1. In the Islamic world
Even before the war between Hamas and Israel erupted, with so much bad news emerging from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and other lands where Islamism holds sway, we really did begin to wonder what kind of world the Islamists really want.
Following the attack on the twin towers in 2001, a conference was called in Amman, Jordan to discuss the possibility of expelling Muslim terrorists from Islam. The conclusion was an unequivocal ‘No’: anyone self-identifying as Muslim by reciting the Shahada[1] is a Muslim. Yet Islamic history is rife with stories of Muslims fighting Muslims, all in the name of Islam! Persecution of Shias and Sufis by Sunnis has been endemic. The persecution of Ahmadis has been widespread following the ban in Pakistan on any Ahmadi self-identifying as Muslim and has led to thousands of deaths. Even more outrageous is the barbaric proxy war being fought between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen under the guise of a war between Sunni and Shia.
In Afghanistan the Taliban, promoting the most extreme form of Islamism on earth, call themselves Muslim and describe Afghanistan as an “Islamic” rather than an “Islamist” state, thereby helping obscure even further the distinction between Islam, our faith, and their Islamist ideology. We hear of girls’ schools closing, education for girls banned from the age of nine, of musical instruments and games (even chess) being banned, and of their hard-line interpretation of Islamic law being imposed on the whole of society. A UN report highlighted the deteriorating situation in the country, especially for women and girls, and the torture and execution of hundreds of former government officials.[2] Yet, as we demonstrate in this series of essays, such strict adherence to the Sharia is unfounded and based on a flawed interpretation of Islam: seen not simply a religious obligation, but a system of political control.[3] A group of UN experts recently reported that 20 years of progress in women’s rights in Afghanistan has been wiped out since the Taliban took power in 2021.[4],[5]
In Iran, the death in custody in September 2022 of Mahsa Amini, accused by the religious police of failing to wear her hijab properly, led to nation-wide protests against the regime and a government crack-down on dissent, to the arrest of thousands of protesters and the execution of at least seven men after hasty trials and the extraction of confessions under torture.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Saudi Arabia has taken the world lead in spreading the most intolerant form of Islam, Wahhabism. A Pew report in 2006 highlighted what it called “The Saudi Curriculum of Intolerance”. Despite denials, the Saudi government continues to propagate an ideology of hate towards “unbelievers” which for the Wahhabis includes Christians, Jews, Shiites, Sufis, non-Wahhabi Sunnis, Hindus, atheists and others. The ideology is presented in school textbooks from 1st to 12th grade, where students are instructed to “do battle” in order to spread the faith.[6]
This teaching has formed the basis of the multi-billion dollar, Saudi-funded program of indoctrination world-wide over the past several decades, to become the dominant ideology throughout the Islamic world.
Following the promise of the Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2010, the situation in that country has gradually deteriorated with the recent arrest and imprisonment of some 30 opposition politicians including the leader of the biggest opposition party, Rached Ghannouchi.[7] The slow drift from liberal democracy to Islamism is now well under way.[8]
Indonesia, the largest Islamic state by population, was long notable for its tolerant, liberal interpretation of Islam, but together with an equally tolerant Malaysia has seen an upsurge in Islamist ideology in recent years, primarily among the young. More than a thousand Islamic (read Islamist) schools have recently opened in the country. Many moderate politicians have lost their seats including the Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta, Ahok, who lost his seat to an Islamist and was later imprisoned for two years for blasphemy. [9] An Indonesian defence minister recently said that LGBT activists were “a greater danger than nuclear war”.
Pakistan, an Islamic state since 1977, is now totally dominated by Islamist ideology. In August 2023 a mob of around 7,000 descended on the town of Jaranwala in the Punjab after two Christians were arrested for allegedly desecrating the Qur’an. 17 churches and some 400 homes of Christians were destroyed and 100 of the rioters were arrested.
The myth of Islamic solidarity has fallen on its face in Pakistan with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghans from the country in November 2023, many of whom had lived in Pakistan for more than a generation.
In recent years Pakistan has seen education in mathematics, science and the humanities in a slow spiral of decline. In an article in The Dawn[10], Pervez Hoodbuoy, a leading Pakistani scientist and intellectual, decried the “Dumbing Down” of the nation under the national education system. Politically, Pakistan is showing all of the signs of a failed state.[11]
Dumbing down and decadence have sadly become commonplace in states where Islamist ideology is used to impose the imposition of the most brutal system of political control; including Saudi Arabia, Northern Nigeria and in the (mercifully short-lived) so-called Islamic State.
The plight of the majority of women in Islam is of particular concern not only to women themselves but to all concerned with notions of equality, autonomy and human dignity. Inequality between men and women is endemic, not only in communities ruled by Islamism but in Islam in general. It is graphically illustrated in the video “Honor Diaries” by Raheel Raza.[12].
Inequality is built into the Sharia, regardless of which of the schools of Sharia is followed.
