Talk:Islamism/Archive 2

Let me quote from my book, "State and Revolution in the Middle East and Pakistan", edited by Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi, original copyright 1988:

The term 'Islamism', which apparently originated in both Arabic and French in North Africa, and has begun to be used in English, is used in place of the inaccurate and resented 'fundamentalism' and the overly vague 'Islamic Revival' and the like. ALthough some dislike 'Islamism', it has the great practical value of being the term most acceptable to Muslims. 'Islamism' refers to twentieth-century movements for political Islam, usually aiming overtly or covertly at an Islamic state that would enforce at least some Islamic laws and customs, including those related to dress, sex.. etc.

I hope this will at least settle the issue of "Islamism" being used before the current War on Terrorism, as well as its use by scholars of the field. Now if we can all get back to work instead of engaging in foolishness? Graft 00:18, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The interesting thing is that many fundamentalist Muslims are quite peaceful; Sufi Islam is technically a fundamentalist movement (i.e. see the Wiki definition; they read their religious texts non-historically, as literally the word of God, etc.) yet Sufi Islam (aka Sufism) is well known as the most tolerant and peaceful denomination of the religion. The term Islamism should be preferred, as it refers to a particular modern political-religious movement, and not to all religious Muslims. RK 00:28, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the term 'fundamentalist' applies at all well to Islamist movements, many of which have doctrines that are radical departures from previous Islamic thought (like Mawdudi's idea of himself as "enlightened leader", who alone was capable of seeing where the movement, and by extension the world, should go). When this edit war is over, I'd like to remove it from the introduction. Graft 00:32, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It is certainly true that the Islamist movement is a radical departure from previous Islamic thought, yet that doesn't make them non-fundamentalist. The term fundamentalist basically has two meanings in comparative religion; Islamism fits both of them. As per our Wikipedia article, (a) fundamentalism refers to the anti-modernist movements of various religions. In many ways religious fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon, characterized by a sense of embattled alienation in the midst of the surrounding culture, even where the culture may be nominally influenced by the adherents' religion. (b) Fundamentalism also refers to a way of approaching one's religious scripture; i.e. in fundamentalism one holds that one's religious texts are infallible and historically accurate. So I would say that it is valid to note that Islamist movements are fundamentalist. This is, however (as you note), not the same thing as saying that they are traditional. Fundamentalists (of all faiths) like to portray their beliefs as "the way our religion has always been", even when in fact they have actually made radical innovations and changes. RK 20:13, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

More to the point, "Islamic fundamentalist" is often assigned a specific meaning, e.g., "traditionalist", those who abide carefully by long-standing norms and conventional interpretations, and especially attention to the ulema, which is not necessarily a feature of Islamist groups. For example, Mawdudi decidedly does NOT follow this line of thinking, also the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. On the other hand, the Wahhabists -do-, e.g. in Saudi Arabia. conferring tremendous authority on the clerics. Similarly the Deobandis. Whether we want to group them with the movements they inspired (al Qaeda and the Taliban respectively) is a matter of debate. However, there's no good call to use "fundamentalist" so loosely to label Islamists. Graft 13:52, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Please add de:Islamismus, tnx. --Nerd

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Contents

1 Not stagnation again ! 2 Islam is inherently political 2.1 The Islamic State 2.2 Islam is sometimes militant

Not stagnation again !

Once again, I fear that immobilism or stagnation will fall upon another wikipedia article. Protecting pages is perhaps good to cool down things, but imho contrary to a wiki process which should be dynamic. What is likely to occur is that the initial authors of the article will be quite happy at seeing it protected for undefinite time, since it suit them well, and such prevent it to evolute in a natural way as it should, over the various opinions and perceptions of other people.

I think it deep wrong. And I am so weak toward this, that I can't help feeling myself involved. This article is a very important one; and still, I see that no one think it important enough, or no one has the nerve to risk his skin in.

I know little about islamism, it perhaps is a good opportunity for me to understand it better and to learn essential things. See me as your goal, the perfect reader willing to improve his understanding of the situation.

