Islamic Fascism and Conversion to Islam

Submitted by Prof. Irving Hexham (Canada), Aug 19, 2006 at 16:39

First, I never said that there was a "relationship between the basic tenets of Islam and the principles and practices of Fascism." My point was simply that Islamic fascism is a possibility and was certainly encouraged by the Nazis just as Imperial Germany sought to stir up fundamentalist Islam against the British Empire.

Second, to say "Nazi Fascists actually converted to Islam, thereby abrogating their earlier totalitarian political system and embracing a new one" is naive. Perhaps some did abrogate their earlier beliefs, perhaps they did not. This is an empirical question that deserves investigation and cannot be answered in the abstract.

In the example I gave, Johannes von Leers, the available evidence is that although his conversion to Islam may have been genuine it did not affect his belief in National Socialism or the necessity of saving the world from "Jewish Imperialism" as he called it. In other words his anti-Semitism continued unchanged and helped to lay the foundation for what is happening today in the Middle East.

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