m like merely a sleight of hand. Indeed, in 2010, CAIR stated that “Islamist is largely used to describe any Muslim individual or movement at odds with the agenda of those using the pejorative term.” Likewise, comedian Frankie Boyle recently tweeted: “If I see the word Islamist, I just assume I’m about to read the incoherent ramblings of a crazed racist.”
[Ah, Frankie Boyle. As Graham Linehan has it, "F***ing pet comedian of the sacred class. A tame pet." Controversial and "close-to-the-bone" only on progressively acceptable topics.]
My own family and their close friends are moderate Muslims by any measure. Yet they certainly believe in Islamic supremacy. As I grew up, they often told me that Islam would eventually spread across the whole world, and everyone would become Muslim. They didn’t say that they would help to make this happen themselves, nor did they try to convince my siblings and me to proselytise, let alone to take part in violent jihad. They just took it for granted that Islam would come to dominate the globe. If you call that belief “Islamism,” which you see as an extreme version of Islam, you will have little hope of understanding how Muslims like my family see the world….
Islam is a totalitarian religion; it aspires to control every aspect of Muslims’ lives. There are rules about which foot you should use to walk into your home and to enter every room. There are rules about how to drink water. Many of these rules come from the Hadiths and show how to emulate Muhammad. Given that Islam controls life down to this level of minutia, it is mistaken to believe that the mandates from the Quran that Islam should be supreme are somehow not Islam itself but something else called “Islamism.” To describe the more pernicious aspects of Islam as “Islamism” is not to treat Islam as seriously as we should.
The term “Islamist” deflects from the fact that violent extremists have goals that are Islamic. The problem here is not a subset of Islamic thought, but the fundamentals of Islam itself….
“Islamism” is a weasel word. It allows apologists to downplay the effects of Islamic teaching and practice. Theocratic governments like those in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan are not “Islamist.” They are Islamic. They pass laws and institute policies that conform to Islamic teaching.
Islamic doctrine separates the world into the House of Islam, Dar al Islam, and the House of War, Dar al Harb. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other Islamic terrorist groups are fighting to expand the reach of Dar al Islam, as mandated by the Quran. We should fight them on the basis of their actions and understand that what motivates those actions is a literal reading of Islamic scripture—not muddy the waters by conflating Islam with Islamism.
I don't know if Obaid Omer would still count himself as Muslim – at Quillette he's simply described as "an advocate for free speech and Enlightenment values" (this article is some three weeks old now – I missed it at the time) – but it's interesting how those like Omer here and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, brought up as Muslim, are noticeably clearer about the supremacist and totalitarian aspects of Islam than those looking in from the outside.
