Criticism of Islamism

The ideas and practices of the leaders, preachers, and movements of the Islamic revival movement known as Islamism (also referred to as Political Islam) have been criticized by non-Muslims and Muslims (often Islamic modernists and liberals).

Among those authors, scholars and leaders who have criticized Islamism, or some element of it, are Maajid Nawaz, Reza Aslan, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawi, Khaled Abu al-Fadl, Gilles Kepel, Matthias Küntzel, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, Olivier Roy, and Indonesian Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama.

Tenets of the Islamist movement that have come under criticism include: restrictions on freedom of expression to prevent apostasy from and insults to Islam; that Islam is not only a religion but a governing system; that historical Sharia, or Islamic law, is one, universal system of law, accessible to humanity, and necessary to enforcement for Islam to be truly practiced.

Explanation

Explaining the development of Islamism (or at least jihadist Islamism), one critic (Khaled Abou El Fadl) describes it as not so much an expression of religious revival and resurgence, but a phenomenon created by several factors:

The undermining of the independence and religious authority of Islamic jurists, who traditionally "tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought and kept extremism marginalized". The state seizure of the private religious endowments (awqaf) that supported the jurists in most post-colonialist Muslim countries has relegated most jurists to salaried employees of the state, diminishing their legitimacy on matters social and political."

The advance of Saudi Arabian doctrine of Wahhabism into this vacuum of religious authority. Financed by tens of billions of dollars of petroleum-export money and proselytizing aggressively, the doctrine billed itself not as one school among many, but as a return to the one, true, orthodox "straight path" of Islam – pristine, simple, straightforward. It differed from the traditional teachings of the jurists in its "strict literalism ... extreme hostility to intellectualism, mysticism, and any sectarian divisions within Islam".

Added to this Wahhabi literalism and narrowness are populist appeals to Muslim humiliation suffered in the modern age at the hands of harshly despotic governments, and interventionist non-Muslim powers."

Suppression of dissent

Limits on freedom of expression

According to Graham Fuller, a long-time observer of Middle Eastern politics and supporter of allowing Islamists to participate in politics, "One of the most egregious and damaging roles" played by some Islamists has been in "ruthlessly" attacking and instituting legal proceedings "against any writings on Islam they disagree with."

Some of the early victims of Islamist enforcement of orthodoxy include Ahmad Kasravi, a former cleric and important intellectual figure of 1940s Iran who was assassinated in 1946 by the Fadayan-e Islam, an Islamic militant group, on the charge of takfir.

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a 76-year-old "practicing Muslim" and theologian was hanged in a public ceremony in Khartoum, January 18, 1985, for among other charges "heresy" and "opposing application of Islamic law".