Islamism is a religio-political ideology. The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are dedicated to realizing their ideological interpretation of Islam within the context of the state or society. The majority of them are affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements, often designated as "al-harakat al-Islamiyyah."
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Qutbism, Islamic extremism, Islamic activism, but also criticized as pejorative, a term used by outsiders who instead ought to be using Islamic activism, Islamic revivalism, or one of the other terms given above.
War against Islam is a term used to describe a concerted effort to harm, weaken or annihilate the societal system of Islam, using military, economic, social and cultural means, or means invading and interfering in Islamic countries under the pretext of the war on terror, or using the media to create a negative stereotype about Islam. The perpetrators of the theory are thought to be non-Muslims, particularly the Western world and "false Muslims", allegedly in collusion with political actors in the Western world. While the contemporary narrative of the "War against Islam" mostly covers general issues of societal transformations in modernization and secularization as well as general issues of international power politics among modern states, the crusades are often narrated as its alleged starting point.
Qutbism is an exonym that refers to the beliefs and ideology of Sayyid Qutb, a leading Islamist revolutionary of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. Influenced by the doctrines of earlier Islamists like Hasan al-Banna and Maududi, Qutbism advocates armed Jihad to establish Islamic government, in addition to promoting offensive Jihad.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Gilles Kepel, is a French political scientist and Arabist, specialized in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. Considered as one of the world’s leading authorities on Political Islam and the Middle East, he is Professor at Sciences Po Paris, the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) and director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Program at PSL, based at Ecole Normale Supérieure. His latest english-translated book, Away from Chaos. The Middle East and the Challenge to the West was reviewed by The New York Times as “an excellent primer for anyone wanting to get up to speed on the region”. His last essay, le Prophète et la Pandémie / du Moyen-Orient au jihadisme d'atmosphère, just released in French, has topped the best-seller lists and is currently being translated into English and a half-dozen languages. The excerpt The Murder of Samuel Paty is presently released in the Issue 3 of Liberties Journal.
The Algerian Civil War, known in Algeria as the Black Decade, was a civil war fought between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups from 11 January 1992 to 8 February 2002. The war began slowly, as it initially appeared the government had successfully crushed the Islamist movement, but armed groups emerged to declare jihad and by 1994, violence had reached such a level that it appeared the government might not be able to withstand it. By 1996–97, it had become clear that the Islamist resistance had lost its popular support, although fighting continued for several years after.
The National Islamic Front was an Islamist political organization founded in 1976 and led by Dr. Hasan al-Turabi that influenced the Sudanese government starting in 1979, and dominated it from 1989 to the late 1990s. It was one of only two Islamic revival movements to secure political power in the 20th century.
Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951–2022) was the second general emir of al-Qaeda from 2011 to 2022.
Maʿālim fī aṭ Ṭarīq, also Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq, or Milestones, first published in 1964, is a short book written by the influential Egyptian Islamist author Sayyid Qutb, in which he makes a call to action and lays out a plan to re-create the "extinct" Muslim world on strictly Quranic grounds, casting off what he calls Jahiliyyah.
Olivier Roy is a French political scientist, professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He has published articles and books on secularisation and Islam including "Global Islam", and The Failure of Political Islam. He is known to have "a different view of radical Islam" than some other experts, seeing it as peripheral, Westernized and part of a radicalized and "virtual" rather than pious and "actual" Muslim community. More recently he has written on the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Muhammad Qutb, was a Muslim author, scholar and teacher who is best known as the younger brother of the Egyptian Muslim thinker Sayyid Qutb. After his brother was executed by the Egyptian government, Muhammad moved to Saudi Arabia, where he promoted his brother's ideas.
Afghan Arabs are Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet–Afghan War to help fellow Muslims fight Soviets and the pro-Soviet Afghans in the DRA Despite being called "Afghan" they were not from Afghanistan nor legally citizens of Afghanistan.
Islamic revival refers to a revival of the Islamic religion, usually centered around enforcing sharia. A leader of a revival is known in Islam as a mujaddid.
The ideas and practices of the leaders, preachers, and movements of the Islamic revival movement known as Islamism have been criticized by non-Muslims and Muslims.
Salafi jihadism, also known as Revolutionary Salafism or jihadist-Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim and (takfired) Muslim targets, and the Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts, which they believe to be "in their most literal, traditional sense", to bring about the return to "true Islam".
Following the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran and his regime, in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" from this time until 1982 or 1983 when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, consolidated power. During this period, Iran's economy and the apparatus of government collapsed; its military and security forces were in disarray.
Islamic extremism in Egypt caused terrorism and controversy in the country in the 20th century and continues to be a main issue in the 21st century Egyptian society. Egypt has a long history of radical and extreme sects of Islam with roots dating back to around 660 CE. Islamic extremism opposes "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". These extreme beliefs led to radical actions across the Middle East. The main conflict between Islamic extremists and the government officials throughout history stems from two major issues: "the formation of the modern nation-state and the political and cultural debate over its ideological direction".
Petro-Islam is a neologism used to refer to the international propagation of the extremist and fundamentalist interpretations of Sunni Islam derived from the doctrines of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a Sunni Muslim preacher, scholar, reformer and theologian from Uyaynah in the Najd region of the Arabian Peninsula, eponym of the Islamic revivalist movement known as Wahhabism. This movement has been favored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
Starting in the mid-1970s and 1980s, Salafism and Wahhabism — along with other Sunni interpretations of Islam favored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies — achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam."
