Criticism of Islamism
The ideas and practices of the leaders, preachers, and movements of the Islamic revival movement known as Islamism have been criticized by non-Muslims and Muslims.
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, one critic 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 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."
Limits on freedom of expression
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". Taha had opposed Sharia law in its historical form, as it was instituted in Sudan, because he believed the Quranic verses on which it was primarily based were adapted for a specific place and purpose – namely ruling the seventh-century Islamic city-state of Medina – and were abrogated by verses revealed in Mecca, which represented the Islamic "ideal religion".
Maybe the most famous alleged apostate in the Arab world attacked by Islamists was Egyptian author and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, who was harassed and stabbed in the neck by assailants, almost killed and crippled for the rest of his life. Others include novelist Egyptian Salahaddin Muhsin who
... was sentenced to three years hard labor for writings that 'offended Islam'; feminist novelist Nawal El Saadawi has been repeatedly tried in court for anti-Islamic writing and her husband ordered to divorce her as a Muslim apostate, although the charges were ultimately struck down; Islamist lawyers also charged Islamic and Arabic literature professor Nasr Abu Zayd with apostasy for his writings on the background of the Qur'an, and his wife was ordered to divorce him...."
Egyptian author Farag Foda was assassinated on June 8, 1992 by militants of the Gamaa Islamiya as an example to other anti-fundamentalist intellectuals.
While Islamists are often separated into "bad" extremists, and "good" moderates working within the system, political scientist Gilles Kepel points out that in Egypt in the 1990s "Islamist moderates and the extremists complemented one another's actions." In the case of Farag Foda's killing, "moderate" Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali, testified for the defense in the trial of Foda's killers. "He announced that anyone born Muslim who militated against the sharia was guilty of the crime of apostasy, for which the punishment was death. In the absence of an Islamic state to carry out this sentence, those who assumed that responsibility were not blameworthy."
Takfir
Some Islamists have evolved beyond targeting liberal and secular intellectuals to attacking more mainstream Muslims. In the Algerian Civil War the insurgent/jihadist Islamist group GIA viewed all who failed to actively support its jihad as collaborators with the government, and thus apostates from Islam and eligible military targets. The group slaughtered entire villages, murdered foreigners, and executed Algerians for "violating Islamic law," for "infractions ranging from infidelity to wearing Western clothing."In the Iraq civil war, takfir was also defined broadly by Sunni Islamist insurgents. By mid-2006, at least two falafel venders in Baghdad were killed "because falafel did not exist in the seventh century", and was thus an unIslamic "innovation" in the eyes of the killers. This was seen as a reflection of how far the followers of Sayyid Qutb had progressed in their willingness to takfir and kill those who were guilty of apostasy according to some. As of mid-2014, the jihadi Islamist groups Al Qaeda and Da'ish had killed "more than 300 Sunni imams and preachers", according to one "prominent Iraqi Sunni cleric". Some months later Da'ish reportedly executed one of its own Sharia judges on the grounds that he had "excessive takfiri tendencies".
Khawarij
Some Islamists have been condemned by other Muslims as Kharijites for their willingness to takfir and kill self-professed Muslims. While Islamist often argue that they are returning to Islam unpolluted by Western Enlightenment ideas of freedom of thought and expression, early Islam also condemned extreme strictness in the form of the 7th century to the Kharijites. From their essentially political position, they developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for their readiness to takfir self-professed Muslims.Emphasis on politics
Neglect of other issues
Although Islamism is a movement devoted to the preeminence of Islam in all fields some have suggested that belief has been neglected in favor of politics, and that "organizers, enthusiasts, and politicians," rather than those focusing on spirituality or religion, have "had the most impact" in the movement.Other observers have remarked on the narrowness of Islamism, and its lack of interest in studying and making sense of the world in general. Habib Boulares regrets that the movement in general has "devoted little energy to constructing consistent theories" and has made 'no contribution either to Islamic thought or spirituality'. Olivier Roy complains of its intellectual stagnation in that "since the founding writings of Abul Ala Maududi, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb... all before 1978... there are nothing but brochures, prayers, feeble glosses and citations of canonical authors."
An ex-activist of one of the Islamist groups active in Britain, wrote in his book The Islamist that he felt politics was crowding out his "relationship with God", and saw the same in other HT activists. Husain complained "We sermonized about the need for Muslims to return to Islam, but many of the shabab did not know how to pray."
Another observer complained that even systematic study of human society and behavior is dismissed as un-Islamic:
There is neither history, since nothing new has happened except a return to the jahiliyya of pre-Islamic times, nor anthropology, since man is simply the exercise of virtue, nor sociology, since segmentation is fitna, splitting of the community, and thus an attack on the divine oneness the community reflects. Anything, in fact, that differentiates is seen as a menace to the unity of the community...
Dependence on virtue
Roy also argues that the basic strategy of Islamism suffers from "a vicious circle" of "no Islamic state without virtuous Muslims, no virtuous Muslims without an Islamic state".This is because for Islamists, "Islamic society exists only through politics, but the political institutions function only a result of the virtue of those who run them, a virtue that can become widespread only if the society is Islamic beforehand." The process of choosing a leader involves not issues such as the structure of elections, of checks and balances on power, but searching for "subjective" qualities: the amir must "abstain from sin", incarnate "sincerity, equity, justice, purity" have "sincerity, ability and loyalty", "moral integrity as well as... other relevant criteria".