If this doesn’t convince you to finally STOP using the made-up term “Islamism” in place of Islam to differentiate between Muslims who want to kill you and Muslims who don’t, nothing ever will

Danny Burmawi, a former Muslim, is the founder and executive director of IDI Center (Ideological Defense Institute), a U.S.-based research and public-education institute that is an invaluable source of information on the Middle East, Islam, and the ideological threats facing the West. 

IDI Center In the 19th century, European scholars used the term ‘Islamism’ to describe the study of Islam or the religion itself, much like Buddhism or Hinduism.7 It was a neutral academic label, not a political one. However, by the early 20th century, Western scholars and administrators started using ‘Islamism’ to describe what they saw as a politicized form of Islam, essentially groups seeking to reestablish the Caliphate.

This was the first step in a deliberate redefinition: casting Islam’s political ambitions as a modern, aberrant strain rather than an intrinsic feature. By the mid-20th century, with the rise of figures like Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood, ‘Islamism’ was fully recast as a distinct ideology, a supposed perversion of Islam that sought to impose Sharia and establish Islamic governance.

This redefinition peaked after 9/11, when the West’s fear of being labeled ‘Islamophobic’ reached fever pitch. Media and politicians leaned hard into the Islam-versus-Islamism narrative, insisting that Islamism was a political ideology divorced from the “spiritual” essence of Islam. In fact, Muslim author Reza Aslan emphasized that the Islamic State ISIS), like Al Qaeda, is a “jihadist” group, not an “Islamist” one.

Bleeding heart Leftists in the West, however, desperately needed a way to condemn the horrific atrocities (See video below), so graphic, so impossible to sanitize, carried out by Muslim terrorists from al-Qaeda and ISIS without condemning the Islamic theology that inspired them. Thus, ‘Islamism’ became the escape hatch, a way to say, “This isn’t Islam, it’s a radical political movement.” And once that framing took hold, Islam itself was absolved.

WARNING: Very graphic

By pretending that ‘Islamism ‘is the problem, the West blinds itself to the real source of the threat. It ends up banning groups while leaving the ideology that produces them untouched. It condemns the bombings while protecting the scripture that commands them. It fights the symptoms while shielding the disease. And in doing so, it does Muslims no favors.

You cannot reform what you refuse to diagnose. If you keep telling Muslims that Islam is peaceful and that only Islamism is the problem, they will never feel the need to examine the doctrines that make Islamism inevitable.

No serious Islamic scholar teaches that there is a separate category of Muslim called an Islamist. There is only the Muslim who obeys Allah and His Messenger, and the Muslim who fails to do so. In other words, the so-called ‘Islamist’ is simply the Muslim who takes the religion seriously, who doesn’t pick and choose, who applies Islam to every part of life.

Nonie Darwish, an ex-Muslim, grew up in both Cairo and Gaza, debunks any notion that there is a mythical Islam called “Islamism” which is the radical form of Islam. There is only one Islam. And so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims who try to distinguish Islam from Islamism are simply lying.

The Qur’an is the literal, eternal word of Allah. Muhammad is the perfect example for all mankind until the end of time. The Hadiths are binding. To reject them is to leave Islam. Even Qur’anists, the tiny minority who accept only the Qur’an and reject the Hadiths, are considered apostates by the rest of the Muslim world. This unity on the fundamentals is why the “moderate Muslim” vs. “Islamist” binary is so misleading.

The various sects, Sunni, Shia, etc., may differ on how certain rituals are performed, but they do not differ on the necessity of Sharia, the authority of the Qur’an, the obligation of jihad, or the supremacy of Islam over all other systems. Those are the points that define Islamism in Western parlance, and they are also the points that define Islam itself.

In the following video translated by RAIR Foundation USA, Jean Messiha, an Egyptian-born economist and politician in France addresses the beheading of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty earlier this month. Messiha takes exception with the classification of Islamic terrorists as “Islamists” created by the elites. He believes that the violence committed in the name of Islam is in fact by practicing Muslims.