Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
It makes me want to laugh sarcastically and the next thing I do is, switch the channel .
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
when i read or hear these terms, the image that comes to my mind is of the person(s) who used the term, not the one whom they are its used for.
and the image is of someone who hates Islam as a religion on one dimension or another, for whatever reason... and this includes those who consider themselves to be muslims (or claim to be one) but chose to go against it. this includes the author a user mentioned above. in the line quoted, parvaiz behoodabhoy is openly calling people to be rebellious towards Islam, asking them to reject one of the very basic rule/ principle of the deen which is below as mentioned in the Holy Quran:
....And they say: "We hear, and we obey (We seek) Thy forgiveness, our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys." [Al-Bakara, 285]
And call in remembrance the favour of Allah unto you, and His covenant, which He ratified with you, when ye said: "We hear and we obey": And fear Allah, for Allah knoweth well the secrets of your hearts. [Al Ma'edah, 7]
The answer of the Believers, when summoned to Allah and His Messenger, in order that He may judge between them, is no other than this: they say, "We hear and we obey": it is such as these that will attain felicity. [Al-Noor, 51]
instead promoting the actions of non-believers, again as the Holy Quran says:
.....there are those who displace words from their (right) places, and say: "We hear and we disobey"; and "Hear what is not Heard"; and "Ra'ina"; with a twist of their tongues and a slander to Faith......[An-Nisa, 46]
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Paksitani :cobra:
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Hoodbhoy has written, "Muslims need freedom from dogmatic beliefs and a culture that questions rather than obeys."
Fine print disclaimer : Attempting to practice the above may result in infractions and/or bans online followed by maiming and/or death in real life. Please proceed at your own risk.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Okay good. So what do you guys think when BBC, CNN, the New York times, Washington Post's main headlines during the Tunisian election read "Moderate Islamists win elections" etc.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
^ when someone says moderate Islamists (or moderate muslims) i think of somebody who's lenient about what ALLAH says about something, he may or may not choose to follow it, somebody who thinks its ok to drink socially, someone who says its ok to take interest these days or someone saying on the lines of "this rule is no more valid in todays world" or "we need to upgrade sharia" etc etc.
so when the media calls then moderate muslims, i think there are two possibilities, either they really are what is mentioned above, not interested in Islam as a whole but some parts of it, mostly which may help them in any way, or they really are interested but the USA/West is trying to give them message that: you will be acceptable to us if you become a "moderate muslim"
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
No they specifically stated Moderate Islamist. Not Muslim. So far an Islamist has been described as being akin to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. In that case what is a Moderate Al Qaeda member or a Moderate Taliban.
Muslim and Islamist are two different things.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
No they specifically stated Moderate Islamist. Not Muslim. So far an Islamist has been described as being akin to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. In that case what is a Moderate Al Qaeda member or a Moderate Taliban.
Muslim and Islamist are two different things.
i dont know then, may be they mean there are so called al qaeda elements there, but they do not hold much power in the group
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
I honestly don't like these terms...first of all what is an Islamist and whats a moderate Islamist. Why can't we just be Muslim..I am a Muslim and try to follow it to the best of my ability ( okay maybe not but I don't need a label to look good to the western world)
I think the use of different terms serves a purpose for those very Muslims who claim to not want to be set apart from other Muslims. When we hear about irrational, violent, terrorist actions of people from within the Muslim community, we want to preserve our idea of the Muslim identity as a peaceful, rational people and say that those other people are distinct from us. Those other people may be Muslims as well, but they get the distinction of becoming hyphenated Muslims that allows us to be different from them.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Muslim and Islamist are two different things.
Yes ... Muslim is the name for a person who conforms to Islam ... and Islamist is a made up term that is linguistically flawed and is designed to separate Muslims who believe in Shari'ah rule from Muslims who prefer secular rule.
I feel the media do not want to be held to account for saying "moderate Muslim" because that would imply not being Muslim, but it satisfies Muslim secularists when they say "moderate Islamists" which infers that the people who this group describes "favour Shari'ah but will accept secular rule".
I believe Shari'ah and democracy are not exclusive from one another, but secular democracy can be void of Shari'ah if care is not taken. I agree though I think it sounds strange. The term Islamist to me is strange enough.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Why is it that when I ask such questions our resident red white and blue Pakistanis disappear off the face the earth? It would be great to hear from them on the rationale for such comments.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
^they be confused… 
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
The use of 'Islamist' in the American media (and much of the world) generally describes revivalist movements. Traumatic reference points for Americans being the Iranian Islamic/Cultural Revolution and 9/11. Presumably, 'moderate' Islamists are interpreted to be less dogmatic than Ayatollahs or the Taliban. e.g. Tunisia's Ennahda party claim to uphold women's rights and to not impose "strict" Islamic values on society, making them less fundamentalist compared to, say, the Sauds. So the lengths a given Islamist entity will go to implement Islam in the public sphere and use it to micromanage society determines where they're placed on the Islamist spectrum, in turn deciding the color of our national threat alert, and how hard we're all groped at the airport.
ps. Forget "moderate" Islamist, what the hell is "mildly Islamist?" - last spotted in the Economist I think in the context of Turkish politics.
pps. The post-911 dialogue in the West is a clumsy off-shoot of a centuries-old internal debate Muslims have been having (or should be having) between literalists vs. rationalists.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Extremist - Aurangzeb
Moderate - Akbar
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Actually none of the parties mentioned are revivalists at all. They are political parties or militant groups and not religious organizations. The only two revivalist movements with popular support in the last 100 years have been the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami. They base their ideology on religion and not on politics. Thus making them revivalist movements.
The taliban by no means is a revivalist movements. They don't claim to be. Why? Because the revivalist movement that forms their religious backbone is the Jamaat. Ennahda is a political party. It was one before the elections and remains so after the elections. There is no element of religious revivalism at all.
While I don't know much about the ideology of the Islamic revolution it could be considered a revivalist movement but I will hold my opinion on it as I do not know much about the role religion played in the process up to the movement.
If we work the thesis that Islamist means revivalist only the Muslim Brotherhood fits the bill in the current context of elections. None of the others do.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
If we're now discussing objective reality, rather than why the American media uses such terms, this discussion becomes tricky without definitions. I suspect Islamist is often employed - inaccurately - as a synonym for Islamic. It seems to have phased out the use of 'Islamic fundamentalism' in recent years. Either way, the use of it in the media is not unequivocal. To most people it means any or all of the following - a government partially or fully defined by Islamic dictates, religious politics, political religion, an outfit that claims to be a vanguard of Islam. It doesn't necessarily imply extremist though, as evident with "moderate/mild" qualifications.
Revivalism is an old term, but the post-colonial context saw it grow as an attempt to reinvigorate religion in greater society, an effective tool against European influence, a grass-roots resistance against the West so to speak. (I don't see how the Taliban does not fit this definition. Surely they see Islam as not just a faith - to be revived no less - but an ideology too? Indeed, is Islam not an ideology - i.e. a comprehensive world view/a way of life?).
Being revivalist, being political, and being militant are not mutually exclusive. Movements, by nature, by function, are inherently political. The Brotherhood is a religious organization, but can we claim it is apolitical? Do they even claim this themselves, their agenda based on injecting Islam directly into politics and culture?
Ennahda itself means renaissance or revival (from the arabic word 'nahda'). Ghannouchi - the founder - was influenced by the Brotherhood's teachings at one point. As far as I know, they aim to revise their opponents' emphasis on socialism/Arab nationalism/secularism and to allow Islam into public life (though distancing themselves from the Saudi model and aspiring to the Turkish or Indonesian systems, which is why they're being branded "moderate"). I would argue theirs is a religious revival of sorts - albeit of cultural emancipation rather than stringent ideological indoctrination. Time will tell.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Call it what you will, the economist has you mention as well as the New York Times, Washington Post and most leading EU newspapers highlighted that "Moderate Islamists" had won the elections in Tunisia. And it was also highlighted when the NTC stated that Islamic law would be applicable in Libya but went to great pains to stress it would not be shariah law.
Honestly I don't think the US media nor people in major think tanks use terms such as Islamist or Salafist out of pure ignorance because they don't have better terms to use. Foreign Policy was the first magazine if I recall correctly to interlink Wahhabism, Salafism and Al Qaeda's message of global terrorism. Only after that did it become mainstream.
As for the current definition you have provided " a government partially or fully defined by Islamic dictates, religious politics, political religion" seems more in line with what is being thrown around today. However i disagree with the fact that it does not imply extremist. The fact that you have to add the term moderate to Islamist indicates that the term or categorization is not moderate. A mild winter is different from a winter. The mild is the adjective qualifier. As in the case of a Moderate Islamist. An Islamist by default would not be a moderate if there is a need to qualify the nature of the term Islamist.
Well as for the Taliban. Definitely not a religious revival as Afghan society by default is far more rigid in its version of Islam. Most of what the Taliban apply has been undertaken in the provinces without the approval of the Government but happened none the less. Additionally the Taliban by no means are a cohesive Unit. The Taliban originally consisted of 6 to 10 different warlords and factions. Today they can be divided into three groups. The Quetta Shura. The Haqqani Network and the Peshawar Shura. Each one differs on religious doctrine as well as implementation of the faith. Mullah Omar is the Spiritual head of the Quetta Shura. He is not the Spiritual head of the Haqqani Network or of the Peshawar Shura. It is more of a militia than a revival of religious sensibilities. And more importantly they never sought to revive Islam in Afghanistan because it never died there. They always made it clear they wanted to establish an Emirate in a Muslim land.
All Muslim see Islam is a way of life. That is the very basic premise of the faith. From the moment you get up to the moment you sleep, the faith guides actions and inactions of your average muslim.
The Brotherhood has changed shape and form over the past 80 or 90 years. That is for certain. But it started off based on the teachings of Al Banna and Al Quds (I think that is the guy correct me if I am wrong). The formation of the organization well before its political or militant leanings was religious. The same does not apply for any of the other organizations or political entities. The essence of what is revivalist is based on the raison d'etre for its creation. Not its current manifestations.
Indonesia by no means a religious model. It is a completely secular state where religion plays no role in government or public life. Personally Indonesia is a perfect example of how a secular democracy can work in a Muslim majority country. Turkey on the other hand has had an Islamist government for the past 10 odd years.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Turkey actually is the strict secular govt in the islamic world, as I think some indonesian province has implemented stricter sharia laws.
PS You would be surprised as to how some islamist parliament members dress in turkey, unless one's standard of conservative women is the blondes at fox.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
I feel chaibiskut and CM are making good points ... on one hand we have the inherent flaw of the term that I am picking on, then we have the pragmatic argument from chaibiskut that it is to do with new ways of saying old things and then the CM propaganda argument ... which I also agree with ...
Perhaps they think "revival" sounds too "positive" a term for bringing back what they want to be an outdated ideology. By saying Islamist then perhaps they do mean those who want to re-establish caliphate or who have a tendency for allowing it to come back ... I dunno ... perhaps it is done just because it sounds more "cult" like and the term does sound like that and hence they want to create a "aversion" from the ideology ... in reality they might just be saying "Islamic".
Of course there are those religious organisations that become political and then there are the political organisations that bear towards religion.
Then there are those organisations that make no distinction between religion and politics.
Re: Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist etc.
Turkey is a secular country with an Islamist Government. Doppleganger if you do a search in World Affairs there was a thread about Turkey, Erdogan and its secularist nature. Erdogan himself states he is the Head of Government of a Secular Country but he is not a secular man. In the past 10 years they have made great strides in bring religion back to mainstream Turkish society and debate. Is it as bad as Saudi? Nope. Its more like Malaysia.
The thing is Psyah the term Islamist has no definition. They have used the term Islamist to define both the Taliban and the parties that won in Tunisia. That makes absolutely no sense. Its like saying the CDU in Germany is the same as the televangelists in the US. Thus the question on what people think of Islamist and now what they think of the term Moderate Islamist and the fact that people equate Islamist with terrorism 90% of the time. And yet it is used to define political entities with Islamic leanings, religious organizations based on revival of Islam, terrorists groups, militant groups and criminals. That is one very freaking large definition.