What is Islamism?

Submitted by Gerardo (United States), Nov 25, 2009 at 11:25

What is the difference between "Islam" and "Islamism"? Is Islam supposed to be the benign, moderate, neighborly, non-threatening version, and Islamism is the more aggressive, evangelizing, Taqiyya-prone offshoot?

To help me sort things out in my own mind I am attempting to classify folks who discuss Muslims/Islam (either pro or con) into four categories. I know I may be trying to oversimiplify things a bit. I'm a categorizing kind of guy. A through D progress from a mild/benign "religion of peace" Islam to a supremacist/aggressive/violent Islam.

A - Believes Islam is benign; a religion of peace; that there may be a number of misguided terroritsts that have strayed from true Islam.

B - Believes Islam is generally benign; but there are a number Muslims who exaggerate or misapply the teachings of the Qur'an that call for violence, intolerance, supremacism, and hatred of the Infidel, etc..

C - Believes that there are portions of the Qur'an that do in fact teach violence, intolerance, supremacism, and hatred of the Infidel, etc, that these sections have NOT been misinterpreted, and there is a "reformation" of Islamic thought that is promoting that teaching - but this approach can be reversed to once again prove Islam is a religion of peace.

D - Believes that the core of the Islamic religion requires violence, intolerance, supremacism, and hatred of the Infidel, etc as a major means of honoring Allah and furthering the Islamic faith. Anything else would not be Islam.

For example, CAIR would be A/B. Robert Spencer is mostly D. Pipes is mostly C - I'm not sure.

My take on the above is "true Islam" is A, B and C to achieve D.

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