Islamism Is Not Islam

The furor over the inaccurately dubbed 'Ground Zero Mosque' has
done nothing but reinforce al Qaeda propaganda.

By MAAJID NAWAZ

If Islamism came to conquer New York and built an emperor's palace at Ground Zero, I
would be worried. But Islamism is not Islam.

Islam is a faith. Like all other faiths it has a vibrant array of progressives, conservatives
and everything in between fighting over which interpretation suits current times. In this
regard, Islam is nothing exceptional.

Islamism, on the other hand, is the desire to impose any one of these interpretations over
everyone else through state law.

Many commentators confuse traditionalist Muslims with Islamists. Like the Amish, Muslim
traditionalists usually have few political ambitions. Their real cause is debating theology
with their adversary, the Muslim modernist. Islamists, however, are not interested in the
raging feud between traditionalists and modernists.

Hence, Islam is the religion and Islamism the ideological project using this religion to
justify total state power. It was only after losing the fight for total state power against
democracies and dictatorships alike in the Middle East that Islamists launched their war
against the West. And it is Islamism, not the pluralistic faith of Islam, that struck at the
twin towers.

The distinction between Islam and Islamism is not just theological. If it were, one could
forgive anti-Islam pundits for confusing the two when blaming Islam itself for the woes
that extremists have sought to reap upon America and the world. But this distinction can
be discovered regardless of theology, through the social sciences.

For instance, Muslims throughout history rarely codified any version of the Islamic
religious code, or Shariah, as state law. The result was a Muslim history full of religious
societies with very temporal and often debauched ruling dynasties. Indeed, these
dynasties launched religiously justified wars, against themselves and others. But was that
not the practice of all medieval kings seeking material glory while promising spiritual
salvation to their men? The simple fact is that, as with all medieval states, religion was
but a political convenience.

Breaking with this tradition, Islamism emerged as an entirely modern social-engineering

project, designed initially to resist colonialism. Islamists' focus on controlling the "state,"
adopting an "Islamic constitution," and codifying and implementing "Islamic law" were all
borne of ideas that grew out of the European nation-state. The terms state, constitution
and law are not referred to at all in the Quran. It mattered little to Islamists, bent on
rejecting all that was Western, that their entire debate took place within an exclusively
European political paradigm.
In Muslim-majority societies that hold elections today, parties wanting to "rule in God's
name" have been roundly defeated time and again by their fellow Muslims. Take two of
the world's most populous Muslim-majority countries, Indonesia and Bangladesh. In
recent years, the electorates of both these countries have decisively rejected Islamism in
favor of secular, democratic values. In the Arab-speaking world, the situation is similar.
For the last 20 years, whether seeking power through the gun or the ballot-box, Islamists
have failed. Fortunately, Islamists do not speak on behalf of Islam.

Unfortunately, this message has not been heard enough in the West, leading many
Americans to believe that all Muslims are closet Islamists, hell-bent on global domination.
For this reason, the Islamic center in New York has been transformed in the minds of
many into a symbol of Islam's conquest of America. So far the furor over the inaccurately
dubbed "Ground Zero Mosque" has achieved nothing but reinforce al Qaeda propaganda
that the West is at war with Islam.

This controversy also shows the limitations of Samuel Huntington's theory of the "Clash of
Civilizations." Huntington's claim that Muslims form a distinct anti-secular civilization that
is on a collision path with the West is insulting, and must be music to the ears of Osama
bin Laden. It is also inaccurate. Without the legacy of medieval Muslim Spain, the political
foundations of modern Europe would look very different today.

It is time to revise this aging and divisive theory that pits Muslims against non-Muslims. If
there is a clash of civilizations it is, as election results show, between democratic and
pluralistic peoples the world over and those who wish to forcibly impose their ideas on
others in the quest to construct an artificial model of social perfection that only exists in
their minds. This clash is not religion-based, but ideological.

Throughout history—and indeed today—Muslims have repeatedly rejected the al Qaeda

message of enforcing one view of Islam over all society. Islam is no more resistant to
peace than any other religion is. All religious faiths have a propensity for good. They
should be defined by the way in which the vast majority of their followers profess them.

Mr. Nawaz is co-founder of the counterextremism think tank Quilliam and founder of the
Khudi movement, which works to promote a democratic culture in Pakistan.