I will take it in little pieces

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Islam is inherently political

There is no separation of church and state responsibilities in any branch of Islam. civic responsibilities are an inherent part of the religion. Essential elements such as the definition of umma, ijma, zakat, khalifa and Islamic economics are basic to Islam as a political movement.

It is a basic principle of Islam that the problems faced by Muslim societies can be solved only by adhering to these and other tenets of Islam, with varying degrees of adaptation to custom and usage (called al-urf) in the societies it is adapted to. This process of ijtihad is also a core element of Islam. The various movements called Islamist tend to be those that have quite poorly accomodated to other societies, and cling to a fiqh that originated in late medieval times. See list of Islamic terms in Arabic for an overview of other important principles.

It is also not possible, as another tenet within Islam, to stand idly by as fellow Muslims are oppressed, attacked or colonized. Accordingly, any actual practice of Islam as a faith requires political activity - Islam itself is a political philosophy and requires among other things an active opposition to colonialism.

Accordingly, adding "ism" to the term Islam adds nothing useful to Muslims, and to non-Muslims, seems to imply that a "tame" or "colonizable" Islam can exist which does not involve political activity. A Muslim recognizes a process of making something more Islamic, and may accept the term Islamist to describe this motivation, but this can mean almost anything.

The Islamic State

When the term Islamist is used by Muslims, it refers almost exclusively to their own specific and positive program to establish an Islamic state. There are many more movements to establish such states than are recognized as Islamist by the West, thus the use is not very uniform. The association of one term to lump terrorism in with these autonomy, secession, self-sufficiency or independence movements would seem to be designed to discredit them. In the same way, Iraqis attacking U.S. occupation troops after the 2003 invasion of Iraq were and are very often described as "terrorists", despite the fact that they are natives resisting an invasion not authorized by the United Nations.

What is actually meant by Muslims who refer to themselves as Islamist is the establishment of Islamic Law with formal status. Ziauddin Sardar wrote in 1994 that "In recent times, a number of Muslim countries declared themselves to be Islamic states and ostensibly established the shariah. But what is actually put into practice is a small number of classical juristic rulings concerning punishments, status of women and other spectacular aspects of classical jurisprudence. Thus, great show is made of 'Islamic punishments' or huddud laws, and floggings and amputations are advertised. These are in fact 'outer limit' laws to be carried out only under extreme conditions and after certain basic requirements of social justice, distribution of wealth, responsibilites of the state towards its citizens, mercy and compassion are fulfilled. What we thus get is an austere state operating on the basis of obscurantist and extremist law, behaving totally contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an and spirit of Islam, yet justifying its oppressions in the name of Islam! The self-declared Islamic states are thus nothing more than cynical instruments to justify the rule of a particular class, family, or the military."

As an example, he notes that "traditional Muslim thought has been very unkind and oppressive to women. While religious scholars constantly recite the list of women's rights in Islam, they have been systematically undermining these very rights for centuries... For example, the Qur'anic advice about modesty in behaviour.. has been interpreted exclusively in terms of the behaviour of women. 'Modest' and 'decent' behaviour for women in public has been interpreted as a rigid dress code despite the...deliberate vagueness which [is] meant to allow all the time-bound changes that are necessary for social and moral growth of a society. In a total perversion of the Qur'anic advice, dressing modestly has thus been interpreted to mean dressing like a nun, covered from head to foot, showing only a woman's face (in some circles only the eyes), wriests and feet. An injunction meant to liberate from the oppressions of 'beauty' and 'fashion' ends as an instrument of oppression."

The grounds for more liberal interpretation of Islam are not in dispute. As of its origins, Islam granted women the right to own property, choose their own partners, divorce, to abortion when necessary, education and sexual satisfaction in marriage. For these very reasons, Christians denounced Islam as sensuous, licentious and perverted through the 19th century and associated it with sexual looseness.

In the 1917 during the Russian Revolution, when hold on the Muslim hinterlands from Moscow was drastically reduced, some local movements declared constitutions based on Islamic Law. A common pronouncement in them was that women were equal to men and would have the same democratic rights. These were crushed by the Soviet Union which subordinated Muslim countries into itself. What Islamic politics that existed, was local and quite suppressed.

Islam is sometimes militant

Today Islamic political movements are usually at least somewhat more conservative than their secular counterparts in the Islamic World.

Furthermore, some movements within Islam hold that a much more interventionist militant Islam is required to eject and prevent corrupt influences on children, women, and the young in particular. The term radical Islamist has come into use in propaganda to deliberately confuse the difference between radical and fundamentalist views, and militant actions.

Radical, as an adjective, implies a return to fundamentals. So does the term fundamentalist. Neither implies militant stances or violent actions. The Mennonite sect in Christianity, for instance, is both radical and fundamentalist, but is neither militant nor violent.

It is always problematic to assign any one ideology to a religion, whether in advocating or opposing it. In part what makes a religion durable is its ability to bend with the political times. In the United States in the 1960s for instance there was deep convergence between liberal white Christian churches, more conservative black churches, and civil rights movement activism - all saw racism as a common enemy. By the 1980s however more conservative religious forces had rallied (or been rallied by the Moral Majority, televangelism, and the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan) and had chosen abortion as their common opponent. However, on other issues, like the death penalty, these proponents were often strongly split, with Roman Catholics opposed, and most Protestant abortion opponents favouring state killing of "guilty" adults, as opposed to "innocent" unborn children.

Such shifts are just as prominent in the history of Islamic militancy. Examining militancy alone says little or nothing about the character of Islamic principles carried into political life.

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question to Graft and RK : what do you think is wrong about these paragraphs ? Is it biaised ? Is it false ? Is it irrelevant ? Is it unattributed ? Please, provide detailed opinion. Anthère

These paragraphs are off-topic POV essays that are meant to excuse violent forms of Islam (Islamism), and to make Islam look better by making people in other religions look worse.

I agree some of it look of off topic, or at least unncessary disgression. But I think some of it is interesting. I read the current article on Islam and much to my surprise, I notice there was extremely little about islamism. I wonder if part of what is above would not fit over there.

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While a lot of it is off-topic and POV, it tries to make the point that not all Islamic political movements are violent, which is something that should probably be prominently pointed out, since many people associate political Islam with terrorism; the only place where it seems to try to "excuse violent forms of Islam" is when it talks about insurgency against United States occupation forces in Iraq. It also argues that not all Islamic political movements are puritanical. I think that these bits should be integrated into the article. -- Khym Chanur

These poorly written and long-winded paragraphs are a obvious attempt to divert attention from the subject, instead of actually discussing it.

Well, there are more discussing something than just writing nothing, don't they ?

I find these attempts to stop discussing the subject shameful,

The previous serious contribution on the article was done in june. You can't really say last two days editions are stopping a discussion that didnot exist.

and part of a certain person's anarchist leftist tendencies. RK 13:30, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

So ? Leftist anarchist tendencies are also welcome on Wikipedia. I do not find your comments very helpful as now. I think part of this could be moved to Islam, and part to religion perhaps.Anthère

Err, taking the opposite tack from RK, I think that the text is not very neutral at all. E.g., "Islam is inherently political" is a POV statement. There are plenty of Muslims who do NOT feel it is appropriate to have Islamic states, and there are many more who are not willing or interested in fighting for an Islamic state, so long as they themselves can live according to Islam.

Now, we may individually degree with this interpretation, and in fact I do: I think the Islamist position has a lot of merit, and I find the arguments of, say, Hassan al-Banna compelling. Not that I agree with him, but if you believe that the Qu'ran is divinely inspired then it follows that the divine law laid out there should be the basis for your society, not (fallible) human law.

However, though this may be sound logic, it DOES NOT MATTER. The fact remains that there are many muslims who do NOT take this position, and who are NOT activists for Islamic states, and who do NOT want the Sharia to be imposed on everyone.

