In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Islamist movements, along with other political movements inspired by Islam, gained increased attention in the Western media. Although the groups and individuals representing these are not mutually exclusive, within academia, each term does have a distinct definition. Some Islamist groups have been implicated in Terrorism and have become targets in the War on Terrorism. However, it is important to keep in mind that this distinction or boundary between "Islam" and "Islamism" is not as sharp, clear or distinct for many followers of Islam as it has in recent years become for many English-speaking non-Muslims or western academics. For example, most followers of Islam would consider themselves "Fundamentalists", insofar as believing in Islam means believing in its Fundamentals. Similarly, traditional Islam also promotes a vision of society influenced by the tenets of the religion, in much the same way that Christianity, Buddhism and other religions advocate not just personal but also social changes.
Most Islamist literature deals not with other religions, but with political ideologies, since Islamists were reacting against competing movements such as Communism. Widespread poverty and consequent class tensions led to widespread socialist movements all over the Muslim world during the 20th century. But the collapse of the Soviet Union ultimately reduced the influence of leftist ideologies. Islamism has emerged as the remaining revolutionary ideology in Muslim societies, gaining much support through rising anti-Western sentiment due to control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel.
Governments based on secular Arab nationalism have found themselves facing economic stagnation and disorder. Some Muslims place the blame for these flaws in Muslim societies on the influx of "foreign" ideas; a return to the principles of Islam is seen as the natural cure. A persistent Islamist theme is that Muslims are persecuted by the West and other foreigners. In this context, Islamist ideas developed in several different settings.
Though the Deobandi philosophy is puritanical and wishes to remove non-Muslim (i.e., Hindu or Western) influence from Muslim societies, it was not especially violent or proselytising, confining its activity mostly to the establishment of madrassas, or Muslim religious schools. They are a major sector of Muslims in the region (the followers of Sayed Ahmad Khan being a significant minority). The Taliban movement in Afghanistan was a product of the Deobandi philosophy and the madarassas.
Another Islamic Jihad group emerged in Palestine as an offshoot of the Egyptian group, and began militant activity against the state of Israel, and consistently opposed itself to the policies of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Yasser Arafat.
The reasons for the rise of Islamism during this period are still disputed. The ideologies that had dominated the Middle East since Decolonization such as Ba'athism, Arab Socialism, and Arab nationalism had, by 1980, failed to attain the economic and political goals expected of them. By the late 1980s the distinct Shi'ite version of political Islam had been drained of its vigour in the Iran-Iraq War. During the conflict against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, many Islamists came together to fight what they saw as an atheist invading force and were heavily funded by the United States. In Pakistan, military dicators brought into power through coups (especially Zia-ul-Haq) exploited Islamist sentiments to consolidate their power, bringing Islamist political parties into prominence and all but destroying the traditional secularism that stemmed from the secular stance of the Muslim League and its leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan).
In his book Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam Gilles Kepel argues that the central importance of Islamism in the 1990s was a product of the Gulf War. Prior to 1990 organized political Islam had been mostly associated with Saudi Arabia, a nation founded on Wahhabism and an ally of Islamist groups in Egypt and in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, as a close ally of the West and with a strong interest in regional stability, played an important restraining role on Islamist groups.
The Shi'ite clerics in Iran had long argued that Saudi Arabia was an apostate state, a puppet of the West that espoused a corrupted Islam. During the 1980s these accusations had little effect, largely because of their Shi'ite origin. However, Kepel argues that when Saddam Hussein turned on his former allies, he embraced this rhetoric, arguing that Saudi Arabia had betrayed its duty to protect the holiest sites of Islam. Kepel states that Saddam Hussein embraced Islamic rhetoric and trappings and tried to draw leading scholars and activists to his camp. Some of the main Islamist groups remained loyal to Saudi Arabia, but a number such as parts of the Muslim Brotherhood and Afghani Mujahideen aligned themselves with Saddam. Far more groups declared themselves neutral in the struggle.
According to Kepel the rapid defeat of Saddam did not end this rift. As Saddam had likely predicted Saudi Arabia had found itself in a severe dilemma, the only way to counter the Iraqi threat was to seek help from the west, which would immediately confirm the Iraqi allegations of Saudi Arabia being a friend to the west. To ensure the regime's survival Saudi Arabia accepted a massive western presence in the country and de facto cooperation with Israel causing great offence to many in Islamist circles.
