Islam and fascism
Since the early 20th century, there has been a complicated relationship between Islam and fascism against the backdrop of successive ideological conflicts worldwide, including World War II and the Cold War, which resulted in the emergence of the concept Islamofascism.[1]
Overview
[change | change source]The concept highlights the similarities between Islamism and fascism. It gained popularity in the 1990s after the Cold War ended. For instance, Qutbism has been classified as a form of Islamofascism.[1]
History
[change | change source]20th century
[change | change source]Islamofascism emerged as a contemporary concept in 1990 when Anglo-Irish writer Malise Ruthven mentioned it in an article.[2] Ruthven employed the concept to describe Arab autocracies appealing to religious traditions to unite the masses behind the ruling class.[3]
21st century
[change | change source]The September 11 attacks caused a long-lasting change to the relationship between the United States (US) and the Muslim world, which came with some critics increasingly making references to "Islamofascism" when discussing Islamic extremism.[4][5]
Assessment
[change | change source]In contemporary context, Islamofascism is sometimes described as the "use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology."[6] The word was also used by George W. Bush, the President of the United States (POTUS) back then.[7][8]
Academia
[change | change source]Some famous scholars, such as Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) and Robert Wistrich (1945 – 2015), said that Islam was fascist.[9] Nevertheless, the word is disputed by Islam's defenders as an "oversimplification" of Islam.[10] Specialized theses generalized the similarities between Islamism and fascism as follows:
- Totalitarianism[3][11]
- Anti-liberalism[3][11]
- Ownership of paramilitaries[3]
- Mobilization of the masses to fight imaginary threats[3][11]
- Intolerance of dissent in pursuit of a new society free of deviations.[11] Muslims not following the Sharia law are condemned as takfirs, sometimes executed[11]
- An imperialist vision of their religion's supposed global influence.[3][11] Many Islamists long for the so-called golden age of Arab caliphates and the Ottoman Empire – when non-Muslim minorities were enslaved or suppressed – just as European fascists long for that of Christian empires[3][11]
Related pages
[change | change source]References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1
- first described as Islamic fascism in 1933
- Falk 2008, p. 122
- Zuckerman 2012, p. 353
- ↑ Safire 2006
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Hitchens, Christopher (October 22, 2007). "Defending Islamofascism: It's a valid term. Here's why". Slate. Retrieved February 4, 2025.
- ↑ Halliday 2010, pp. 185–187, p.185.
- ↑ Schwartz 2001: The Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those closest to him, such as the Egyptian and Algerian 'Islamic Groups', is no more intrinsically linked to Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl Harbor [attack on December 7, 1941] was to Buddhism, or Ulster terrorists — whatever they may profess — are to Christianity. Serious Christians don't go around killing and maiming the innocent; devout Muslims do not prepare for paradise by hanging out in strip bars and getting drunk, as one of last week's terrorist pilots was reported to have done
- ↑ Schwartz 2006. "Islamofascism refers to use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology. This radical phenomenon is embodied among Sunni Muslims today by such fundamentalists as the Saudi-financed Wahhabis, the Pakistani jihadists known as Jama'atis, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the ranks of Shia Muslims, it is exemplified by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the clique around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran."
- ↑ Bush 2005: "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism. Others militant jihadism [...] Still, others Islamo-fascism."
- ↑ Wildangel 2012, p. 527.
- ↑ Falk 2008, pp. 122–123
- ↑ Webster, Richard (2002). "Israel,Palestine and the tiger of terrorism: anti-semitism and history". richardwebster.net. Archived from the original on April 17, 2003. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
Those on the right who have taken up the chant of 'Islamofascism' repeatedly enjoin us to 'forget the root causes'.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 Bar-On, Tamar (October 17, 2018). "'Islamofascism': Four Competing Discourses on the Islamism-Fascism Comparison". Fascism. 7 (2): 241–274. Retrieved February 3, 2025.