This is only one example of the highly POV nature of this essay; there are countless others. Much of the purpose of the text is not to provide information, but to argue specific points (e.g., "Islam is liberal on women, and to say otherwise is improper understanding of the Qu'ran")

Strike two, I don't think "Islamism" is a biased term. I have quoted text above giving reasons for this (i.e., it replaces terms like "fundamentalist") from well before the war on Terror, and from Muslim-friendly scholarly sources.

As I've said before, I have no particular attachment to the previous text, and I do -not- want to see this page locked. But neither do I want to see this crappy essay become the article, and avoid any discussion of Islamist movements. I -especially- don't want to see that discussion happen at militant Islam, where it is wholly inappropriate and doesn't belong. Calling movements for an Islamic state "militant Islam" is highly biased. Graft 14:47, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Graft, I agree with each of the points you just made. It seems that the person who wrote the above essay has his own interpretation of Islam that he wishes to portrary as the only interpretation of Islam. He doesn't recognize the very real disparity between his ideas and the actual range of beliefs and practices in the Muslim world. RK 20:33, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I would like to come back on two statements made by Graft.

First is ""Islam is inherently political" is a POV statement"

Second is "Strike two, I don't think "Islamism" is a biased term. I have quoted text above giving reasons for this (i.e., it replaces terms like "fundamentalist") from well before the war on Terror, and from Muslim-friendly scholarly sources."

I think you first didnot understand the first statement as it should. I think it was meant to say "Islamists view Islam as inherently political" or perhaps "Islamism is inherently political" ?

I would like to come back to what we french (compare to what you americans) define what islamism is

We call islamists those who see in islam an political ideology, that is a theory which allow to understand the social under the political. Islamists are the muslim brothers, Hassan el Banna, Maudidu, Khomeyni, Mohamed Baqer al Sadr, Mohamed Fadlallah, Sayd Qotb. There are several transitions, bridges. Islamists consider that the goal of their movement is to take power and to manage the state. They are politicians. Their goal is the State. They are not necessarily guerilla men. They do not necessarily support armed action. Khomeyni did, but not Hassan or Maududi,who were pragmatic men. If they had the possibility to take power by voting, they participated to elections, but if a revolt took place, they chose that action.

Islamists have a very political perception of islam. They think in terms of institutions. They consider an islamic State is necessary. They want a legislation, minister, state head, a constitution, perhaps separation of powers, electoral process, army head...Iran is an example. It also define a guide, the role of the guide, as a religious and a political chief. For islamists, the national cause is over the religious one, and war between Irak and Iran were clearly a war between nations, not on ideology. Most islamists mouvements, a threat in the 80ies, all become nationalists, included the algerian FIS. They stayed political mouvement, in a nation only. They have a program of islamisation, but they first think in termes of national interest, and political alliances.

Second, I understood you wrote islamism could be replaced by fondamentalism. Absolutely not !

Fondamentalism is different. One may be fondamentalist and islamist, but those two terms recover different notions. If they do recover the same thing for you, please accept that it is not so for everyone.

Fondamentalism is another form of protest. For fondamentalists, a society becomes islamist when everyone is a good muslim. If people pray as they should, apply the rules of the charia, then the society is islamist. They don't bother over the State. At best, it is an instrument, at worse an obstacle. Fondamentalists see first society and consider it a "community of believers" (well, we call that une communauté de croyant, that should be a translation option). On the political side, they first want application of the charia. They don't necessarily ask for an islamic constitution, do not wonder over political powers, over democracy. If everyone respects charia, then social justice is occurring automatically. That is what the traditional oulémas say. They are not necessarily against Occident, they want any muslim to be a good musmlim, and perhaps when other see that muslim society is good, they would convert. And if they don't, the case is already mentionned in the charia, it is no big deal. Fondamentalists are not necessary antisemites, or antichristian. They manage with colonialists. In Algeria, french people normalised the charia, they created a university of islamic law in Alger. But these fondamentalists are at the end of the system, they are in direct competition with laic state (non religious) or with islamists.

Then for many french, there is what we rather call the neofondamentalists. These are usually not "poor" or "rejected people as it is often claimed. Most of those recruited are students. These are typically the ones who happen to become fondamentalists in our suburbs in France. Usually not the poorest, because those in difficult situation are fighting for their survival, they often have more to do. The neofondamentalists in France are rather middle class. They occupy the room left by islamists. It is for those who don't have a nation state to identify themselves with. Either because they are immigrants (such as our second generation of algerian immigrants, born in France, but still in the middle of two nations, neither really french, neither really algerians), or perhaps apatrid, such as Ben Laden, for ideological reasons. The one fascinated with islamism also has to respect discipline, it is a way to be a good muslim in any part of the world, without any connection with a society, on a very individual basis. They often practice their religion alone. In France, it is quite typical that most converted are spending much more time on the Internet, than at cult. Perhaps is it also why so many of them of computer scientists. They can leave in a sort of irreal world, where they do not need to cope with their neighbours, with everyday life, with the next door girl, who goes on wearing short skirts and thus expose herself indecently.
In France, we talk of "sans papier" (people living in the country with no legal papers). In middle orient, they are very numerous because most middle oriental countries have rules of nationality very strict. Much much stricter than american rules :-) Often, one may be citizen only if their father is. In Koweit, about 1/3 of the population is not koweitian. In many countries, the dominant group does not allow minority group to have the nationality. As a result, many are "non-real citizen", and it appears that in Ben Laden groups, many of the guys are in that situation.
Some of these "lonely" people became radical when listening to Ben Laden. And the discourse was mostly two points. One : the fondamentalist dogma : charia, only charia. But how do you apply charia when you live in a country that is not a islamic state ? I understood it is somehow the "born again muslim" of the guys who were acting in 09/11 attack. In France, similarly, it results in rupture with the current laws of the society, such as burning a teenager who refused to cover her head.

Now, how could you "confuse" the terms islamism with fondamentalism. These are two different terms. One may be both, but they both recover different realities.

And yes, some french think we should not use the term islamic fundamentalism. Because the word fondamentalism carries with him some christian cliche. The word is masking the diversity of islamic mouvements, and their interpretation of Islam. It is often assimilated with opposition to occident or America, but in fact, it should not. I read several times, we should better use islamic activism, which hold apparently less connotation. Another word we use more and more is political islam. In any case, we hold that islamism is much more than a religious fondamentalism.

In this perception of what we french think that an islamist is, I see some aspect of the disputed text that are in line.

Anthère

Okay, we're generally in agreement. See my above comments responding to RK about fundamentalism, and how I -don't- think that "Islamists" are "fundamentalists". Also, I don't think the text intended to say "Islamism is inherently political", or to say, "islamists think Islam is inherently political"; it intended to say, "Islam is inherently political", which would be espousing the Islamist point of view. The current version of Islamism in fact already describes Islamism as you did: a political movement to create Islamic states like the one in Iran. Graft 18:27, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

the current top definition is "Islamism is a term used to describe the political and religious philosophies of fundamentalist Islamic revival movements.".

I read here that islamists are necessarily fundamentalists, since this is precisely part of the definition offered. Just above, you say you don't think islamists are fundamentalists. I must then conclude that you disagree with the first paragraph of the article. Am I wrong  ? Anthère

I saw you tried to remove the fundamentalists term :-) Anthère

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The term Islamist is neutral and acceptable to most Muslims to mean anything from very mild use of Islamic imagery to define the legitimacy of the state, to full implementation of medieval fiqh. This is not the breadth of coverage of this article. It should be deleted, for these reasons:

• it is disputed, and for good reason, and has been for months - review the Talk:Islamism/Archive 1
• the primary advocate of this article who is not an idiot (User:Graft I mean is not an idiot) is actually advocating a POV from his own 1988 book, and thus has a conflict of interest, having invested much in this term.
• this article is redundant given militant Islam, which has already been proposed for deletion - which failed, since there is no reason to delete it whatsoever - it being the more neutral term. The two cover the same material, and can't really coexist easily
• the mere existence of the term as the prime title of an article about a substantial movement implies that Islamism is a neutral term accepted by that movement - whereas, those who accept the title Islamist come from a much wider variety of strains of political movements than those covered in the Islamism article - the common strain being that they accept Islam as a political movement.
• the many inappropriate redirects to Islamism also imply that there is a common ideology pursued by Islamic parties, militant Islamic groups including those engaged in terrorism, and Liberal Islam - in effect all those lumped together as mildly to strongly Islamist - whereas Islam as a political movement is really quite diverse, and the trends listed in Islamism are quite minor politically. They are only a main force in Islam in the media, and a few very angry places.
• User:RK exploits the protected status of the Islamism page, which would certainly cease to exist without the protection, to redirect every other mention of political Islam to it, among them Liberal Islam which is hardly what anyone means when they make reference to Islamism, although it might be what they mean when they refer to Islamist. This behaviour can only be discouraged by deleting the page Islamism
• Several attempts to repair Islamism to redefine it correctly as a term applied to describe Islam as a political movement by those who reject that view entirely, and lump together unrelated movements, have failed. As with Islamofascism, there is no compromise with the people who insist on this one term and reject all others for POV reasons. Thus we owe them no respect here.
• The article combines subjects that should, in addition to militant Islam and Islam as a political movement, be covered in modern Islamic philosophy - its existence simply creates redundancy.
• The term Islamism has only been popular in recent years, and that mostly with American and Jewish commentators, while the British scholars have always preferred militant Islam prior to the War on Terrorism - thus many consider Islamism to be a propaganda term like Islamofascism.
• the abusive tactics taken by User:RK might be taken up by other similar vandals, and will certainly discourage serious contributors from helping refine these articles - as it is evidently not possible to alter Islamism without incurring his tactics, it seems best to delete it to send him a strong message.
• the abusive tactics taken by User:RK are censoring substantial material including quotes from important scholars like Ziauddin Sardar, Anthony Nutting and G. H. Jansen - see tarika for an example of the level of scholarship and detail that Jansen for instance applies to the subject, as compared to the sources cited in Islamism, which are of relatively recent and shallow vintage, and some of which are obviously written by folks who can hardly define Islamism neutrally.
• the article and debates around it are now prone to leading to racist assumptions - for instance, User:RickK equates sending the name of User:RK to groups that are, according to RK, part of Liberal Islam, to some kind of "death threat" - as if these people don't have better things to do, and as if "death" is the only thing that they do with those they disagree with. Both RK and RickK seem to share this assumption, and it's probably common the United States, given the media bias. Let's not encourage this kind of political equation.

Suggestion: read Islam as a political movement, free free to copyedit it and militant Islam (both may have some quirks due to the frequent edit war situation) and decide for yourself if Islamism contains the same depth of coverage and breadth of sources, and the same neutral point of view advantages.

Some responses:

• When I say "my book" above, I don't mean, "book that I wrote", but "book that I purchased and now own", so I have no particular ties to that book.
• I have repeatedly stated why I feel militant Islam is not an appropriate term to describe groups advocating and agitating for an Islamic state, viz. there are many non-militants that should rightly be grouped with similar, though militant, ideologies.
• I can well agree that there is a good deal of information not covered in the Islamism article, but this lack of breadth is by no means call of its deletion, rather its expansion.
• I'm not opposed to moving this to a different article, especially since I think there are probably strong ideological differences between Shi'a and Sunni groups that advocate for Islamic states, for obvious reasons, and therefore should not necessarily be grouped together. However, lacking an appropriate term to label them, and not wishing to create one myself, I would favor keeping all such groups here, under Islamism, where there is at least justifiable reason for keeping them. So, until something more satisfying than militant Islam turns up, I cannot agree to chopping up this article. Graft 04:20, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have to agree with Graft: Wahhabism and other listed movements aren't necessarily militant, so they shouldn't go under "militant Islam". And if there are many Islamic political movements which aren't coverered by this article, the article should be expanded to included them, rather than delted. -- Khym Chanur

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I just want to say that "separation of church and state" has been invented in Muslin countries before it existed in Europe. The Catholic Church wasn't obviously a great fan of this idea it accepted it under the pressure of governements.... Ericd 07:29, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