Many young Muslims both in the Islamic world and the West find themselves taught that instruction in Islam is the only knowledge they will ever need in the world, while in fact denying them a proper education in history, geography, the sciences or philosophy. We ask young Muslims: Is this kind of regime that the Islamists are attempting to impose around the world, what you want for yourselves, that millions of Muslims have been cowed into accepting by a combination of misinformation, intimidation, indoctrination, and threats?
There is an alternative: to stand up to the intimidation, to reject the imposition of Islamism both locally and nationally, to seek a comprehensive education more suited to the modern world, and finally to return to the benign Islam of our forefathers: to the liberal, tolerant interpretation of Islam that prevailed virtually world-wide until the middle of the 20th century.
Do not be cowed into submission by the Islamists: With enough support for Islamic reform, Islamism will wither and die, as has happened to every other tyranny throughout human history,
2. In the West
There is no doubt that many Muslims feel uncomfortable in the West, many experience hostility from indigenous Europeans, even if sometimes only hostile looks. A natural reaction has been to seek refuge among one’s friends, among other Muslims. But we can easily find ourselves on a slippery slope when faced with the Islamist-inspired campaign of over-reaction to every perceived insult to Islam. The Salman Rushdie affair[13] was seminal in hardening Muslim attitudes against the West, against international standards of freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and against western culture in general.
Sadly, as a result of Islamist indoctrination, many young Muslims seem prepared to provoke hostility among non-Muslims by their over-reaction to quite trivial events. Recent examples include incidents in the UK[14],[15],[16],[17] the United States[18] and France[19] where, despite fair warning by a teacher or lecturer that anyone who might be offended was free to leave, some did take offence, reported these incidents to the school or college authorities, who then suspended the teachers involved and reported the incidents to the police as a “hate incidents” with extremely serious consequences for the accused, including the murder of one French lecturer. When the British Home Secretary reminded the police and educators that there is no blasphemy law in the UK, the Islamist reaction was swift and damning: “one of the most blatant examples of Islamophobia to appear in the mainstream media in recent years”, screamed one commentator.[20] The result of this hyper-intolerance has been a backlash, not against Islamism but Islam itself in public opinion and the media[21], unable because of Islamist propaganda to distinguish between Islam and Islamism.
Campaigns in the West[22] and even in India[23] to sensitise public opinion to the difference between Islam and Islamism have tended to fall on deaf ears because the Islamists claim to speak for all Muslims, adding to a quite unnecessary climate of hostility towards Muslims in general, a hostility that does not exist towards Hindus, for example, or the followers of any other religion.
The Islamist agenda is clear, to gradually sensitise the West, the media and public opinion to Islamist norms, and eventually to the full acceptance as Islamism as the dominant culture.
We are now seeing Islamist-ruled communities in Europe where it has become commonplace to refuse the friendship of non-Muslims, to ban any celebration of non-Islamic holidays, such as Christmas, and to join the global protest against any perceived insult to Islam anywhere in the world. Such over-reaction is simply playing into the hands of our enemies: both right-wing bigots and the Islamists themselves playing the victim card at every opportunity. As former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, once said: “sometimes the best response to provocation is to ignore it”.
Before joining the clamour of protests every time someone accidentally drops a copy of the Qur’an or shows her students a medieval painting of the Prophet, let’s step back and save our anger for those who go out of their way to deliberately insult Islam or Muslims. At the same time, we need to recognise the validity of criticism of Islamic extremism, and to reject Islamism for what it is : “a political ideology masquerading as a religion”.
[1] “I affirm that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is the messenger of Allah”.
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/08/afghanistan-un-human-rights-experts-denounce-idea-reformed-taliban
[3] See Parts 4, 5 and 6 of this series.
[4] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/afghanistan-un-experts-say-20-years-progress-women-and-girls-rights-erased
[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66461711
[6] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED500608.pdf
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/may/25/families-ask-human-rights-court-to-free-jailed-tunisian-opposition-leaders
[8] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/06/tunisia-crackdown-media-freedoms
[9] https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/rise-islamist-groups-malaysia-and-indonesia
[10] https://www.dawn.com/news/1768503
[11]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/08/the-guardian-view-on-pakistan-and-the-generals-holding-a-nation-back
[13] See in Part 2: “A Short History of Islam”: “How Islamism Conquered the World”.
[14] https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2021/03/teacher-suspended-after-using-muhammad-cartoon-in-class-on-blasphemy
[15] https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2021/05/the-outcome-of-the-batley-investigation-is-a-surrender-of-liberal-principles
[16] University of Bristol professor’s anger at Islamophobia claim – BBC News
[17] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11819099/Suella-Braverman-wades-row-pupils-suspended-slight-damage-copy-Quran.html
[18] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hamline-university-professor-fired-prophet-muhammad-images-b2258410.html
[19] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56325254
[20] http://ioir.org/5pillarsreaction
[21] Eg: the Daily Mail.
[22] Eg: the One Law for All campaign in the UK:
[23] Islamist reaction to the Indian campaign for the “one civil law for all”: