Islamism refers to a group of Muslim ideologies that want to use the Sharia (code of law based on the Qur'an) to its full extent, meaning that secular forms of governments and institutions are considered foreign to a true Muslim society.

Inside the same society, several directions of Islamism can be found, and these are seldom cooperating. People belonging to an Islamist group, call themselves, and are called by others 'islaamiyy for men and 'islaamiyya for women.

Both men and women are called Islamists in English.

There are four central motifs in Islamism:

1. Differences

 Islamists are strongly concerned about social differences, between the rich and the poor world, as well as inside the Muslim communities. As responsibility for the poor and the needing is central in Islam, any situation with unevenly divided wealth and many poor people, is unacceptable to a zealous Muslim.

Islamists react towards both the West for its reluctance to address the poverty of the world, as well as towards the rich in their own societies, who are considered equally reluctant.

2. Cultural problems

Islamists feel that they are losing their culture, that Western clothes, values, social patterns, political structures, language and identity are replacing what there once was. Islamists reject many elements of the modern culture (but accept a lot), elements they feel are superfluous and dangerous.

In many countries, the growth of Islamism must moreover be seen in connection with an inferiority complex towards the rich West, which is not only felt by Islamists, but many Muslims.

3. The Golden Age

All Muslims are all well aware that they were the superior military and cultural force in the world for centuries, and the reversed situation in the modern ages hurts the pride of Muslims.

As many Muslim countries have tried to copy both the capitalist system, and others the socialist system, and all have seen little but marginal success, Islamists are working for re-establishing a third alternative; the political system that once made their society grow from unknown tribes into world rulers in a few decades.

But in order to achieve this, the Islamists are not rejecting modern technology, and are very concerned about implementing technology on a grand scale in an Islamist society. And because of the technology, the Islamists believe that the coming Islamist society will be an even better society than the one of the Golden Age.

However, there are no Muslim sources indicating that the Islam of the Golden Age was as strict and conservative as the Islamists believe. All indications show that it was the liberal Islam that paved the ground for cultural, social and military achievements of those days — values foreign to all major Islamist groups. Hence, there is reason to say that the Islamist idea of the Golden Age is a dramatic falsification of history.

Moreover, the Muslims of the Golden Age were often pragmatic in the sense that they borrowed solutions from other cultures, both from the lands they conquered as well as neighbour states. Except from the Islamists fascination of modern technology, they have almost only negative attitudes towards culture and values outside the Muslim world.

4. Political Alternative

Islamism has been implemented as a real political alternative in modern times. Several countries have implemented Islamist politics: principally Iran and Sudan, but also to some extent Pakistan and Libya.  Saudi Arabia has had an Islamist politics for a long time, but is not regarded as Islamist by many, because of the differences between the rich and the poor.

But the large numbers of problems these countries have faced have to a large extent discredited Islamism, though. What has been represented as good solutions for economy, safety and welfare, has not yielded its promised results. In many cases, the situation has worsened compared to before the implementation of Islamism, as is the case of Sudan, Pakistan and Iran.

On a smaller scale, but just as important in many countries, are all the small welfare institutions that Islamists have put up in rural areas and in poor neighbourhoods in the cities. These institutions have served people often left out of state run services, like health care and support for unemployed. It is not clear however, if the Islamists run these from a good heart or because these institutions have proven effective to spread their ideology.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Islamism is a phenomenon primarily taking place in cities, and the most prominent members are young people with higher education, often with a modest background and often with parents living in the countryside. Islamists have often a feeling that despite the efforts they have put down in their studies, they have not managed to climb very much socially, that the jobs they were aspiring for are given to people with good social connections, but less qualifications.

Islamists do not see themselves as revolutionaries, in the sense that a revolution will turn the society upside down, and create new social structures from scratch. The revolution that Islamists hope for is the one that will bring old values back (according to how they believe that society was in early Islam), and wipe out all degenerated elements in the modern society. But Islamism is just as much a fight against what they perceive as old, rigid values, still found among many Muslims living in rural areas. Islamists seek to bring people of the rural areas into the modern age, at the same time as they fight for preserving many old values that they believe that cities dwellers are losing.

Islamists' political programs were for a long time simple and basic: it was based on the Sharia. But demands from rulers, intellectuals, and people, have forced the Islamists to concretize the actual content in their politics. Sayyid Qutb, one of the main characters of Sunni Islamism, have stated that this content would be clarified through the practice of Islamism, which was a statement that Sharia was not clear on all points, and that man had to base his decisions on more sources than just it.

In economical politics, most Islamists defend a system close to the social democracy practised in many European countries. When Islamists diverge from social democracy it is more often in a direction of capitalism (which is the case with FIS in Algeria), than in direction of communism. The most specific Islamist view on economics, is the refusal of interests on loans and deposits. Instead banks should work as investment organization, earning money from real profits. There have been attempts on establishing such bank systems, but the results have in some cases been catastrophic, as was the case in Egypt in the 1980's.

The Islamist view on women vary a lot, but in many cases the structure of the Islamic organizations, along with the political programs, have made many women join the Islamists in order to liberate themselves. It is quite common that Islamists defend the woman's right to work and to have political and social influence. But in general, Islamist groups see men as belonging more to life in society, while a woman's primary obligation is towards the family. But seclusion of women is rarely professed by Islamists (with the exception of the Taliban and its Saudi creators

? ed.).

Islamists are not democrats, even if there have been very successful attempts of making the Islamists part of a democratic structure (as in Jordon and for a breif period in Turkey), but yet, Islamist programs are not in favour of dictatorship (even if this has been the temporary result of Islamism in Iran and Sudan).

Dictatorship can be transitory, but the ideal structure in an Islamist society is the system of shura, where the leaders are in frequent contact with the entire society, and ask about their needs, and for their ideas, and are obliged to show respect for what they are told. Islamists have shown little ability to define structures that will prevent the leaders inside the shura- system from turning it into a system of dictatorship.

Islamists have in many cases been involved in violent acts. The reason for resorting to such means appears to be the same over and over again: First, the Islamists try to change the rulers and men of power through intellectual means, but as this seldom leads to anything and as there seldom are any democratic channels to be used, violence has been the last resort.

But during the last two decades violence seem to have become an intrinsic part of the Islamist ideology, and the will to use violence doesn't need much provocation anymore. This seems to be the situation for some groups in Egypt, and some minor groups in Algeria.

In 2001 did the world see the ultimate sort of violent Islamism, as al-Qa'ida performed some of the most dramatic non-war attacks on civilian goals the world has ever seen. More than 3,000 people as two airliners crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, USA.

From the Encyclopaedia of the Orient (LINK)