"Islamists"

[philmophlegm]

This word seems to be more and more popular in the media. In the past we might have used "Muslims" or "Mohammedans" or even "Musselmen".

The meaning seems subtly different. As far as I can tell, it means "Nasty Muslims, the sort I don't agree with" as opposed to "Nice Muslims, like that lovely Mr Khan, who runs the corner shop". I'm not sure that's a useful or sensible distinction. I'm waiting to see someone describe "Nasty Christians, the sort I don't agree with" as "Christianists".

Comments

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I thought islamists was being used as a calque on terrorist and to indicate those muslims who want the whole world to follow their religion.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Islamist is not intended as a synonym for Muslim. Many Muslims use the term, as well as non-Muslims. It's intended as an umbrella word for activists whose understanding of Islam is political, intending to restore the body of the faithful or ummah as a single political as well as religious community (which it rarely ever was) with all sorts of optional extras including rolling society back to the technological level of Muhammad's time, excluding women from various levels of public life, etc...

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Usually, I see "fundamentalist" for "those nasty christians I don't agree with".

[andrewducker]

Yeah, me too.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking the term refers to those Christians who accept that a particular set of tenets are 'the Fundamentals', though this usage has weakened over time, partly because of the success of the fundamentalist movement. I don't have my Diarmaid MacCulloch History of Christianity to hand to find the relevant dates and personalities.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Well yes, but since they want to do this all over the world, and it is a set of objectives entirely incompatible with the liberal Western concept of equality of all persons under the law, "Islamist" pretty much does mean "enemy of freedom." The only further relevant distinction is between those Islamists brave enough to take it to violent action in the face of potential physical and legal consequences, and those sufficiently cowed by our might and weak in their faith that they do not dare.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I didn't raise the issue of "freedom" at all. Not all Islamists are or have been opponents of the equality of all persons under the law; the origins of modern Islamic political movements lie with those in the nineteenth century who wanted to show that Islam contributed to the roots of western liberalism, rather than rejecting it.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah they all are. Islamists want sharia law instituted, and sharia law has muslims above apostate (christians, etc), and holds that infidels are to be killed. It holds that women are less than men, and a wide variety of other tenets that are incompatible with freedom or equality.

That 19th century interpretations were based on a widespread illiteracy is not significant.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Not all Islamists are or have been opponents of the equality of all persons under the law; ...

It is my understanding that, at a minimum, Islamists wish to institute universal shari'a, and this legal code requires that Muslims be treated as superior to non-Muslims and men as superior to women under the law. This would certainly seem to violate modern Western concepts of justice at least in theory; what I've seen of the practice does not encourage me to believe that there is any more workable compromise possible between Islamism and the West than there is between Communism or Naziism and the West.

[chainmailmaiden]

You could puree the raspberries and add them as a swirl, along with chunks of biscuit & you'd have instant raspberry cheesecake ice cream

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Yes but is it halal? ;-)

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

As ParrotKnight has ably laid out, I think it has quite a clear well-defined meaning, and is clearly not a synonym for Muslim at all. Just look at the reporting from Egypt. I believe the large majority of the population is Muslim but they are clearly not all Islamist.

N

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

It's too easy to argue that Islamism doesn't mean the same as Islam. Many people described as "Islamists" argue that the term is meaningless, that what they are is simply "Muslims" and even that it is impossible for Islam to be apolitical or to meekly accept Western / Christian / liberal political norms.

If people are going to demonise a particular group of Muslims because they advocate a political role for their religion and that religion has views which those people don't like, then we need to do the same to people from other religions when they do the same.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I don't think labelling them demonises them. As for Islamist denials that they aren't 'Islamist', their doing so is itself an ideological statement and doesn't exclude others from identifying them as Islamist based on defined criteria.