After the war Saudi Arabia launched a two pronged strategy to restore its security and leadership in Islamist circles. Those Islamist groups who refused to return under the Saudi umbrella were persecuted and any Islamists who had criticized Saudi regime were arrested or forced into exile, with most going to London. At the same time Saudi oil money began to flow freely to those Islamist groups who continued to work with the kingdom. Islamist madrassas around the world saw their funding greatly increased. More covertly Saudi money began to fund more violent Islamist groups in areas such as Bosnia and the former Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia's western allies mostly looked the other way seeing the survival of their crucial ally as more important than the problem of more money and resources flowing to Islamist groups.
In the 1990s Islamist conflicts erupted around the world in areas such as Algeria, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, and Nigeria. In 1995 a series of terrorist attacks were launched against France. The most important development was the rise to power of the Deobandi Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996. In the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan a number of anti-Saudi and anti-Western Islamist groups found refuge. Significantly, Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi influenced by Wahhabism and the writings of Sayed Qutb, joined forces with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad under Ayman al-Zawahiri to form what is now called Al-Qaeda.
A considerable effort has been made to fight Western targets, especially the United States. The United States in particular was made a subject of Islamist ire because of its support for Israel, its presence on Saudi Arabian soil, what Islamists regard as its aggression against Muslims in Iraq, and its support of the regimes Islamists oppose. In addition some Islamists have concentrated their activity against Israel, and nearly all Islamists view Israel with hostility. Osama bin Laden, at least, believes that this is of necessity due to historical conflict between Muslims and Jews, and considers there to be a Jewish/American alliance against Islam.
There is some debate as to how influential Islamist movements remain. Some scholars assert that Islamism is a fringe movement that is dying, following the clear failures of Islamist regimes like the regime in Sudan, the Wahhabist Saudi regime and the Deobandi Taliban to improve the lot of Muslims. However, others (e.g. Ahmed Rashid) feel that the Islamists still command considerable support and cite the fact that Islamists in Pakistan and Egypt regularly poll 10 to 30 percent in electoral polls which many believe are rigged against them.
An alternative direction has been taken by many Islamists in Turkey, where the Islamist movement split into reformist and traditionalist wings in 2001. The reformists formed the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (Ak Party), which gained an overall majority in the Turkish parliament in 2002, and has sought to balance Islamic values with the requirements of a secular and democratic political system. Some in the Justice and Development Party see the Christian Democrat parties of Western Europe as a model, which has led some to question whether it is a genuinely Islamist movement.
In the years after independence the most important ideological current in the Muslim world was socialism and communism. This influenced Islamism in two ways. Much Islamist thought and writing during this era was directly addressed to countering Marxism. For instance Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's main works are detailed critiques of Marxism, paying much less attention to capitalism and liberalism. Another option was to try and integrate socialism and Islamism. This was most notably done by Ali Shariati. At several points Islamist and leftist groups found common cause, such as during the early stages of the Iranian Revolution, and several organizations, such as the Islamic Socialist Front in Syria, were both overtly Marxist and overtly Islamist. While most Islamists reject Marxism, the influence of socialist ideologies during the formative period of modern Islamism means that Islamist works continue to be infused with Marxist language and concepts. For instance Qutb's view of an elite vanguard to lead an Islamic revolution is borrowed directly from Lenin's Vanguard of the Proletariat.
During the 1930s a number of fascistic groups arose in the Middle East. Some such as the SSNP and the Kataeb Party were mostly supported by Christians and other minority groups others like the Egyptian Misr al-Fatat were mainly Sunni Arab. The fascist method of seizing power did inspire Islamist Hassan al-Banna, who founded organizations directly based on the Brownshirts and Blackshirts to try and seize power. This method proved ineffective, and since then most Islamists have used the cell based structure commonly used by leftist groups. Ideologically there is little evidence that fascism had much influence on the development of Islamism. The far-right French doctor Alexis Carrel had an important influence on Qutb's thought, and the well-read Qutb also seems to have had a passing knowledge of Mein Kampf. Several Islamist groups have embraced Nazi like Anti-Semitism, as an outgrowth of Islamist Anti-Zionism.
Several authors, among which Daniel Pipes and Michael Ledeen have prominently equated Islamism to Fascism and coined the word Islamofascism. Cavelos and Laidi state in [ISBN 0415167175] A World without Meaning that Islamism shares more characteristics with fascism than with communism, in that it does not have a definite progress belief, which communism has, and that three characteristics are shared by Islamism, communism and fascism: a totalitarian political claim, a global discourse about society in which the theme of exclusion is central and a political and social apparatus which respond to the demands of disadvantageous groups. The most direct western parallel to Islamism is, however, not fascism, but Dominionism (put in place in the past such as during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell).