global, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref>}}

===Moderate and reformist Islamism===
{{See also|Islamic democracy}}

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, major moderate Islamist movements such as the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and the Ennahda were excluded from democratic political participation. At least in part for that reason, Islamists attempted to overthrow the government in the [[Algerian Civil War]] (1991–2002) and waged a [[terrorism in Egypt|terror campaign in Egypt]] in the '90s. These attempts were crushed and in the 21st century, Islamists turned increasingly to non-violent methods,<ref name="Is">{{cite journal |url=http://carnegieendowment.org/files/pb40.hamzawy.FINAL.pdf |title=The Key to Arab Reform: Moderate Islamists |journal=Carnegie Endowment for Peace |pages=2 |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004005113/https://carnegieendowment.org/files/pb40.hamzawy.FINAL.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and "moderate Islamists" now make up the majority of the contemporary Islamist movements.<ref name="Ham"/><ref name="Fuller, 2003 pp. 194"/><ref name="Om">Moussalli, Ahmad S. ''Islamic democracy and pluralism''. from Safi, Omid. ''Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism''. Oneworld Publications, 1 April 2003.</ref>

Among some Islamists, Democracy has been harmonized with Islam by means of ''[[Shura]]'' (consultation). The tradition of consultation by the ruler being considered [[Sunnah]] of the [[Islamic prophet|prophet]] [[Muhammad]],<ref name="Om"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alhewar.com/SadekShura.htm|title=The Shura Principle in Islam – by Sadek Sulaiman|website=alhewar.com|access-date=4 December 2017|archive-date=24 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724034351/http://www.alhewar.com/SadekShura.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Esposito, J. & Voll, J.,2001, Islam and Democracy, ''Humanities'', Volume 22, Issue 6</ref> (''Majlis-ash-Shura'' being a common name for legislative bodies in Islamic countries).

Among the varying goals, strategies, and outcomes of "moderate Islamist movements" are a formal abandonment of their original vision of implementing ''[[sharia]]'' (also termed [[Post-Islamism]]) – done by the [[Ennahda Movement]] of Tunisia,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/ennahda-gives-political-islam|title=Ennahda is "Leaving" Political Islam|date=20 May 2016|work=Wilson Center|access-date=23 August 2017|archive-date=24 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824012939/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/ennahda-gives-political-islam|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Prosperous Justice Party]] (PKS) of Indonesia.<ref name="Al">Al-Hamdi, Ridho. (2017). ''Moving towards a Normalised Path: Political Islam in Contemporary Indonesia''. JURNAL STUDI PEMERINTAHAN (JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS). Vol. 8 No. 1, February 2017. p. 53, 56–57, 62.</ref> Others, such as the National Congress of Sudan, have implemented the sharia with support from wealthy, conservative states (primarily Saudi Arabia).<ref name="Human Rights Watch Report">{{cite web |url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/sudan/ |work=Human Rights Watch Report |date=November 1994 |volume=6 |issue=9 |title=SUDAN: "IN THE NAME OF GOD", Repression Continues in Northern Sudan |access-date=2 December 2016 |archive-date=5 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221005172932/https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/sudan/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Fuller, Graham E. 2003 p. 108">Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 108</ref>

According to one theory – "inclusion-moderation"—the interdependence of political outcome with strategy means that the more moderate the Islamists become, the more likely they are to be politically included (or unsuppressed); and the more accommodating the government is, the less "extreme" Islamists become.<ref>Pahwa, Sumita (2016). ''Pathways of Islamist adaptation: the Egyptian Muslim Brothers' lessons for inclusion moderation theory''. Democratization, Volume 24, 2017 – Issue 6. pp. 1066–1084.</ref> A prototype of harmonizing Islamist principles within the modern state framework was the "[[Turkish model]]", based on the apparent success of the rule of the Turkish [[Justice and Development Party (Turkey)|Justice and Development Party]] (AKP) led by [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/12/19/can-turkish-model-gain-traction-in-new-middle-east |title=Can the Turkish Model Gain Traction in the New Middle East? |author1=Sinan Ülgen |author2=Marwan Muasher |author3=Thomas de Waal |author4=Thomas Carothers |work=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |date=19 December 2011 |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=30 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181130043236/http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/12/19/can-turkish-model-gain-traction-in-new-middle-east |url-status=dead }}</ref> Turkish model, however, came "unstuck" after [[Gezi Park protests|a purge and violations of democratic principles by the Erdoğan regime]].<ref name=surreal>{{cite journal|last=de Bellaigue|first=Christopher|title=Turkey: 'Surreal, Menacing…Pompous'|journal=New York Review of Books|date=19 December 2013|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/turkey-surreal-menacing-pompous/?pagination=false|access-date=12 December 2013|archive-date=17 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717145313/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/turkey-surreal-menacing-pompous/?pagination=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="NYT-23-7-16">{{cite news|last1=Akyol|first1=Mustafa|title=Who Was Behind the Coup Attempt in Turkey?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/opinion/who-was-behind-the-coup-attempt-in-turkey.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220103/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/opinion/who-was-behind-the-coup-attempt-in-turkey.html |archive-date=3 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=23 July 2016|work=The New York Times|date=22 July 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Critics of the concept – which include both Islamists who reject democracy and anti-Islamists – hold that Islamist aspirations are fundamentally incompatible with the democratic principles.

===Salafi movement===
{{Main|Salafi movement}}
{{Salafi|Related}}
[[File:Ansar Dine Rebels - VOA.jpg|thumb|[[Ansar Dine]], a Salafi Islamist group operated between 2012 and 2017, sought to impose absolute [[sharia]] across [[Mali]]]]
The contemporary [[Salafi movement]] is sometimes described as a variety of Islamism and sometimes as a different school of Islam,<ref name=ORFPI1994:35>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 35</ref> such as a "phase between fundamentalism and Islamism".<ref name=ORFPI1994:31>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 31</ref>
Originally a reformist movement of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdul, and Rashid Rida, that rejected [[marabout]]ism (Sufism), the established schools of [[fiqh]], and demanded individual interpretation (''[[ijtihad]]'') of the Quran and [[Sunnah]];<ref name=ORFPI1994:32-33>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 32-33</ref> it evolved into a movement embracing the conservative doctrines of the medieval [[Hanbali]] theologian [[Ibn Taymiyyah]]. While all salafi believe Islam covers every aspect of life, that sharia law must be implemented completely and that the Caliphate must be recreated to rule the Muslim world, they differ in strategies and priorities, which generally fall into three groups: 
* The "[[Political quietism in Islam#Salafists|quietist]]" school advocates Islamization through preaching, educating the masses on [[sharia]] and "purification" of religious practices and ignoring government. 
* Activist (or ''haraki'') [[Salafi Islamist|Salafi activism]] encourages political participation—opposing government loans with interest or normalization of relations with Israel, etc. As of 2013, this school makes up the majority of Salafism.<ref name=jof>George Joffé, ''Islamist Radicalisation in Europe and the Middle East: Reassessing the Causes of Terrorism'', p. 317. London: [[I.B. Tauris]], 2013.</ref> Salafist political parties in the [[Muslim world]] include the [[Al-Nour Party]] of Egypt, the [[Al-Islah (Yemen)|Al-Islah Party]] of Yemen, and the [[Al Asalah|Al-Asalah Society]] of Bahrain.
* [[Salafi jihadism]], (see below) is inspired by the ideology of [[Sayyid Qutb]] ([[Qutbism]], see below), and sees secular institutions as an enemy of Islam, advocating revolution to pave the way for the establishment of a new [[Caliphate]].<ref name="Mo">Mohie-Eldin, Fatima. ''The Evolution of Salafism A History of Salafi Doctrine''. Al-Noor, Fall 2015. pp. 44–47.</ref>

{{anchor|Militant Islamism}}
===Militant Islamism/Jihadism===
{{main|Jihadism}}
{{see also|Islamic terrorism|Islamic extremism}}

====Qutbism====
{{main|Qutbism}}

[[Qutbism]] refers to the [[Jihadism|Jihadist]] ideology formulated by [[Sayyid Qutb]], (an influential figure of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] in [[Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt|Egypt]] during the '50s and '60s). Qutbism argued that not only was sharia essential for Islam, but that since it was not in force, Islam did not really exist in the Muslim world, which was in ''Jahiliyya'' (the state of pre-Islamic ignorance). To remedy this situation he urged a two-pronged attack of 1) preaching to convert, and 2) jihad to forcibly eliminate the "structures" of ''Jahiliyya''.<ref>''Muslim extremism in Egypt: the prophet and pharaoh'' by Gilles Kepel, pp. 55–6</ref> Defensive jihad against ''Jahiliyya'' Muslim governments would not be enough. "Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on this earth", so offensive Jihad was needed to eliminate ''Jahiliyya'' not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the Earth.<ref name="SOAGE-2009-192">{{cite journal |last1=SOAGE |first1=ANA BELÉN |title=Islamism and Modernity: The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb |journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions |date=June 2009 |volume=10 |issue=2 |page=192 |doi=10.1080/14690760903119092 |s2cid=144071957 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232945375 |access-date=9 March 2021}}</ref> In addition, vigilance against Western and Jewish conspiracies against Islam would-be needed.<ref name="carlisle.army.mil">{{cite journal |url=http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/eikmeier.pdf |title=Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211205245/http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/eikmeier.pdf |archive-date=11 February 2017 |author=Dale C. Eikmeier |journal=[[Parameters (journal)|Parameters]] |date=Spring 2007 |pages=85–98}}</ref><ref name="Ha">{{cite web |author=Hassan, Hassan |date=13 June 2016 |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2016/12/the-sectarianism-of-the-islamic-state-ideological-roots-and-political-context?lang=en |title=The Sectarianism of the Islamic State: Ideological Roots and Political Context |work=Carnegie Endowment for Peace |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=29 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191029150445/https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/13/sectarianism-of-islamic-state-ideological-roots-and-political-context-pub-63746 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Although Qutb was executed before he could fully spell out his ideology,<ref name="Ke">Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p. 31</ref> his ideas were disseminated and expanded on 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]].<ref>Sageman, Marc, ''Understanding Terror Networks'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, p. 63</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/qutb_milest_influence_obl.html|title=How Did Sayyid Qutb Influence Osama bin Laden?|access-date=26 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017060150/http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/qutb_milest_influence_obl.html|archive-date=17 October 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> Al-Zawahiri helped to pass on stories of "the purity of Qutb's character" and persecution he suffered, and played an extensive role in the normalization of offensive Jihad among followers of Qutb.<ref>Wright, ''Looming Tower'', 2006, p. 32-59</ref>

====Salafi Jihadism====
{{Main|Salafi jihadism}}

Salafi Jihadism or revolutionary Salafism<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Amghar |last2=Cavatorta |first1=Samir |first2=Francesco |date=17 March 2023 |title=Salafism in the contemporary age: Wiktorowicz revisited |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-023-00524-x |journal=Contemporary Islam |volume=17 |issue=2 |doi=10.1007/s11562-023-00524-x |via=Springer |page=3 |s2cid=257933043 |access-date=7 May 2023 |archive-date=8 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230508090448/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-023-00524-x |url-status=live }}</ref> emerged prominent during the 1980s when [[Osama bin Laden]] and thousands of other militant Muslims came from around the Muslim world to unite against the [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan]].<ref name="By"/><ref name="deneoux">Deneoux, Guilain (June 2002). "The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam". ''Middle East Policy''. pp. 69–71."</ref><ref name="BLivesey">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html |title=The Salafist movement by Bruce Livesey |publisher=PBS Frontline |date=2005 |access-date=24 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628202818/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html |archive-date=28 June 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Kramer2003>{{cite journal |url=http://www.meforum.org/541/coming-to-terms-fundamentalists-or-islamists |title=Coming to Terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists? |author=Kramer, Martin |journal=[[Middle East Quarterly]] |date=Spring 2003 |volume=X |issue=2 |pages=65–77 |quote=French academics have put the term into academic circulation as 'jihadist-Salafism.' The qualifier of Salafism—an historical reference to the precursor of these movements—will inevitably be stripped away in popular usage. |access-date=15 April 2014 |archive-date=1 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101195913/http://www.meforum.org/541/coming-to-terms-fundamentalists-or-islamists |url-status=live }}</ref> Local Afghan Muslims ([[mujahideen]]) had declared jihad against the Soviets and were aided with [[Operation Cyclone|financial, logistical and military support]] by [[Saudi Arabia]] and the United States, but after Soviet forces left Afghanistan, this funding and interest by America and Saudi ceased. The international volunteers, (originally organized by [[Abdullah Azzam]]), were triumphant in victory, away from the moderating influence of home and family, among the 
radicalized influence of other militants.<ref name=kepel-orig /> Wanting to capitalize on financial, logistical and military network that had been developed<ref name="By">{{cite web |author=Byman, Daniel L |author2=Williams, Jennifer R. |date=24 February 2015 |url=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/isis-vs-al-qaeda-jihadisms-global-civil-war/ |title=ISIS vs. Al Qaeda: Jihadism's global civil war |work=Brookings |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=21 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220921200819/https://www.brookings.edu/articles/isis-vs-al-qaeda-jihadisms-global-civil-war/ |url-status=live }}</ref> they sought to continue waging jihad elsewhere.<ref>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p.219-220</ref> Their new targets, however, included the United States—funder of the mujahideen but "perceived as the greatest enemy of the faith"; and governments of majority-Muslims countries—perceived of as apostates from Islam.<ref name=jihad-220>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p.220</ref><ref name="kepel-orig">"Jihadist-Salafism" is introduced by Gilles Kepel, ''Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam'' (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2002) pp. 219–222</ref>

Salafist-jihadist ideology combined the literal and traditional interpretations of scripture of Salafists, with the promotion and fighting of jihad against military and [[terrorism|civilian targets]] in the pursuit of the establishment of an [[Islamic state]] and eventually a new [[Caliphate]].<ref name=kepel-orig/><ref name="deneoux"/><ref name="Ha"/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.alarab.co.uk/?id=30798 |title=القطبية الإخوانية والسرورية قاعدة مناهج السلفية التكفيرية | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171205043603/http://www.alarab.co.uk/?id=30798 |archive-date=5 December 2017 |work=al-Arab Online}}</ref>{{NoteTag|As such, Salafi Jihadism envisions the Islamist goals akin to that of Salafism instead of the traditional Islamism exemplified by the mid-20th century Muslim Brotherhood, which is considered by Salafi Jihadis as excessively moderate and lacking in literal interpretations of the scriptures.<ref name="KepelJihad">{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=OLvTNk75hUoC |title = Jihad |access-date=24 October 2014 |isbn=978-1845112578 |last1=Kepel |first1= Gilles |last2 = Roberts |first2 = Anthony F. |year=2006 |publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing PLC }}</ref>}}

Other characteristics of the movement include the formal process of taking ''[[bay'ah]]'' (oath of allegiance) to the leader (''amir''), which is inspired by [[Hadith]]s and early Muslim practice and included in Wahhabi teaching;<ref name="wright-12-12-16">{{cite magazine |last=Wright |first=Robin |title=AFTER THE ISLAMIC STATE |magazine=The New Yorker |date=12 December 2016 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/12/after-the-islamic-state |access-date=9 December 2016 |archive-date=7 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207140827/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/12/after-the-islamic-state |url-status=live }}</ref> and the concepts of "near enemy" (governments of majority-Muslims countries) and "far enemy" (United States and other Western countries). (The term "near enemy" was coined by [[Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag]] who led the assassination of [[Anwar al-Sadat]] with [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]] (EIJ) in 1981.)<ref name="No">{{cite web |author=Noah, Timothy |date=26 February 2009 |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2009/02/the_nearenemy_theory.html |title=The Near-Enemy Theory |work=Slate |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=26 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726041454/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2009/02/the_nearenemy_theory.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The "far enemy" was introduced and formally declared under attack by [[al-Qaeda]] in 1996.<ref name="No"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thenational.ae/al-qaeda-grows-as-its-leaders-focus-on-the-near-enemy-1.342166 |title=Al Qaeda grows as its leaders focus on the 'near enemy' |work=The National |date=30 August 2013 |access-date=4 December 2017 |archive-date=29 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929145114/https://www.thenational.ae/al-qaeda-grows-as-its-leaders-focus-on-the-near-enemy-1.342166 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The ideology saw its rise during the '90s when the Muslim world experienced numerous geopolitical crisis,<ref name="By" /> 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.<ref name="By" /> After the [[1998 United States embassy bombing|1998 bombings of US embassies]], [[September 11 attacks]] (2001), the [[United States invasion of Afghanistan|US-led invasion of Afghanistan]] (2001) and [[2003 invasion of Iraq|Iraq]] (2003), Salafi Jihadism lost its momentum, being devastated by the US counterterrorism operations, culminating in [[Death of Osama bin Laden|bin Laden's death]] in 2011.<ref name="By" /> After the Arab Spring (2011) and subsequent [[Syrian civil war]] (2011–present), the remnants of al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq restored their capacity, rapidly developing into the [[Islamic State]] of Iraq and the Levant, spreading its influence throughout the conflict zones of [[MENA region]] and the globe. Salafi Jihadism makes up a minority of the contemporary Islamist movements.<ref name="Economist27Jun15">{{cite news |title=Salafism: Politics and the puritanical |url=https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21656189-islams-most-conservative-adherents-are-finding-politics-hard-it-beats |access-date=29 June 2015 |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |date=27 June 2015 |archive-date=28 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628193924/http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21656189-islams-most-conservative-adherents-are-finding-politics-hard-it-beats |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Shi'i Islamism===
{{Main|Islamist Shi'ism}}

Although most of the research and reporting about Islamism or political Islam has been focused on Sunni Islamist movements,{{NoteTag|"The study of Islamist movements has often implicitly meant the study of ''Sunni'' Islamist movements. ... the majority of studies [of Islamism] concern various forms of Sunni Islamism, whereas the "Other Islamists" – different kinds of Shia Islamist groups – have received far less attention ... ."<ref name="Valbjørn-POMEPS"/>}}
Islamism exists in [[Twelver]] [[Shia Islam]] (the second largest branch of Islam that makes up approximately 10% of all Muslims.{{NoteTag|85% of Shi'a Muslims, who make up 10–15% of Muslims}}). Islamist Shi'ism, also known as Shi'i Islamism, is primarily but not exclusively
{{NoteTag| Shia Islamist groups exist outside of the ideology of the Islamic Republic – the [[Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr]] and the [[Islamic Dawa Party]] in Iraqi, for example).<ref name="Valbjørn-POMEPS"/>}} associated with the thought of Ayatollah [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], with the [[Iranian Revolution|Islamist Revolution]] he led, [[History of the Islamic Republic of Iran|Islamic Republic of Iran]] that he founded, and the religious-political activities and resources of the republic.

Compared to the "Types" of Islamism mentioned above, [[Khomeinism]] differs from [[Anti-Shi'ism#Modern times|Wahhabism]] (which does not consider Shi'ism truly Islamic), [[Salafism]] (both orthodox or Jihadi—Shi'a do not consider some of the most prominent [[salaf]] worthy of emulation), reformist Islamism (the Islamic Republic executed more than 3,400 political dissidents between June 1981 and March 1982 in the process of consolidating power).<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Rastyad Collective |title=Rastyad: online database concerning the 1981 Massacre in Iran |url=https://rastyad.com/en/home_en/ |access-date=25 August 2022 |website=Rastyad.com|archive-date=12 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812190357/https://rastyad.com/en/home_en/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Amsterdam |first=Universiteit van |date=21 June 2022 |title=Onderzoekers lanceren online database over de grootste massamoord uit de Iraanse geschiedenis |url=https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/faculteiten/nl/faculteit-der-geesteswetenschappen/nieuws/2022/06/onderzoekers-lanceren-online-database-over-de-grootste-massamoord-uit-de-iraanse-geschiedenis.html |access-date=25 August 2022 |website=Universiteit van Amsterdam |language=nl |archive-date=25 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220925121545/https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/faculteiten/nl/faculteit-der-geesteswetenschappen/nieuws/2022/06/onderzoekers-lanceren-online-database-over-de-grootste-massamoord-uit-de-iraanse-geschiedenis.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Khomeini and his followers helped translate the works of Maududi and Qutb into Persian and were influenced by them, but their views differed from them and other Sunni Islamists in being "more leftist and more clerical":<ref name=ORFPI1994:2/>
*more leftist in the propaganda campaign leading up to the revolution, emphasizing exploitation of the poor by the rich and of Muslims by imperialism;<ref name=KEA1993:30>[[#KEA1993|Abrahamian, ''Khomeinism'', 1993]]: p.30</ref>{{NoteTag|In addition to offering Iran a direct channel for engaging in the politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Hezbollah's military and political influence gained increasing importance, particularly as the organization's position became more uncertain following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in June 1989.<ref>Ranstorp, ''Hizb'allah in Lebanon'', (1997) pp. 103, 126</ref> The radicalism had also come from attempts by Khomeini to counter the attraction of socialism/Marxism to the young with an Islamic version of radical populist, class struggle rhetoric and imagery.<ref name=KEA1993:31>[[#KEA1993|Abrahamian, ''Khomeinism'', 1993]]: p.31</ref><ref name=KEA1993:47>[[#KEA1993|Abrahamian, ''Khomeinism'', 1993]]: p.47</ref> Early radical government policies were later abandoned by the Islamic Republic.}} 
*more clerical in the new post-revolutionary state, where clerics were in control of the levers of power (the [[Supreme Leader of Iran|Supreme Leader]], [[Guardian Council]], etc., under the concept of [[Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist|Velayat-e Faqih]].{{NoteTag|Official histories and propaganda celebrated
clerics (and never secular figures like [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]]) as the protectors of Islam and Iran against Imperialism and royal despotism.<ref name=KEA1993:25-26>[[#KEA1993|Abrahamian, ''Khomeinism'', 1993]]: p.25-26</ref>}}).

Khomeini was a "radical" Islamist,<ref name=ORFPI1994:36>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p.36</ref> like Qutb and unlike Maudidi. He believed that foreigners, Jews and their agents were conspiring "to keep us backward, to keep us in our present miserable state".<ref name=IaR1981:34>[[#IaR1981|Khomeini, ''Islamic Government'', 1981]]: p.34</ref> Those who call themselves Muslims but were secular and Westernizing, were not just corrupt or misguided, but "agents" of the Western governments, helping to "plunder" Muslim lands as part of a long-term conspiracy against Islam.<ref name="Khomeini (1981), p. 54">Khomeini (1981), p. 54</ref> Only the rule of an Islamic jurist, administering Sharia law, stood between this abomination and justice, and could not wait for peaceful, gradual transition. It is the duty of Muslims to "destroy" "all traces" of any other sort of government other than true Islamic governance because these are "systems of [[kufr|unbelief]]".<ref name=IaR1981:48>[[#IaR1981|Khomeini, ''Islamic Government'', 1981]]: p.48</ref> "Troublesome" groups that cause "corruption in Muslim society," and damage "Islam and the Islamic state" are to be eliminated just as the Prophet [[Muhammad]] eliminated the Jews of [[Bani Qurayza]].<ref name=IaR1981:89>[[#IaR1981|Khomeini, ''Islamic Government'', 1981]]: p.89</ref> Islamic revolution to install "the form of government willed by Islam" will not end with one Islamic state in Iran. Once this government comes "into being, none of the governments now existing in the world" will "be able to resist it;" they will "all capitulate".<ref name=IaR1981:122>[[#IaR1981|Khomeini, ''Islamic Government'', 1981]]: p.122</ref>

====Ruling Islamic Jurist====
[[Khomeinism|Khomeini's form of Islamism]] was particularly unique in the world because it completely swept the old regime away, created a new regime with a new constitution, new institutions and a new concept of governance (the [[Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist|''Velayat-e Faqih'']]). A historical event, it changed militant Islam from a topic of limited impact and interest to a topic that few either inside or outside the [[Muslim world]] were unaware of.<ref name="Kepel, Jihad, 2002, p.106">Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, p.106</ref> As he originally described it in lectures to his students, the system of "[[Islamic Government]]" was one where the leading Islamic jurist would enforce sharia law—law which "has absolute authority over all individuals and the Islamic government".<ref>Khomeini, ''Islamic Government'', 1981: p.56</ref> The jurist would not be elected, and no legislature would be needed since divine law called for rule by jurist and "there is not a single topic in human life for which Islam has not provided instruction and established a norm".<ref>Khomeini, Islamic Government, 1981: p.29-30, also p.44</ref> Without this system, injustice, corruption, waste, exploitation and sin would reign, and Islam would decay. This plan was disclosed to his students and the religious community but not widely publicized.<ref>Abrahamian, ''Iran between two revolutions'', 1982: p.478-9</ref> The constitution of the Islamic Republic written after the revolution did include a legislature and president, but supervising the entire government was a "[[Supreme Leader of Iran|Supreme Leader]]"/guardian jurist.

Islamist Shi'ism has been crucial to the development of worldwide Islamism, because the Iranian regime attempted to export its revolution.<ref name="halliday">{{cite book |chapter=Revolution and World Politics |author=Fred Halliday |author-link=Fred Halliday |date=1999 |isbn=0-8223-2464-4 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3jCkXQRhHMgC&dq=%22export+of+revolution%22&pg=PA94 |title=Internationalism in Practice: Export of Revolution |pages=94–132 |publisher=Duke University Press |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502221543/https://books.google.com/books?id=3jCkXQRhHMgC&dq=%22export+of+revolution%22&pg=PA94 |url-status=live }}</ref> Although, the Islamist ideology was originally imported from Muslim Brotherhood, Iranian relations between the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Republic of Iran deteriorated due to its involvement in the Syrian civil war.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Persia|first=Track|date=15 June 2019|title=The historical relationship between the Iranian theocracy and Muslim Brothers in Egypt|url=https://www.trackpersia.com/historical-relationship-iranian-theocracy-muslim-brothers-egypt/|access-date=17 June 2021|website=Track Persia|quote="Syrian war has been a turning point in the relations between the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, excluding its branches in Turkey and Hamas. Some of the Muslim Brothers have shown support to Syrian opposition groups against the dictatorship of the Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, Iran's close ally."|archive-date=30 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210530235155/https://www.trackpersia.com/historical-relationship-iranian-theocracy-muslim-brothers-egypt/|url-status=dead}}</ref> However, the majority [[Usuli|Usuli Shi'ism]] rejects the idea of an Islamist State in the period of [[Occultation (Islam)|Occultation of the Hidden Imam]].<ref name="Ghobadzadeh 1005–1027">{{Cite journal|last=Ghobadzadeh|first=Naser|date=December 2013|title=Religious secularity: A vision for revisionist political Islam|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453713507014|journal=Philosophy & Social Criticism|volume=39|issue=10|pages=1005–1027|doi=10.1177/0191453713507014|s2cid=145583418|issn=0191-4537|access-date=4 May 2022|archive-date=25 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220225200500/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453713507014|url-status=live}}</ref>

====Shi'ism and Iran====
Twelver Shia Muslim live mainly in a half dozen or so countries scattered around the Middle East and South Asia.{{NoteTag| forming majorities in the countries of Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan,<ref name="Samadov-EAN-2022">{{cite news |last1=Samadov |first1=Bahruz |title=Will new Azerbaijani Islamist movement share the fate of its predecessors? |url=https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-will-new-azerbaijani-islamist-movement-share-the-fate-of-its-predecessors |access-date=27 January 2023 |agency=Eurasia Net |date=18 July 2022 |archive-date=6 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231106203650/https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-will-new-azerbaijani-islamist-movement-share-the-fate-of-its-predecessors |url-status=live }}</ref> and substantial minorities in Afghanistan, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.<ref name="BBC">{{cite web |title=Sunnis and Shia: Islam's ancient schism |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709 |publisher=BBC News |access-date=27 January 2023 |date=4 January 2016 |archive-date=11 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231011083116/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
The Islamic Republic of Iran has become "the de facto leader"<ref name="Bokhari-2013">{{cite book |last1=Bokhari |first1=Kamran |last2=Senzai |first2=Farid |title=Political Islam in the Age of Democratization |date=2013 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=abstract |doi=10.1057/9781137313492_9 |isbn=9781137313492 |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137313492_9 |access-date=27 January 2023 |archive-date=27 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127220152/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137313492_9 |url-status=live }}</ref> of the Shi'i world by virtue of being the largest Shia-majority state, having a long history of national cohesion and Shia-rule, being the site of the first and "only true"<ref name=ORFPI1994:168>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 168</ref> [[Iranian Revolution|Islamist revolution]] (see History section below), and having the financial resources of a major petroleum exporter. Iran's influence has spread into a cultural-geographic area of "Irano-Arab Shiism", establishing Iranian regional power,{{NoteTag|" ... the revolutionary Shiite movement, it is the only one to have taken power by way of a true Islamic revolution; it has therefore become identified with the Iranian state, which used it as an instrument in its strategy for gaining regional power, even though the multiplicity of Shiite groups reflects local particularities (in Lebanon, Afghanistan, or Iraq) as much as it does the factional struggles of Tehran."<ref name=ORFPI1994:2>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 2</ref>}} supporting "Shia militias and parties beyond its borders",<ref name="BBC"/>{{NoteTag|In the words of pro-Islamic Republic book by Jon Armajani: "Iran's government has attempted to align itself with Shia Muslims in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, [it] ... has attempted to religiously nourish and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, not only because of the Iranian government's desires to protect Iran from external threats."<ref name="ARMAJANI-2020">{{cite book |last1=ARMAJANI |first1=Jon |title=Shia Islam and Politics Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon |date=2020 |publisher=Lexington Books |page=abstract |url=https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793621375/Shia-Islam-and-Politics-Iran-Iraq-and-Lebanon |access-date=27 January 2023 |archive-date=31 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230131072639/https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793621375/Shia-Islam-and-Politics-Iran-Iraq-and-Lebanon |url-status=live }}</ref>}} intertwining assistance to fellow Shi'a with "Iranization" of them.<ref name=ORFPI1994:168/>

Shi'i Islamism in Iran has been influenced by the Sunni Islamists and their organizations,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Farhosh-van Loon |first=Diede |date=2016 |title=The Fusion of Mysticism and Politics in Khomeini's Quatrains |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/intejperslite.1.1.0059 |journal=International Journal of Persian Literature |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=59–88 |doi=10.5325/intejperslite.1.1.0059 |jstor=10.5325/intejperslite.1.1.0059 |issn=2376-5739 |access-date=5 June 2022 |archive-date=28 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528095630/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/intejperslite.1.1.0059 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Khalaji|2009}} particularly [[Rashid Rida|Sayyid Rashid Rida]],<ref name="Zhongmin 2013 23–28"/> [[Hassan al-Banna]] (founder of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] organization),{{sfn|Khalaji|2009}} [[Sayyid Qutb]],<ref>{{Citation|title=Shaykh al Fawzān Warns Against The Books of Sayyid Quṭb {{!}} Shaykh Ṣāliḥ al Fawzān| date=2 May 2016 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOvKL2-BNIw|access-date=22 April 2021|archive-date=22 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422085022/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOvKL2-BNIw|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Abul A'la Maududi]],<ref name="Fuller-Future-120"/> 
but has also been described as "distinct" from Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Islamism, "more leftist and more clerical",<ref name=ORFPI1994:2/> with its own historical influencers:

====Historical figures====
* [[Sheikh]] [[Fazlullah Nouri]],<ref>Mackey, Sandra, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation by Sandra Mackey, New York : Dutton, c1996, pp. 150–55</ref> a cleric of the Qajar dynasty court and the leader of the anti-constitutionalists during the [[Persian Constitutional Revolution|Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911]],<ref name="HERMANN-2013-430">{{cite journal |last1=HERMANN |first1=DENIS |title=Akhund Khurasani and the Iranian Constitutional Movement |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |date=May 2013 |volume=49 |issue=3 |pages=430–453 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2013.783828 |jstor=23471080 |s2cid=143672216 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471080 |access-date=20 April 2023 |archive-date=5 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305220832/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471080 |url-status=live }}</ref> who declared the new constitution contrary to sharia law.<ref>Donzel, Emeri "van" (1994). ''Islamic Desk Reference''. ISBN 90-04-09738-4. pp. 285–286</ref>
* [[Navvab Safavi]], a religious student who founded the ''[[Fada'iyan-e Islam]]'', seeking to purify Islam in Iran by killing off 'corrupting individuals', i.e. certain leading intellectual and political figures (including both a former and current prime minister).<ref name="Taheri, 1985 p.98">Taheri, ''The Spirit of Allah'', (1985), p. 98</ref> After the group was crushed by the government, surviving members reportedly chose Ayatollah Khomeini as a new spiritual leader.<ref name=Moin-224>Moin, ''Khomeini'' (2000), p. 224</ref><ref name=Taheri-187>Taheri, Amir, ''Spirit of Allah : Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution '', Adler and Adler c1985, p.187</ref>
* [[Ali Shariati]], a non-cleric "socialist Shi'i" who absorbed Marxist ideas in France and had considerable influence on young Iranians through his preaching that [[Imam Hussein]] was not just a holy figure but the original oppressed one (''muzloun''), and his killer, the Sunni Umayyad Caliphate, the "analog" of the modern Iranian people's "oppression by the shah".<ref>Kepel, ''Jihad'', 2002, pp. 107–8</ref>
* [[Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr]], a Shi'i Islamic scholar in Iraq who critiqued Marxism, socialism and capitalism and helped lead Shi'i opposition to Saddam Hussein's Baath regime before being executed by them.
* [[Mahmoud Taleghani]], an ayatollah and contemporary of Khomeini, was more leftist, more tolerant and more sympathetic to democracy, but less influential, though he still had a substantial following. Was deposed from revolutionary leadership<ref>Mackay, ''Iranians'', (1998), p. 291</ref> after warning of a "return to despotism" by the revolutionary leadership.<ref>Keddie, ''Modern Iran'', (2006), p. 245</ref>

==Explanations for the growth and popularity of Islamism==
===Sociological, economic and political===
Some Western political scientists see the unchanging socio-economic 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".<ref name=ORFPI1994:27>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 27</ref>

====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.<ref name=Fuller-Future-28>Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 28</ref>

====Economic stagnation====
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.<ref>''Commentary'', "Defeating the Oil Weapon", September 2002</ref>

====Sociology of rural migration====
[[Demographic transition]] (caused by the gap in time between the lowering of death rates from medical advances and the lowering of fertility rates), leads to population growth beyond the ability of housing, employment, public transit, sewer and water to provide. Combined with economic stagnation, [[urban agglomerations]] have been created in Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, [[Karachi]], [[Dhaka]], and [[Jakarta]], each with well over 12 million citizens, millions of them young and unemployed or underemployed.<ref name=Fuller-Future-68>Fuller, Graham E., ''The Future of Political Islam'', Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 68</ref> Such a demographic, alienated from the [[Westernization|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<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Muslim extremism in Egypt: the prophet and Pharaoh'', Berkeley: University of California Press, (c2003), p. 218</ref>—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."<ref>Lewis, Bernard, ''The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror'', (2003), p. 22</ref> One American anthropologist in Iran in the early 1970s (before the revolution), when comparing a "stable village with a new urban slum", discovered that where "the villagers took religion with a grain of salt and even ridiculed visiting preachers", the slum dwellers—all recently dispossessed peasants – "used religion as a substitute for their lost communities, oriented social life around the mosque, and accepted with zeal the teachings of the local mullah".<ref>Goodell, 'The Elementary Structures of Political Life' (PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1977); quoted in ''Iran Between Two Revolutions'' by Ervand Abrahamian, Princeton University Press, 1982 (p.426-84)</ref>

[[Gilles Kepel]] also notes that Islamist uprisings in Iran and Algeria, though a decade apart, coincided with the large numbers of youth who were "the first generation taught en masse to read and write and had been separated from their own rural, illiterate progenitors by a cultural gulf that radical Islamist ideology could exploit". Their "rural, illiterate" parents were too settled in tradition to be interested in Islamism and their children "more likely to call into question the utopian dreams of the 1970s generation", but they embraced revolutionary political Islam.<ref name=Kepel-jihad-365>Kepel, ''Jihad'', p.365</ref> Olivier Roy also asserts "it is not by chance that the Iranian Revolution took place the very year the proportion of city-dweller in Iran passed the 50% mark".<ref name=ORFPI1994:53>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p. 53</ref> and offers statistics in support for other countries (in 1990 Algeria, housing was so crowded that there was an average of eight inhabitants to a room, and 80% of youth aged 16 to 29 still lived with their parents). "The old clan or ethnic solidarities, the clout of the elders, and family control are fading little by little in the face of changes in the social structure ..."<ref name=ORFPI1994:54-5>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p.54-5</ref>
This theory implies that a decline in illiteracy and rural emigration will mean a decline in Islamism.

==Geopolitics==
===State-sponsorship===
====Saudi Arabia====
{{See also|International propagation of conservative Sunni Islam}}

Starting in the mid-1970s the Islamic resurgence was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi Arabian oil exports.<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Jihad: on the Trail of Political Islam'', Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (2002), pp. 69–75</ref> 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."<ref>Dawood al-Shirian, 'What Is Saudi Arabia Going to Do?' ''Al-Hayat'', 19 May 2003</ref>

Throughout the Muslim world, religious institutions for people both young and old, from children's [[madrasah|madrassas]] to high-level scholarships received Saudi funding,<ref>Abou al Fadl, Khaled, ''The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists'', HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, pp. 48–64</ref>
"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"),<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Jihad: on the Trail of Political Islam'', Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (2002), p. 72</ref> along with training in the Kingdom for the preachers and teachers who went on to teach and work at these universities, schools, mosques, etc.<ref>Nasr, Vali, ''The Shia Revival'', Norton, (2006), p. 155</ref>

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 University]], the world's oldest and most influential Islamic university.<ref>Murphy, Caryle, ''Passion for Islam'', (2002) p. 32</ref>

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 [[Apostasy in Islam|infidels]], etc.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/saudi-publications-hate-ideology-invade-american-mosques |title=Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505190440/https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/saudi-publications-hate-ideology-invade-american-mosques |archive-date=5 May 2019 |date=January 2006}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-25472708_ITM |title=An interview with Minister Mentor of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew |publisher=Accessmylibrary.com |date=24 September 2004 |access-date=21 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090713151408/http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-25472708_ITM |archive-date=13 July 2009 }}</ref>

====Qatar====
{{Further|Muslim Brotherhood}}

Though the much smaller Qatar could not provide the same level of funding as Saudi Arabia, it was also a petroleum exporter and also sponsored Islamist groups. Qatar backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt even after the [[2013 Egyptian coup d'état|2013 overthrow of the MB regime of Mohamed Morsi]], with Qatar ruler Sheikh [[Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani]] denouncing the coup.<ref name="Islam Hassan">{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/12696782|title=GCC's 2014 Crisis: Causes, Issues and Solutions|journal=Gulf Cooperation Council's Challenges and Prospects|author=Islam Hassan|date=31 March 2015|publisher=Al Jazeera Research Center|access-date=4 June 2015|archive-date=4 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904020157/http://www.academia.edu/12696782/GCCs_2014_Crisis_Causes_Issues_and_Solutions|url-status=live}}</ref> In June 2016, [[Mohamed Morsi]] was sentenced to life for passing state secrets to Qatar.<ref>{{cite news|title=Mohammed Morsi: Egypt's former president given life in spying case|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36567761|access-date=19 June 2016|publisher=BBC News|date=18 June 2016|archive-date=30 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830041331/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36567761|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Hendawi|first1=Hamza|title=Egyptian court sentences 2 Al-Jazeera employees to death|url=https://apnews.com/74b1debcd2b24a9db4d16868a8116d32|access-date=30 September 2017|work=Associated Press News|date=18 June 2016|archive-date=30 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930181320/http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2016/Egyptian_court_sentences_2_Al-Jazeera_employees_to_death/id-74b1debcd2b24a9db4d16868a8116d32|url-status=live}}</ref>

Qatar has also backed Islamist factions in Libya, Syria and Yemen.
In Libya, Qatar supported Islamists with tens of millions of dollars in aid, military training and "more than 20,000 tons of weapons", both before and after the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://intpolicydigest.org/2015/12/13/uae-qatar-wage-proxy-war-libya/|title=The UAE and Qatar Wage a Proxy War in Libya|date=13 December 2015|website=International Policy Digest|access-date=9 June 2016|archive-date=1 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701165508/http://intpolicydigest.org/2015/12/13/uae-qatar-wage-proxy-war-libya/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204002304576627000922764650|title=Tiny Kingdom's Huge Role in Libya Draws Concern|last1=Dagher|first1=Sam|date=17 October 2011|last2=Tripoli|first2=Charles Levinson in|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|issn=0099-9660|last3=Doha|first3=Margaret Coker in|access-date=9 June 2016|archive-date=18 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818023842/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204002304576627000922764650|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11110931/How-Qatar-is-funding-the-rise-of-Islamist-extremists.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11110931/How-Qatar-is-funding-the-rise-of-Islamist-extremists.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists|last=Spencer|first=David Blair and Richard|website=Telegraph|date=20 September 2014 |access-date=9 June 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Hamas, in Palestine, has received considerable financial support as well as diplomatic help.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/119705/why-does-qatar-support-known-terrorists|title=Qatar Is a U.S. Ally. They Also Knowingly Abet Terrorism. What's Going On?|last=Boghardt|first=Lori Plotkin|date=6 October 2014|magazine=New Republic|access-date=9 June 2016|archive-date=14 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210914045206/https://newrepublic.com/article/119705/why-does-qatar-support-known-terrorists|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":3"/><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/15/israel-lied-about-isil-soldiers-entering-gaza-to-justify-its-sie/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/15/israel-lied-about-isil-soldiers-entering-gaza-to-justify-its-sie/ |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Israel lied about Isil soldiers entering Gaza to justify its siege, Hamas claims|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=15 May 2016|access-date=9 June 2016|last1=Lazareva|first1=Inna}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://english.daralhayat.com/Spec/12-2003/Article-20031205-4343f65c-c0a8-01ed-0012-e4cdc62232f8/story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051210145051/http://english.daralhayat.com/Spec/12-2003/Article-20031205-4343f65c-c0a8-01ed-0012-e4cdc62232f8/story.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=10 December 2005 |title=Dar Al Hayat |date=10 December 2005 }}</ref>

====Western support of Islamism during the Cold War====
{{further|CIA activities in Afghanistan|Operation Cyclone|Afghan mujahideen}}
[[File:Reagan sitting with people from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in February 1983.jpg|thumb|Afghan mujahideen representatives with [[List of Presidents of the United States|President]] [[Ronald Reagan]] at the [[White House]] in 1983.]]

During the [[Cold War]], particularly during the 1950s, during the 1960s, and during most of the 1970s, the U.S. and other countries in the [[Western Bloc]] occasionally attempted to take advantage of the rise of Islamic religiousity by directing it against secular [[Left-wing politics|leftist]]/[[Communism|communist]]/[[Nationalism|nationalist]] insurgents/adversaries, particularly against the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Eastern Bloc]] states, whose ideology was not just secular but anti-religious.

In 1957, U.S. President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] and senior U.S. foreign policy officials, agreed on a policy of using the communists' lack of religion against them: "We should do everything possible to stress the '[[Jihad|holy war]]' aspect" that has currency in the Middle East.<ref>Annie Jacobsen, "Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins", (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), p. 88</ref>

During the 1970s and sometimes later, this aid sometimes went to fledgling Islamists and Islamist groups that later came to be seen as dangerous enemies.<ref name=Berman/> The US spent billions of dollars to aid the [[Soviet–Afghan War#Foreign involvement|mujahideen]] Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union, and non-Afghan [[Afghan Arabs#Attitude to the West|veterans]] of the war (such as [[Osama bin Laden]]) returned home with their prestige, "experience, ideology, and weapons", and had considerable impact.<ref name=ForeignAffairsNovember2005>{{cite news|url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |title=Blowback Revisited |magazine=[[Foreign Affairs]] |author=[[Peter Bergen]], Alec Reynolds |date=November–December 2005 |access-date=9 November 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071129203155/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |archive-date=29 November 2007 }}</ref>

Although it is a strong opponent of Israel's existence, [[Hamas]], officially founded in 1987, traces its origins back to institutions and clerics which were supported by Israel in the 1970s and 1980s. Israel tolerated and supported Islamist movements in Gaza, with figures like [[Sheikh Ahmed Yassin|Ahmed Yassin]], as Israel perceived them preferable to the secular and then more powerful [[al-Fatah]] with the [[PLO]].<ref name=wsj-24-1-09>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847 |title=How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas |first=Andrew |last=Higgins |date=24 January 2009 |work=The Wall Street Journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115044159/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html|archive-date=15 January 2013|access-date=15 January 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.democracynow.org/2006/1/26/how_israel_and_the_united_states |title=How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas |date=26 January 2006 |publisher=Democracynow.org |access-date=18 August 2011 |archive-date=17 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110817150529/http://www.democracynow.org/2006/1/26/how_israel_and_the_united_states |url-status=live }}</ref>

Egyptian President [[Anwar Sadat]]{{spaced ndash}}whose policies included opening Egypt to Western investment (''[[infitah]]''); transferring Egypt's allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States; and [[Egypt–Israel peace treaty|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."<ref>{{cite book |title=Jihad: the trail of political Islam |first=Gilles |last=Kepel |page=83}}</ref><ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Muslim Extremism in Egypt'', chapter 5, "Vanguard of the Umma"</ref> 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 [[Terrorism in Egypt|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."<ref name=Berman>''Terror and Liberalism'' by Paul Berman, W.W. Norton and Company, 2003, p. 101.</ref>

==History==
{{Main|History of Islamism}}

Olivier Roy dates the beginning of the Islamism movement "more or less in 1940",<ref name=ORFPI1994:3>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p.3</ref> and its development proceeding "over half a century".<ref name=ORFPI1994:3/>

===Preceding movements===
Some Islamic revivalist movements and leaders which pre-date Islamism but share some characteristics with it include:
* [[Ahmad Sirhindi]] (~1564–1624) was largely responsible for the purification, reassertion and revival of conservative orthodox Sunni Islam in India during Islam's second millennium.<ref>Massington, L., Radtke, B. Chittick, W.C., Jong, F. de., Lewisohn, L., Zarcone, Th., Ernst, C, Aubin, Françoise and J.O. Hunwick, "Taṣawwuf", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs</ref><ref>Qamar-ul Huda (2003), Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhraward Sufis, RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 1–4.</ref><ref>Mortimer, ''Faith and Power'', (1982) p. 58. Quoting Aziz Ahmad, ''Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment'', Oxford University Press, (1964), p. 189</ref>
* [[Ibn Taymiyyah]], a Syrian Islamic jurist during the 13th and 14th centuries argued against the practices such as the celebration of Muhammad's birthday, and seeking assistance at the grave of the Prophet.<ref>Haque 1982, pp. 78–81.</ref>
* [[Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab]], the founder of [[Wahhabism]], advocated doing away with the later religious accretions like worship at graves.
* [[Shah Waliullah]] of India 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.<ref>Mortimer, ''Faith and Power'', (1982) pp. 67–68.</ref>
* [[Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi]] was a disciple and successor of Shah Waliullah's son who led a [[Jihadism|jihadist]] movement and attempted to create an Islamic state based on the enforcement of [[Sharia|Islamic law]].<ref>Mortimer, ''Faith and Power'', (1982), p. 69</ref><ref name="Islamic Revival in British India">{{cite book|last=Metcalf|first=Barbara Daly|title=Islamic revival in British India : Deoband, 1860–1900|date=2002|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|isbn=0195660498|edition=3rd impression.|location=New Delhi}}</ref>
* the [[Deobandi|Deobandi movement]], founded after the defeat of the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857|Indian Rebellion]], around 1867, led to the establishment of thousands of conservative Islamic schools or [[madrasah]]s throughout modern-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.<ref>''Islam and the Muslim World'', (2004) p. 374</ref>

===Early history===
The end of the 19th century saw the dismemberment of most of the Muslim [[Ottoman Empire]] by non-Muslim European colonial powers,<ref>Mortimer, Edward, ''Faith and Power'', (1982), p. 85</ref> despite the empire's spending massive sums on Western civilian and military technology to try to modernize and compete with the encroaching European powers. In the process the Ottomans went deep into debt to these powers.

Preaching Islamic alternatives to this humiliating decline were Jamal ad-din [[al-Afghani]] (1837–97), [[Muhammad Abduh]] (1849–1905) and [[Rashid Rida]] (1865–1935).<ref>Mortimer, Edward, ''Faith and Power'', (1982), pp. 93, 237–40, 249</ref><ref>''Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World'', Macmillan Reference, 2004, v.2, p. 609</ref><ref>''The New Encyclopedia of Islam'' by Cyril Glasse, Rowman and Littlefield, 2001, p. 19</ref><ref>''The Oxford Dictionary of Islam'' by John L. Esposito, OUP, 2003, p. 275
</ref><ref>''Historical Dictionary of Islam'' by Ludwig W. Wadamed, Scarecrow Press, 2001, p. 233</ref> Abduh's student Rida is widely regarded as one of the "ideological forefathers" of contemporary Islamist movement,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Meleagrou-Hitchens|first=Alexander|url=https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Salafism%2520in%2520America.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj7wbq0oIjzAhWo4nMBHQUfAXMQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1QqUsie74bpzia9SWtxRXB|title=Salafism in America|publisher=The George Washington University|year=2018|page=65}}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and along with early Salafiyya [[Hassan al-Banna]],and [[Mustafa al-Siba'i]], preached that a truly Islamic society would follow sharia law, reject [[taqlid]], (the blind imitation of earlier authorities),<ref>''Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience'' by Caryle Murphy, p. 46</ref> restore the [[Caliphate]].<ref name=ORFPI1994:33>[[#ORFPI1994|Roy, ''Failure of Political Islam'', 1994]]: p.33</ref>

====Sayyid Rashid Rida====
{{See also|Rashid Rida#Islamic Political Theory|The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate (book)|label 1=Islamic Political Doctrines of Rashid Rida}}
[[File:RashidRida2 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Rashid Rida|Sayyid Muhammad Rashid Rida]] ({{langx|ar|سيد رشيد رضا}}; 23 September 1865 – 22 August 1935).]]

Syrian-Egyptian Islamic cleric Muhammad Rashid Rida was one of the earliest 20th-century Sunni scholars to articulate the modern concept of an [[Islamic state]], influencing the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and other Sunni Islamist movements. In his influential book ''al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-'Uzma'' ("''The Caliphate or the Grand Imamate''"); Rida explained that that societies that properly obeyed ''[[Sharia]]'' would be successful alternatives to the disorder and injustice of both [[capitalism]] and [[socialism]].<ref name="auto">{{Cite book|last=McHugo|first=John|title=A Concise History of the Arabs|publisher=The New Press|year=2013|isbn=978-1-59558-950-7|location=New York, N.Y. |page=287}}</ref>

This society would be ruled by a Caliphate; the ruling [[Caliph]] (''Khalifa'') governing through ''[[shura]]'' (consultation), and applying [[Sharia]] (Islamic laws) in partnership with Islamic juristic clergy, who would use ''Ijtihad'' to update ''[[fiqh]]'' by evaluating scripture.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Enayat|first=Hamid|title=Modern Islamic Political Thought: The Response of the Shi'i and SunnI Muslims to the Twentieth Century|publisher=The Macmillan Press Ltd|year=1982|isbn=978-0-333-27969-4|location=London|pages=69, 77}}</ref> With the ''[[Caliphate|Khilafa]]'' providing true Islamic governance, Islamic civilization would be revitalised, the political and legal independence of the Muslim ''umma'' (community of Muslim believers) would be restored, and the heretical influences of Sufism would be cleansed from Islam.<ref>{{Cite book|last=C. Martin|first=Richard|title=Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Second Edition|publisher=Gale Publishers|year=2016|isbn=978-0-02-866269-5|location=Farmington Hills, Michigan|page=1088|chapter=State and Government}}</ref> This doctrine would become the blueprint of future Islamist movements.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Li|first=Ruiheng|year=2016|title=A Preliminary Study on the "Islamic State" Thought in Modern Islamism|journal=Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (In Asia)|publisher=Routledge: Taylor & Francis group|volume=10|issue=4|page=27|doi=10.1080/19370679.2016.12023291|doi-access=free}}</ref>

====Muhammad Iqbal====
{{main|Muhammad Iqbal}}
{{see also|Two-nation theory}}

[[Muhammad Iqbal]] was a philosopher, poet and politician<ref name="aml.org.pk"/> in [[British Raj|British India]],<ref name="aml.org.pk"/><ref name="Iqbal Academy Pakistan">{{cite web|url=http://www.allamaiqbal.com/|title=Iqbal Academy Pakistan|access-date=25 October 2014|archive-date=21 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140221223540/http://www.allamaiqbal.com/|url-status=dead}}</ref> widely regarded as having inspired the [[Two-Nation Theory|Islamic Nationalism]] and [[Pakistan Movement]] in [[British India]].<ref name="aml.org.pk">{{cite web|url=http://www.aml.org.pk/AllamaIqbal.html|title=Allama Muhammad Iqbal Philosopher, Poet, and Political leader|publisher=Aml.Org.pk|access-date=2 March 2012|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305000639/http://www.aml.org.pk/AllamaIqbal.html|archive-date=5 March 2012}}</ref><ref name="goethezeitportal">{{cite web|author=Anil Bhatti |work=Yearbook of the Goethe Society of India |url=http://www.goethezeitportal.de/fileadmin/PDF/db/wiss/goethe/bhatti_iqbal.pdf |title=Iqbal and Goethe |access-date=7 January 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081030083304/http://www.goethezeitportal.de/fileadmin/PDF/db/wiss/goethe/bhatti_iqbal.pdf |archive-date=30 October 2008 }}</ref><ref name="rahnemaa01">{{cite journal |last=Rahnemaa |first=Saeed |title=Radical Islamism and Failed Developmentalism |journal=Third World Quarterly |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=483–96 |doi=10.1080/01436590801931462 |year=2008 |s2cid=144880260 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/995659 |access-date=24 September 2017 |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004075512/https://zenodo.org/record/995659 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Iqbal expressed fears of [[secularism]] and secular [[nationalism]] weakening the spiritual foundations of Islam and [[Muslim]] society, and of India's [[Hindu]]-majority population crowding out Muslim heritage, culture and political influence. In 
1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India which inspired the [[Pakistan movement]].

He also promoted [[Pan-Islamism|pan-Islamic unity]] in his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, [[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]] and Syria.

His ideas later influenced many [[Reformism|reformist]] Islamists, e.g., [[Muhammad Asad]], [[Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi]] and [[Ali Shariati]].

====Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi====
{{main|Abul Ala Maududi}}
{{see also|Jamaat-e-Islami}}

[[Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi]]<ref name="autogenerated5">{{cite web|url=http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/politics/mawdudi2.html|title=Maulana Maududi's Two-Nation Theory|publisher=Witness-pioneer.org|date=27 January 2012|access-date=21 April 2012|archive-date=10 November 2001|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011110145907/http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/politics/mawdudi2.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="bonney1">{{cite book | quote=Mawdudi trained with two Deobandi ulama at the Fatihpuri mosque's seminary in Delhi and received his certificates to teach religious sciences (ijazahs) in 1926. |last=Bonney | first=R |title=Jihad: From Qur'an to Bin Laden | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | location=Hampshire |year=2004 | page=201}}</ref> was an important early twentieth-century figure in the Islamic revival in India, and then after independence from Britain, in Pakistan. Maududi was an Islamist ideologue and Hanafi Sunni scholar active in [[Hyderabad State|Hyderabad Deccan]] and later in [[Pakistan]]. Maududi was born to a clerical family and got his early education at home. At the age of eleven, he was admitted to a public school in [[Aurangabad]]. In 1919, he joined the [[Khilafat Movement]] and got closer to the scholars of [[Deobandi movement|Deoband]].{{sfn|Rahnema|2005|p=100}} He commenced the ''[[Dars-i Nizami]]'' education under supervision of Deobandi seminary at the Fatihpuri mosque in Delhi.{{sfn|Rahnema|2005|p=101}} Trained as a lawyer he worked as a journalist, and gained a wide audience with his books (translated into many languages) which placed Islam in a modern context. His writings had a profound impact on [[Sayyid Qutb]]. Maududi also founded the [[Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan|Jamaat-e-Islami]] party in 1941 and remained its leader until 1972.{{sfn|Rahnema|2005|pp=104–110}}

In 1925, he wrote a book on Jihad, [[Al Jihad fil Islam|''al-Jihad fil-Islam'']] ({{langx|ar|الجهاد في الاسلام}}), that can be regarded as his first contribution to Islamism.{{sfn|Rahnema|2005|p=102}} Maududi believed that Muslim society could not be Islamic without Sharia (influencing Qutb and Khomeini), and the establishment of an Islamic state to enforce it.<ref>Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, "Political Theory of Islam", in Khurshid Ahmad, ed., ''Islam: Its Meaning and Message'' (London: Islamic Council of Europe, 1976), pp. 159–61.</ref> The state would be based on the principles of: ''[[tawhid]]'' (unity of God), ''[[risalah (fiqh)|risala]]'' (prophethood) and ''[[khilafa]]'' (caliphate).<ref>Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, ''Islamic Way of Life'' (Delhi: Markazi Maktaba Islami, 1967), p. 40</ref><ref>Esposito and Piscatori, "Democratization and Islam", pp. 436–37, 440</ref><ref>Esposito, ''The Islamic Threat'', pp. 125–26; Voll and Esposito, ''Islam and Democracy'', pp. 23–26.</ref><ref>{{cite web |author= Abul A'la Maududi |url=http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/M_PIR/Default.htm |title=The Process of Islamic Revolution |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150908034259/http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/M_PIR/Default.htm |archive-date=8 September 2015 |date=1980}}</ref> Maududi was uninterested in violent revolution or populist policies such as those of the [[Iranian Revolution]], but sought gradual change in the hearts and minds of individuals from the top of society downward through an educational process or ''da'wah''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Nasr|first1=Seyyed Vali Reza|title=Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism|date=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford and New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I07ykFUoKTUC&q=islam%20was%20a%20revolutionary%20ideology%20and%20a%20dynamic%20movement&pg=PA50 |ref=SVRN1996|page=77|isbn=978-0195357110}}
</ref><ref>Maududi on social justice: "a man who owns a car can drive it; and those who do not own one should walk; and those who are crippled cannot walk but can hop along." (''Nizam al-Hayat fi al-Islam'', 1st ed., n.d. (Bayrut: Musassast al-Risalah, 1983), p. 54) See also ''Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: the Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb'' by Ahmad S. Moussalli American University of Beirut, (1992)</ref> Maududi believed that Islam was all-encompassing: "Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys God by submission to His laws."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf|chapter=The Meaning of Islam|page=7|title=A. Maududi's 'Towards Understanding Islam'|date=June 2008|access-date=23 January 2023|archive-date=23 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230123174239/https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> "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."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf|chapter=The Meaning of Islam|page=8|title=A. Maududi's 'Towards Understanding Islam'|date=June 2008|access-date=23 January 2023|archive-date=23 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230123174239/https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="towards-ICNA-1986">{{cite book |last1=Abul ʻAla Maudoodi |first1=Syed |title=Towards Understanding Islam |date=1986 |publisher=Islamic Circle of North America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FzgNAQAAMAAJ&q=Everything+in+the+universe+is+%27Muslim%27+for+it+obeys+God+by+submission+to+His+laws...+The+man+who+denies+God+is+called+%5B%5BKafir%5D%5D+(concealer)+because+he+conceals+by+his+disbelief+what+is+inherent+in+his+nature+and+embalmed+in+his+own+soul. |access-date=23 January 2023 |archive-date=2 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231002215436/https://books.google.com/books?id=FzgNAQAAMAAJ&q=Everything%20in%20the%20universe%20is%20%27Muslim%27%20for%20it%20obeys%20God%20by%20submission%20to%20His%20laws...%20The%20man%20who%20denies%20God%20is%20called%20%5B%5BKafir%5D%5D%20%28concealer%29%20because%20he%20conceals%20by%20his%20disbelief%20what%20is%20inherent%20in%20his%20nature%20and%20embalmed%20in%20his%20own%20soul. |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Muslim Brotherhood====
{{main|Muslim Brotherhood}}
[[File:Hassan al-Banna - Al-Alam, V2, P 233.jpg|thumb|[[Hasan al-Banna]]]]
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",<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf |chapter=The Meaning of Islam |page=7 |title=The Message of the Teachings – Hasan al-Banna |access-date=23 January 2023 |archive-date=23 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230123174239/https://zulkiflihasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/towardsunderstanding.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
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 Western imperialist influence in the Muslim world.<ref>*{{cite journal |last=Mura |first=Andrea |year=2012 |title=A genealogical inquiry into early Islamism: the discourse of Hasan al-Banna |journal=Journal of Political Ideologies |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=61–85 |doi=10.1080/13569317.2012.644986 |s2cid=144873457 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MURAGI |access-date=28 June 2019 |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004093428/https://philpapers.org/rec/MURAGI |url-status=live }}</ref>

Some elements of the Brotherhood did engage in violence, assassinating Egypt's premier [[Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha|Mahmoud Fahmy El Nokrashy]] in 1948. MB founder [[Hassan al Banna|Al-Banna]] was assassinated in retaliation three months later.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/timeline_egypt.html|title=Egypt, A Timeline of Recent Events|publisher=Gemsofislamism.tripod.com|access-date=21 April 2012|archive-date=17 December 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061217104055/http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/timeline_egypt.html|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.

The Brotherhood expanded to many other countries, particularly in the [[Arab world]]. In Egypt, despite periodic repression—for many years it was
described as "semi-legal"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193396891&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |title=Free Republic. The day before, and after – It's been 25 years since the Islamist genie first went on the rampage |publisher=Fr.jpost.com |access-date=21 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223182128/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193396891&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |archive-date=23 December 2011 }}</ref>—it was the only opposition group in Egypt able to field candidates during elections.<ref name="multiref1">{{cite web|url=http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-924/i.html |title=The Islamism Debate: God's Counterculture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080403133042/http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-924/i.html |archive-date=3 April 2008 |author=Sonja Zekri |work=Süddeutsche Zeitung |date=2008 |translator=Phyllis Anderson}}</ref> In the [[2011–12 Egyptian parliamentary election]], the political parties identified as "Islamist" (the Brotherhood's [[Freedom and Justice Party (Egypt)|Freedom and Justice Party]], Salafi [[Al-Nour Party]] and liberal Islamist [[Al-Wasat Party]]) won 75% of the total seats.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/world/middleeast/muslim-brotherhood-wins-47-of-egypt-assembly-seats.html |title=Islamists Win 70% of Seats in the Egyptian Parliament |work=The New York Times |date=21 January 2012 |last1=Kirkpatrick |first1=David D. |access-date=27 February 2017 |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004105215/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/world/middleeast/muslim-brotherhood-wins-47-of-egypt-assembly-seats.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Mohamed Morsi]], the candidate of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]]'s party, was the first democratically elected president of Egypt. However, he was deposed during the [[2013 Egyptian coup d'état]], after mass protests against what were perceived as undemocratic moves by him. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is designated as a [[List of designated terrorist groups|terrorist organization]] by [[Bahrain]], Russia, [[Syria]], [[Egypt]], [[Saudi Arabia]] and the [[United Arab Emirates]].

====Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966)====
{{main|Milestones (book)}}
{{see also|Sayyid Qutb|Qutbism}}
[[File:Sayyid Qutb.jpg|thumb|right|[[Sayyid Qutb]]]]

Qutb, a leading member of the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] movement, is considered by some (Fawaz A. Gerges) to be "the founding father and leading theoretician" of modern jihadists, such as [[Osama bin Laden]].<ref>Fawaz A. Gerges, ''The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global'' (Bronxville, N.Y.: Sarah Lawrence College) {{ISBN|978-0521791403}} prologue</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/qutb_milest_influence_obl.html|title=How Did Sayyid Qutb Influence Osama bin Laden?|publisher=Gemsofislamism.tripod.com|access-date=21 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017060150/http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/qutb_milest_influence_obl.html|archive-date=17 October 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>*{{cite journal |last=Mura |first=Andrea |year=2014 |title=The Inclusive Dynamics of Islamic Universalism: From the Vantage Point of Sayyid Qutb's Critical Philosophy |journal=Comparative Philosophy |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=29–54 }}</ref> He was executed for allegedly participating in a presidential assassination plot in 1966.

Maududi's political ideas influenced Sayyid Qutb. Like Maududi, he believed Sharia was crucial to Islam, so the restoration of its full enforcement was vital to the world. Since Sharia had not been fully enforced for centuries, Islam had "been extinct for a few centuries".<ref>Qutb, Sayyid, ''Milestones'', The Mother Mosque Foundation, (1981), p. 11, 19</ref> Qutb preached that Muslims must engage in a two-pronged attack of converting individuals through [[Dawah|preaching Islam]] peacefully but also using "physical power and jihad".<ref>Qutb, Sayyid, ''Milestones'', p.55</ref> Force was necessary because "those who have usurped the authority of God" would not give up their power through friendly persuasion.<ref>Qutb, Sayyid, ''Milestones'', p.59</ref>
Like Khomeini, whom he influenced he believed the West was engaged in a vicious centuries long war against Islam.<ref>Qutb, Sayyid, ''Milestones'', pp.124, 116, 160</ref>

===Six-Day War (1967)===
{{Main|Six-Day War}}

The defeat of the armies of several Arab states by [[Israel]] during the [[Six-Day War]] marked a significant moment in the Arab world. The loss, coupled with economic stagnation in these countries, was attributed by some to the secular [[Arab nationalism]] of the ruling regimes. This period saw a decline in the popularity and credibility of secular, socialist, and nationalist ideologies, such as [[Ba'athism]], [[Arab socialism]], and Arab nationalism. In contrast, various Islamist movements, both democratic and anti-democratic, inspired by figures like [[Maududi]] and [[Sayyid Qutb]], began to gain influence.<ref name="Mayer1">Mayer, p. 110</ref>

===Iranian Revolution (1978–1979)===
{{Main|Iranian Revolution}}
{{See also|Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution|Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists}}
[[File:Roollah-khomeini.jpg|thumb|[[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]]]]

