Muslims believe that law forms the moral basis of a society and underlies the governing fabric of all civilized nations. In the Muslim world, however, some believe that a truly Islamic society must be ruled by Islamic law; it offers the only hope for the restoration of the Muslim world's former glory. Thus was born the term "Political Islam" -- a movement that holds that Islam should have a prominent role in governing the affairs of government. Political Islam's initial influence started after colonial powers and secular Arab governments failed to secure economic independence, prosperity, and good governance in the Muslim world. This "politicized Islam" is also called "Islamism."

When European colonial powers began their domination of the Muslim world in the nineteenth century, they replaced Islamic law with European secular law. When these same colonial powers withdrew from the Muslim world in the early to mid-twentieth century, they left behind a series of secular monarchies and military governments. These monarchs and generals promised democracy, economic development -- and help for stateless Palestinians. But those promises remained unfulfilled, and political reformers began to call for a return to Islamic rule.

Islamist thinkers express a broad range of interpretations on a number of central themes. Some Islamist thinkers believe that Islamic law is best expressed by traditional Islamic legal codes. These thinkers are the Traditional Islamists. Traditionalists have faith that God will reward them for their strict adherence to the example of governance set by the Prophet Muhammad. Progressive Islamists, on the other hand, believe Islamic law must be updated. They advocate the use of a feature of Islamic jurisprudence called ijtihad (independent reasoning), which establishes legal codes that take the variables of modern society into account. Because the Qur'an asserts that religious diversity is part of the divine plan, progressives believe Muslims should cooperate with others to build a just society. Progressives believe they can reform society by incorporating Islamic principles into forms of governance suitable for modern conditions.  

All Islamists believe that Islam is perfected religion; it is the only guarantor of harmonious life now and in the hereafter. And all Islamists consider themselves reformers -- but progressive Islamists call traditional Islamic legal codes "Shari'a" and equate those codes with God's eternal and changeless will for humanity, which is revealed in the Qur'an and in the Sunnah (which recounts the example given by the Prophet Muhammad). Progressives often distinguish between Shari'a and fiqh, a term that denotes the changeable human interpretations of God's revealed will. Progressives believe that the Shari'a cannot be changed, but human interpretations of it can and must be changed to reflect changed social conditions.

Islamist efforts to transform society are motivated by the conviction that the West is attempting to destroy Islam, a program that began with the Crusades. The Western program, it is believed, is ubiquitous -- and includes any and all western ideologies, from free market capitalism and colonial hegemony to Marxism. Whether a Middle East ruler was a monarch or a general, whether he cooperated with the U.S. or the Soviet Union did not matter to Islamists. The goal was the same -- the eclipse of Islam. The most often-cited example of the pernicious effects of the West's contempt for Muslims is their disregard of the plight of the Palestinians, though Islamist leaders cite other examples of the crusading program -- the repression in Chechnya, the festering problems in Kashmir, and the Soviet and American programs in Afghanistan. America's occupation of Iraq, Islamists believe, is a continuation of this crusader mentality.

Islamists can be divided into two groups: those who advocate a peaceful approach to social transformation through preaching (da`wah), and those who believe only violent revolution will achieve the desired goal. The latter are called jihadi Islamists because they believe their struggle is legitimate jihad (defensive holy war to protect Islam). They are a minority of Islamists. The majority maintains the mainstream Islamic rejection of violence (except in self-defense or as a last resort), as well as the Islamic prohibition of violence against non-combatants.

Most jihadi Islamists take their inspiration from Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Sayyid Qutb was a major ideologue of the oldest and most widespread Islamist organization, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The mainstream political Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood rejected jihadism. So the jihadists broke away from their mainstream political Islamists following Sayyid Qutb's execution by Gamal Abdel Nasser's government (1966). These jihadists believed Sayyid Qutb's execution proved that Nasser's Soviet-supported secular and socialist government was so pervasively evil that immediate action was required to preserve Islam. They were then traumatized by the 1967 Israeli defeat of Arab armies and the subsequent occupation of Syria's Golan Heights, the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Islamists considered the defeat an indictment of Egypt, Syria and Jordan's secular governments.

The most extreme examples of jihadist political Islam are the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (led by Ayman al-Zawahiri) and Gama`a Islamiyya (led by imprisoned cleric Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman). Anwar Sadat, who took control of Egypt after the death of Nasser, relaxed the policies restricting the rights of Islamists, but his negotiations with Israel at Camp David were viewed by Islamists as a violation of the sacred trust to help Muslims in need. Their increased rejection of Sadat's political program led to the arrest of some 1500 Islamists in September 1980. One month later the jihadist groups, Islamic Jihad and Gama`a Islamiyya, cooperated in Sadat's assassination. Hundreds of their members were imprisoned, five were executed. Many of those detained, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, were tortured. When released from prison in Egypt many of these jihadi Islamists left for Afghanistan to help the mujahideen (holy warriors) resist the Soviet occupation. It was in Afghanistan that Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad formed a coalition with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

Government pressure has sometimes been an effective defense against jihadi Islamists. Gama`a Islamiyya, established in the 1970s as a peaceful Egyptian Islamist group, turned to violence under government persecution. However, its leaders declared a ceasefire in 1997, saying that they were returning to their da`wah roots because violence causes more harm than good. But this is the exception: until 1998, Zawahiri focused on bringing an Islamic government to Egypt, while bin Laden has focused on the removal of the US presence from the Gulf, and especially Saudi Arabia. Both leaders have internationalized their agendas. Identifying what they considered the lowest common denominator of their respective issues, they formed the International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders.

The majority of Islamists have rejected Zawahiri and bin Laden's political program and have condemned the September 11 attacks. The majority of Islamists maintain Islam's prohibition on unprovoked violence and harm to civilians, even while working for the establishment of governments based on the Islamic principles of accountability, popular participation, and respect for human rights -- as well as the right of self-determination for Palestinians. As long as the United States is perceived by Islamists as ignoring these issues (or actively working against them), there is a very real danger that political Islam will be further radicalized.