Islamism and Totalitarianism

Ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and even more so since the spectacular attacks by Qa‘idat al-Jihad against the U.S. on 9/11, there has been an ever-growing flood of academic and journalistic publications devoted to radical Islam. Unfortunately, much of that literature has embodied problematic conceptual perspectives that can best be characterized as ‘Islam bashing’, ‘Islam apologism’, or – worst of all – ‘Islamist apologism’. The purpose of this article is to identify the key problems with all of those perspectives, and especially to challenge the widespread view that Islamism can assume genuinely ‘moderate’, ‘democratic’, or ‘liberationist’ forms. On the contrary, the argument herein is that Islamism is an intrinsically radical and anti-democratic extreme right-wing political ideology, one that is not only based upon an unusually strict, puritanical interpretation of central tenets of the Islamic faith but is totalitarian in its very essence. Hence Islamist movements should not be seen as being comparable to Western movements like Christian Democracy, but rather as being similar in certain respects to Western totalitarian movements like Marxism-Leninism and fascism. A state of [the Islamist] sort cannot evidently restrict the scope of its activities. Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its sphere of activity is coextensive with the whole of human life. It seeks to mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral norm and programmes of social reform. In such a state, no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this perspective the Islamic state [i.e., the Islamist state] bears a kind of resemblance to the fascist or communist states.” Sayyid Abu al-A‘la Mawdudi1 Ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and even more so since the spectacular terrorist attacks by Qa‘idat al-Jihad (The Base or Foundation of the Jihad) against the United States on 11 September 2001, there has been an ever-growing flood of academic and journalistic publications focused on radical currents of Islam. Although such a focus is clearly warranted given the asymmetric threat that global jihadist groups continue to present to the United States, European countries and *Email: [email protected] D o w n l o a d e d B y : [ B a l e , J e f f r e y M . ] A t : 2 2 : 3 2 1 7 D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 9