The first modern "Islamist state" (with the possible exception of Zia's Pakistan)<ref>"The Islamic Resurgence: Prospects and Implications" by Kemal A. Faruki, from ''Voices of Resurgent Islam'', ed. by John L. Esposito, OUP, (1983), p. 283</ref> was established among the [[Shia]] of Iran. In a major shock to the rest of the world, Muslim and non-Muslim, a revolution led by [[Ayatollah]] [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] overthrew the secular, oil-rich, well-armed, pro-American monarchy of Shah [[Muhammad Reza Pahlavi]]. The revolution was an "indisputable sea change";<ref name="Parvaz-shook-2014">{{cite news |last1=Parvaz |first1=D. |title=Iran 1979: the Islamic revolution that shook the world |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/2/11/iran-1979-the-islamic-revolution-that-shook-the-world |access-date=22 May 2023 |publisher=Al Jazeera|date=11 February 2014 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522174248/https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/2/11/iran-1979-the-islamic-revolution-that-shook-the-world |url-status=live }}</ref> Islamism had been a topic of limited impact and interest before 1979, but after the revolution, "nobody within the Muslim world or outside it" remained unaware of militant Islam.<ref name="Kepel, Jihad, 2002, p.106"/>

Enthusiasm for the Iranian revolution in the Muslim world could be intense;{{NoteTag|Even after Sunni-Shia hostility escalated, Iranian leaders often "went directly for the kind of things that make them very unpopular in the West and very popular on the Arab streets. So Iranian President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad started to attack Israel and question the Holocaust."<ref>[http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=35720 'Removing Saddam strengthened Iran'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605124425/http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=35720 |date=5 June 2011 }}</ref>}} 
and there were many reasons for optimism among Islamists outside Iran. Khomeini was implementing Islamic law.<ref name="Ataie-LSE-2021">{{cite web |last1=Ataie |first1=Mohammad |last2=Lefèvre |first2=Raphaël |last3=Matthiesen |first3=Toby |title=How Iran's 1979 Revolution Affected Sunni Islamists in the Middle East |url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/04/26/how-irans-1979-revolution-affected-sunni-islamists-in-the-middle-east/ |website=London School of Economics Blog |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=26 April 2021 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522174249/https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/04/26/how-irans-1979-revolution-affected-sunni-islamists-in-the-middle-east/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He was interested in Pan-Islamic (and pan-Islamist) unity and made efforts to "bridge the gap" between Shiites and Sunnis, declaring "it permissible for Shiites to pray behind Sunni imams",<ref>{{cite web |url-status=deviated |url=http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1175008835987&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout#9 |website=IslamOnline |title=Frequently Asked Questions on Iran |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091107074118/http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1175008835987&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout |archive-date=7 November 2009 }}</ref> and forbidding Shiites from "criticizing the Caliphs who preceded [[Ali]]" (revered by Sunnis but not Shia).<ref>Ansari, Hamid, ''The Narrative of Awakening'', The Institute for the Compilation and Publication of the works of the Imam Khomeini, (no date), p.253</ref> The Islamic Republic also downplayed Shia rituals (such as the [[Day of Ashura]]), and shrines {{NoteTag| Khomeini never presided over or visited Shi'i shrines,<ref name="Nasr, Shia Revival, 135">Nasr, Vali, ''The Shia Revival'', Norton, (2006), p.135</ref> (it is thought because he believed that Islam should be about [[sharia|Islamic law]],<ref name="Nasr, Shia Revival, 135"/> and his revolution (which he believed) was of "equal significance" to [[Battle of Karbala]] where the [[Husayn ibn Ali|Imam Husayn]] was martyred).<ref name="Nasr, Shia Revival, 136">Nasr, Vali, ''The Shia Revival'', Norton, (2006), p.136</ref>}} Before the Revolution, Khomeini acolytes (such as today's [[Supreme Leader of Iran]], [[Ali Khamenei]]), translated and championed the works of the Muslim Brotherhood jihadist theorist, [[Sayyid Qutb]],{{sfn|Khalaji|2009}} and other Sunni Islamists/revivalists.{{sfn|Khalaji|2009}}

This campaign did not survive his death however. As previously submissive Shia (usually minorities) became more assertive, Sunnis saw mostly "Shia mischief" and a challenge to Sunni dominance.<ref>Nasr, Vali, ''The Shia Revival'' (Norton), 2006), p.143-4</ref> "What followed was a Sunni-versus-Shia contest for dominance, and it grew intense."<ref name="Nasr, revival, 148-9">Nasr, Vali, ''The Shia Revival'' (Norton), 2006), p.148-9</ref> Animosity between the two sects in Iran and its neighbors is systemic as of 2014,<ref>{{cite news|author=Paul Vallely|date=19 February 2014|title=The vicious schism between Sunni and Shia has been poisoning Islam for 1,400 years – and it's getting worse|work=The Independent|location=London|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-vicious-schism-between-sunni-and-shia-has-been-poisoning-islam-for-1400-years--and-its-getting-worse-9139525.html|access-date=2 March 2014|archive-date=24 May 2022|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220524/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-vicious-schism-between-sunni-and-shia-has-been-poisoning-islam-for-1400-years--and-its-getting-worse-9139525.html|url-status=live}}</ref> with thousands killed from sectarian fighting in Iraq and Pakistan.<ref name="CFR-Tensions-1979-2021">{{cite news |title=1979 – 2021 Modern Sunni-Shia Tensions |url=https://www.cfr.org/timeline/modern-sunni-shia-tensions |access-date=22 May 2023 |agency=Council on Foreign Relations |archive-date=25 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231025054157/https://www.cfr.org/timeline/modern-sunni-shia-tensions |url-status=live }}</ref> Also tarnishing the revolution's image have been "purges, executions, and atrocities",<ref>Kepel, Gilles, ''Jihad'', Harvard University Press, (2002), p. 118</ref> and periodic and increasingly widespread [[Mahsa Amini protests|domestic unrest and protest]] by young Iranians.

Among the "most important by-products of the Iranian revolution" (according to Mehrzad Boroujerdi as of 2014) include "the emergence of [[Hezbollah]] in Lebanon, the moral boost provided to Shia forces in Iraq, the regional cold war against Saudi Arabia and Israel, lending an Islamic flavour to the anti-imperialist, anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, and inadvertently widening the Sunni-Shia cleavage".<ref name="Parvaz-shook-2014"/> The Islamic Republic has also maintained its hold on power in Iran in spite of [[United States-Iran relations|US economic sanctions]], and has created or assisted like-minded Shia terrorist groups in Iraq ([[SCIRI]])<ref>Bakhash, Shaul, ''The Reign of the Ayatollahs'', Basic Books, (1984), p. 233</ref> and Lebanon ([[Hezbollah]])<ref>"Hezbollah Shia group is coy about revealing the sums it has received from Iran. ... Reports have spoken of figures ranging from 10 to 15 million dollars per month, but it is possible that Hezbollah has received larger sums. It is only in recent years (after 1989) that Iran has decreased its aid." from: Jaber, Hala, ''Hezbollah: Born with a vengeance'', New York: Columbia University Press, (1997), p. 150</ref> (two Muslim countries that also have a large percentage of Shiites).

The campaign to overthrow the shah led by Khomeini had had a strong class flavor (Khomeini preached that the shah was widening the gap between rich and poor; condemning the working class to a life of poverty, misery, and drudgery, etc.);<ref name=KEA1993:30/> and the "pro-rural and pro-poor"<ref name="Isfahani-economy-2019">{{cite web |last1=Isfahani |first1=Djavad Salehi |title=Iran's economy 40 years after the Islamic Revolution |url=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/03/14/irans-economy-40-years-after-the-islamic-revolution/ |website=Brookings |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=14 March 2019 |archive-date=22 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622130650/https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/03/14/irans-economy-40-years-after-the-islamic-revolution/ |url-status=live }}</ref> approach has led to almost universal access to electricity and clean water,<ref name="Isfahani-40-Brookings">{{cite web |last1=Isfahani |first1=Djavad Salehi |title=The Islamic Revolution at 40 |url=https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-islamic-revolution-at-40/ |website=Brookings |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=12 February 2019 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522174247/https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-islamic-revolution-at-40/ |url-status=live }}</ref> but critics of the regime complain of promises made and not kept: the "sons of the revolution's leaders and the business class that decides to work within the rules of the regime ... flaunt their wealth, driving luxury sportscars around Tehran, posting Instagram pictures of their ski trips and beach trips around the world, all while the poor and the middle class are struggling to survive or maintain the appearance of a dignified life" (according to Shadi Mokhtari).<ref name="Priborkin-40years-2019">{{cite web |last1=Priborkin |first1=Emily |title=40 Years Later: Iran after the Islamic Revolution |url=https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20190408-40-years-later-iran-after-the-islamic-revolution.cfm |website=American University |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=8 April 2019 |archive-date=10 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310094340/https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20190408-40-years-later-iran-after-the-islamic-revolution.cfm |url-status=live }}</ref> One commitment made (to his followers if not the Iranian public) that has been kept is [[Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist|Guardianship by the Islamic jurist]]. But Rather than strengthening Islam and eliminating secular values and practices, the "regime has ruined the Iranian people's belief in religion" ("anonymous expert").<ref name="Priborkin-40years-2019"/>

===Grand Mosque seizure (1979)===
{{Further|Grand Mosque seizure}}

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 [[Masjid al-Haram|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<ref>Wright, ''Sacred Rage'', (2001), p. 148</ref> in a gross violation of one of the most holy sites in Islam (and one where arms and violence are strictly forbidden).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ourdialogue.com/m22.htm |title=Masjid-ul-Haram: Sacred and forbidden |publisher=Ourdialogue.com |access-date=21 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120420195838/http://www.ourdialogue.com/m22.htm |archive-date=20 April 2012 }}</ref><ref>Wright, Lawrence, ''The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11''. New York: Knopf, (2006), pp. 103–04</ref>

Instead of prompting a backlash against the movement that inspired the attackers, 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).<ref>Wright, Robin, ''Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam'', p. 155</ref>

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.<ref>Wright, Robin, ''Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam'', p. 149</ref>

===Pakistan's Islamization (1979)===
In 1979, after the coup by Zia al-Haq, the leader brought in Hudud Ordinances. Some of these laws continue to exist in Pakistan to this day.

===Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989)===
[[File:October_87_-_Khalis-loyal_Muja.jpg|thumb|Afghan Mujahideen of [[Hezb-i Islami Khalis|Hezb-i Islami]], 1986]]
In 1979, the [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet Union deployed its 40th Army into Afghanistan]], attempting to suppress an Islamic rebellion against an allied Marxist regime in the [[War in Afghanistan (1978–present)|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 [['alim]] [[Abdullah Yusuf Azzam#Life in Pakistan and Afghanistan|Abdullah Yusuf Azzam]]. While the military effectiveness of these "[[Afghan Arabs]]" was marginal, an estimated 16,000<ref name=Atkins>{{cite book|last1=Atkins |first1=Stephen E.|title=Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups|date=2004|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmo0000atki/page/35 35] |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmo0000atki|url-access=registration |quote=abdullah azzam afghanistan. |access-date=5 October 2014|isbn=978-0-313-32485-7}}</ref> to 35,000 Muslim volunteers<ref name=Commins-174 /> came from around the world to fight in Afghanistan.<ref name=Commins-174>{{cite book|last1=Commins|first1=David |title=The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia|url=https://archive.org/details/wahhabimissionsa0000comm|url-access=registration|date=2006|publisher=I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/wahhabimissionsa0000comm/page/174 174]|quote=In all, perhaps 35,000 Muslim fighters went to Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992, while untold thousands more attended frontier schools teeming with former and future fighters.}}</ref><ref name=rashid-129>Rashid, Ahmed, ''Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'' (New Haven, 2000), p. 129.</ref>

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.

<blockquote>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.<ref name=for-aff-bergen>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |title=blowback revisited |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071129203155/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84601/peter-bergen-alec-reynolds/blowback-revisited.html |archive-date=2007-11-29 |magazine=Foreign Affairs |date=2005 |author=Peter Bergen}}</ref></blockquote>

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&nbsp;billion in aid given by the US and Pakistan's military training and intelligence support to the mujahideen,<ref>{{cite news |title=How the CIA created Osama bin Laden |url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/24198 |date=19 September 2001 |newspaper=[[Green Left Weekly]] |access-date=9 January 2007 |archive-date=12 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912101441/https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/24198 |url-status=live }}</ref> bin Laden wrote: "[T]he US has no mentionable role" in "the [[collapse of the Soviet Union]]... rather the credit goes to [[Allah|God]] and the ''[[mujahidin]]''" of Afghanistan.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm |title=bin Laden interview with Peter Arnett, March 1997 |publisher=Anusha.com |access-date=8 June 2012 |archive-date=18 August 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000818075220/http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Persian Gulf War (1990–1991)===
{{See also|Gulf War}}
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'athism|Ba'athist]] dictator of neighboring Iraq, attacked Kuwait (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.<ref>''Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam'' [[Gilles Kepel]] pp. 205–17</ref> One result of this was a campaign of attacks on government officials and tourists in [[al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya|Egypt]], a bloody civil war in [[List of Algerian massacres of the 1990s|Algeria]] and [[Osama bin Laden]]'s terror attacks climaxing in the [[September 11, 2001 attacks|9/11 attack]].<ref>''Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam'' [[Gilles Kepel]] p. 207</ref>

===Social and cultural triumph in the 2000s===
By the beginning of the twenty first century, "the word secular, a label proudly worn" in the 1960s and '70s was "shunned" and "used to besmirch" political foes in Egypt and the rest of the Muslim world.<ref name="murphy-161"/> Islamists surpassed the small secular opposition parties in terms of "doggedness, courage," "risk-taking" or "organizational skills".<ref name="murphy-160"/> As of 2002,

<blockquote>In the Middle East and Pakistan, religious discourse dominates societies, the airwaves, and thinking about the world. Radical mosques have proliferated throughout Egypt. Book stores are dominated by works with religious themes ... The demand for sharia, the belief that their governments are unfaithful to Islam and that Islam is the answer to all problems, and the certainty that the West has declared war on Islam; these are the themes that dominate public discussion. Islamists may not control parliaments or government palaces, but they have occupied the popular imagination.<ref>''The Age of Sacred Terror'' by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, Random House, 2002, pp. 172–73</ref></blockquote>

Opinion polls in a variety of Islamic countries showed that significant majorities opposed groups like [[Islamic State|ISIS]], but also wanted religion to play a greater role in public life.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/|title=Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world|date=22 July 2016|newspaper=Pew Research Center|access-date=11 November 2016|archive-date=18 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160718103140/http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==="Post-Islamism"===
{{See also|Post-Islamism}}
By 2020, approximately 40 years after the Islamic overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the seizure of the Grand Mosque by extremists, a number of observers ([[Olivier Roy (professor)|Olivier Roy]], Mustafa Akyol, Nader Hashemi) detected a decline in the vigor and popularity of Islamism. Islamism had been an idealized/utopian concept to compare with the grim reality of the status quo, but in more than four decades it had failed to establish a "concrete and viable blueprint for society" despite repeated efforts (Olivier Roy);<ref name=Roy-2004>{{cite journal |last1=Sinanovic |first1=Ermin |title=[Book review] Post-Islamism: The Failure of Islamic Activism? |journal=International Studies Review |date=2005 |volume=7 |pages=433–436 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2486.2005.00508.x |jstor=3699758 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3699758 |access-date=30 December 2020 |archive-date=7 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210407103844/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3699758 |url-status=live }}</ref> and instead had left a less than inspiring track record of its impact on the world (Nader Hashemi).<ref name="Hashemi-40-2021"/> Consequently,
in addition to the trend towards moderation by Islamist or formerly Islamist parties (such as [[Prosperous Justice Party|PKS of Indonesia]], [[Justice and Development Party (Turkey)|AKP of Turkey]], and [[Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS)|PAS of Malaysia]]) mentioned above, there has been a social/religious and sometimes political backlash against Islamist rule in countries like Turkey, Iran, and Sudan (Mustafa Akyol).<ref name="Akyol-ruining">{{cite web |last1=Akyol |first1=Mustafa |title=How Islamists are Ruining Islam |url=https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam |website=Hudson Institute |access-date=30 December 2020 |date=12 June 2020 |archive-date=15 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615160745/https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam |url-status=live }}</ref>

Writing in 2020, Mustafa Akyol argues there has been a strong reaction by many Muslims against political Islam, including a weakening of religious faith—the very thing Islamism was intended to strengthen. He suggests this backlash against Islamism among Muslim youth has come from all the "terrible things" that have happened in the Arab world in the twenty first century "in the name of Islam"—such as the "sectarian civil wars in [[Syrian civil war|Syria]], [[War in Iraq (2013–2017)|Iraq]] and [[Yemeni Civil War (2014–present)|Yemen]]".<ref name="Akyol-ruining"/>

Polls taken by [[Arab Barometer]] in six Arab countries – Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq and Libya – found "Arabs are losing faith in religious parties and leaders." In 2018–19, in all six countries, fewer than 20% of those asked whether they trusted Islamist parties answered in the affirmative. That percentage had fallen (in all six countries) from when the same question was asked in 2012–14. Mosque attendance also declined more than 10 points on average, and the share of those Arabs describing themselves as "not religious" went from 8% in 2013 to 13% in 2018–19.<ref>{{cite news |title=Arabs are Losing Faith in Religious Parties and Leaders |newspaper=The Economist |date=5 December 2019 |url=https://www.arabbarometer.org/2019/12/arabs-are-losing-faith-in-religious-parties-and-leaders/ |access-date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=5 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221005093023/https://www.arabbarometer.org/2019/12/arabs-are-losing-faith-in-religious-parties-and-leaders/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Akyol-ruining"/> In Syria, Sham al-Ali reports "rising apostasy among Syrian youths".<ref>{{cite web |author=Sham al-Ali |title=On Rising Apostasy Among Syrian Youths |work=Al-Jumhuriya |date=22 August 2017 |url=https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/al-jumhuriya-fellowship/on-rising-apostasy |access-date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=22 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122153843/https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/al-jumhuriya-fellowship/on-rising-apostasy |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Akyol-ruining"/>

Writing in 2021, Nader Hashemi notes that in Iraq, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Gaza, Jordan and other places were Islamist parties have come to power or campaigned to, "one general theme stands. The popular prestige of political Islam has been tarnished by its experience with state power."<ref name="Zakaria-10-years-29-4-21">{{cite news |last1=Zakaria |first1=Fareed |title=Opinion: Ten years later, Islamist terrorism isn't the threat it used to be |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/ten-years-later-islamist-terrorism-isnt-the-threat-it-used-to-be/2021/04/29/deb88256-a91c-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html |access-date=4 May 2021 |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=29 April 2021 |archive-date=16 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116153800/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/ten-years-later-islamist-terrorism-isnt-the-threat-it-used-to-be/2021/04/29/deb88256-a91c-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Hashemi-40-2021">{{cite journal |last1=Hashemi |first1=Nader |title=Political Islam: A 40 Year Retrospective |journal=Religions |date=2021 |volume=12 |issue=2 |page=130 |doi=10.3390/rel12020130 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
In Iran, hardline Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi has complained, "Iranians are evading religious teachings and turning to secularism."<ref>David Brooks, "This Is How Theocracy Shrivels", ''The New York Times'', 27 August 2021
</ref>
Even Islamist terrorism was in decline and tended "to be local" rather than pan-Islamic. As of 2021, Al-Qaeda consisted of "a bunch of militias" with no effective central command (Fareed Zakaria).<ref name="Zakaria-10-years-29-4-21"/>

==Criticism==
{{Main|Criticism of Islamism}}
{{See also|Criticism of Islam|List of critics of Islam}}
[[File:"Freedom go to hell".jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|An Islamist protester in [[London]] on 6 February 2006 carries a sign reading "Freedom go to hell"]]
Islamism, or elements of Islamism, have been criticized on numerous grounds, including repression of free expression and individual rights, rigidity, hypocrisy, [[Antisemitism in Islam|anti-semitism]],<ref>{{cite web |author=Wistrich, Robert S. |url=http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Anti-Semitism-and-Jewish-destiny-403703 |title=Anti-Semitism and Jewish destiny |work=The Jerusalem Post |date=20 May 2015 |access-date=26 May 2015 |archive-date=27 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150527082212/http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Anti-Semitism-and-Jewish-destiny-403703 |url-status=live }}</ref> misinterpreting the [[Quran]] and [[Sunnah]], lack of true understanding of and innovations to Islam ([[bid'ah]]) – notwithstanding proclaimed opposition to any such innovation by Islamists.

==Parties and organizations==
{{Main category|Islamist groups}}
{{Main list|List of Islamic political parties|Islamic extremism#Active Islamic extremist groups}}

==See also==
{{columns-list|colwidth=20em|* [[Islam and secularism]]
* [[Anti-Western sentiment]]
* [[Anti-Zionism]]
* [[Islamist Shi'ism]]
* ''[[Clash of Civilizations]]''
* [[Clerical fascism]]
* [[Hindutva]]
* [[Christian right]]
* [[Dominionism]]
* [[Islamicism (disambiguation)]]
* [[Islamism by country]]

}}
{{clear}}

==References==
===Notes===
{{NoteFoot}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin|30em}}

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* {{Cite journal|last=Fuchs|first=Simon Wolfgang|date=July 2014|title=Third Wave Shi'ism: Sayyid Arif Husain al-Husaini and the Islamic Revolution in Pakistan|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43307315|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=24|issue=3|pages=493–510|doi=10.1017/S1356186314000200|jstor=43307315|s2cid=161577379|access-date=5 June 2022|archive-date=2 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002121722/https://www.jstor.org/stable/43307315|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last1=Rahnema |first1=Ali |title=Pioneers of Islamic Revival |date=1 November 2005 |publisher=[[Zed Books]] |location=London, UK |isbn=9781842776155 |url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pioneers-of-islamic-revival-9781842776155/ |access-date=5 June 2022 |archive-date=7 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221007001215/https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pioneers-of-islamic-revival-9781842776155/ |url-status=live }}
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* {{Cite journal|last=Bohdan|first=Siarhei|date=Summer 2020|title="They Were Going Together with the Ikhwan": The Influence of Muslim Brotherhood Thinkers on Shi'i Islamists during the Cold War|url=https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2020/00000074/00000002/art00005;jsessionid=3669aj37j07cl.x-ic-live-03|journal=The Middle East Journal|volume=74|issue=2|pages=243–262|doi=10.3751/74.2.14|s2cid=225510058|issn=1940-3461|access-date=5 June 2022|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326035121/https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2020/00000074/00000002/art00005;jsessionid=3669aj37j07cl.x-ic-live-03|url-status=live}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
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