Islamism

The book under review is a new addition to the growing literature on Islamism. Consisting of ten chapters, the book attempts to discuss Islamism which the author defines as ‘a religiously inspired ideology based on a totalitarian interpretation of Islam, whose ultimate objective is the conquest of the world by all means’ (p. 22). In chapter 1, “Why Is the Study of Islamism Important?” (pp. 11–28), the author traces the history of the term Islamism back to the writings of Voltaire, Tocqueville, Perceval, Renan, etc., who used it as an alternative for ‘Islam’ (pp. 11–12). He then focuses on its development in the following centuries, especially in the last decades of the 20th century, and then specifies its meaning after the post–9/11 tragedy (p. 13). Mozaffari argues that ‘Islamism is, first and foremost, an ideology’ and needs to be studied as other ‘political ideologies like Marxism, liberalism, and fascism’ (p. 15). For him, Islamism has not been studied yet either ‘appropriately or sufficiently’ (p. 17), for it is ‘a complex phenomenon’ whose complexity lies in its ‘close connotation with a specific religion’, i.e., Islam; and this too, in turn, creates ‘an ontological problematic’ for such a discourse (p. 19).