There is no parallel: these are two different religions and societies. The Caliph was "church" and state in one man, if it's meaningful to put it that way. Islam, unlike Christianity, is a political tradition. There is a big difference, especially in modern terms, between toleration (which Islamic rulers understood long before the western governments did), and separation (or "secularization"; which according to some is the suppression of Islam). When you speak of "Muslim countries" or "Muslim governments", you are not speaking of "separation of church and state" in Western terms. Mkmcconn 14:02, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nod. A political tradition. Anthère

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I'm no expert on Islam, but I do know something about reading an encyclopedia. And I'm disconcerted by the multiplicity of similarly-sounding terms like Islamism, Islamicism etc.

My history books tell me that Islam is both a religion and a civilization based on that religion. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims. Everyone with me so far?

Check Le Mouvement des Musulmans Laïques de France s'engage (http://www.tamurth.net/article.php3?id_article=336) to see your conviction that Adherents of Islam are called Muslims shake :-)

Now, Islam certainly has some political aspects. There's the well-known function of the Qur'an in Sharia law. There's also the well-know fact that Arab countries generally exalt Islam -- often to the point of making it a state religion.

What are all the separate articles for? Can anyone make a list or disambiguation page or directory of the various articles touching on Islam? We had something like that last year for the 2003 Iraq war.

I write this without prejudice to whether Islam is good or bad; whether Muslims are good or bad; whether Islamic governments are good are bad. Rather, I write as a peer editor, requesting help sorting it all out. Organization is the key. --Uncle Ed 19:00, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ed, why don't you read the article first? Graft 07:29, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I'm suffering some sort of technical glitch and the comment I used on my edit got chopped off. The reason was that the addition called something a "threat" without attributing that opinion to someone other than the writer. We aren't allowed to do that. I'm not saying anything at all about the accuracy of the opinion. If it's rephrased in the proper fashion I won't complain. --Zero 03:59, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Wow, this page is pretty useless. It doesn't describe "Islamism" at all, but lumps together all sorts different Muslim movements. the Deobandis and the Wahhabis certainly are not Islamists. And Islamism has nothing to do with fundamentalism or puritanism, or violence. And al-Qaida is certainly NOT Islamist. --Katangoori 15:55, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was told by an Islamic scholar that Islamism was a term expressly coined for the right-wingers that want to violently force Islam as a religion and political system onto others. I am completely flummoxed as to how al-Qaida would fail to be Islamist. They're sure NOT ISLAMIC. It seems to me that Islamism has EVERYTHING to do with fundamentalism and violence. Or are you just an apologist for the most craven evil currently on Earth? jaknouse 05:14, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

First of all, an "Islamic scholar" is not the right person to be asking about "Islamism". "Islamism" is not an Islamic term, but a term used in political science and sociology -- a scholar of Islam will have no better understanding of the word than joe bloggs. After 9/11 everyone(especially the media) gives their own interpretation of the term "Islamism", however within academia it has had a very specific meaning, which is separate from "fundamentalism", for a very long time. You can read the Halliday/Alavi quote at the very top of this page, or you can read anything by Roy, Kepel, Vali Nasr, Eickelman, Zakaria, Piscatori, Halliday, etc.... Now, al-Qaida is generally categorized as a "fundamentalist" group, not "Islamist". The reason being that Islamists have a specific political, social and economic agenda for what they want to do when they take control of the state (read the literature of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeini, or Jamaat-i Islami Pakistan). However the fundamentalists (or "neo-fundamentalists as Roy calls them) just want to take control of the state but have no agenda of what they will do afterwards (i.e. Taliban, al-Qaida). They do not argue in terms of economics, or society -- it's simply about control. Also, there are those Islamists who justify the use of violence (i.e. Muslim Brotherhood Egypt), and there are those Islamists who believe in taking control expressly through the prevailing political system (i.e. Jamaat-i Islami India, Muslim Brotherhood Kuwait). More later. --Katangoori 06:59, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)