Islamism
Islam supplies not only personal ethics but the basis of law and government, and the state should be organised accordingly.
What does this mean?
Islamism is the position that Islam prescribes a political order and not merely a private morality — that sovereignty belongs to God, that revealed law is therefore a source of legislation rather than one influence among many, and that the state should be organised to reflect this. That single claim distinguishes it from religious conservatism, which asks that religious values inform policy within a framework whose authority comes from elsewhere.
The tradition is internally divided to the point of armed conflict. Its participatory current contests elections, accepts constitutional procedure and has governed through parties — Türkiye’s AKP, Tunisia’s Ennahda, Morocco’s PJD. Its revolutionary current, formulated by Sayyid Qutb, holds that existing Muslim societies have lapsed into pre-Islamic ignorance and that a vanguard must establish God’s rule; Khomeini’s doctrine of guardianship of the jurist produced the only durable state built on it. A militant fringe rejects both electoral politics and existing states altogether, and is disowned by most of the tradition.
On economics Islamism is not readily placed: it rejects both interest-based finance and comprehensive state ownership, and builds redistribution around zakat and limits on accumulation. That is a genuinely distinct position rather than a variant of left or right.
Where did it come from?
Formed in response to colonial rule and the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928; Maududi built a parallel movement in South Asia; Qutb radicalised the doctrine in Egyptian prisons in the 1960s; and Khomeini’s 1979 revolution produced the first state organised on the principle.
Major thinkers
- Sayyid Qutb
- Hassan al-Banna
- Abul A’la Maududi
- Ruhollah Khomeini
- Rashid Ghannouchi
Historical figures
- Ruhollah Khomeini
- Ali Khamenei
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
What it looks like today
- The Islamic Republic of Iran and the doctrine of velayat-e faqih
- Türkiye’s Justice and Development Party, in the participatory current
- Islamic banking and finance, now a substantial global sector
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
Distinctive rather than left or right: prohibition of interest, zakat-based redistribution, and limits on accumulation, with private commerce accepted.
The state in the economy
Personal liberty
Tradition and change
Conservative on family, gender roles and public morality, with the scope of legal enforcement a major internal dispute.
Nation and the world
Religion and the state
The definitional axis, at its extreme: revealed law is treated as a source of legislation, not merely as a moral influence on it.
Power and its limits
Deeply divided. Participatory Islamists contest and accept elections; the revolutionary current holds that sovereignty belongs to God and cannot be assigned by a vote.
Environment and growth
Crime and punishment
Its strongest arguments
- It answers a question secular constitutions in Muslim-majority societies left open: on what authority the law rests, when the population regards revelation as binding.
- Its social welfare provision has been substantial and, in several countries, more reliable than the state’s.
- Its participatory current has demonstrated that religious parties can accept electoral defeat, as Ennahda did in Tunisia.
Its strongest criticisms
- Treating revealed law as legislation leaves non-believers and minority sects with a status short of equal citizenship.
- The doctrine of divine sovereignty gives no principled account of how a government that claims it can be removed.
- Its record on women’s legal standing and on personal freedom is poor, including in its participatory versions.
Common misconceptions
- That it is a single movement. Its participatory and revolutionary currents have fought each other, and several Islamist governments have executed Islamists.
- That it is equivalent to militancy. The largest Islamist organisations contest elections and provide social services; the armed fringe is disowned by most of the tradition.
- That it is simply traditionalism. It is a modern movement that reorganises religious authority around the state, and traditional clerical establishments have often opposed it.
A caveat
This describes a political doctrine, not a religion. Hundreds of millions of Muslims reject Islamism, and this entry is not a description of Islamic belief or practice.
Sources
- Sayyid Qutb, Milestones · 1964
- Ruhollah Khomeini, Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist · 1970
- Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam · Harvard University Press · 1994