Islamism

From Islam +‎ -ism. Compare French islamisme.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɪzləmɪz(ə)m/, /ɪzˈlɑːmɪz(ə)m/, /ɪzˈlæmɪz(ə)m/

Islamism (countable and uncountable, plural Islamisms)

1. The religion of Muslims; Islam. [from 17th c.]
   • 1626, Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, fourth edition, page 1013:

     Muhammed [...] first manifested and obserued the Religion of Islamisme [...]

   • 1827, Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte:

     ‘There is no God but God, and Mahommed is his prophet’. A confession of faith which is in itself a declaration of Islamism.

   • 1841, Joshua William Brooks, “The Present Conditions and Future Prospects of the Jews”, in The History of the Hebrew Nation: From Its First Origin to the Present Time‎, London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, pages 569–570:

     Those of Meshed further assured him, that at Candahar there are descendants of Simeon, also of Joseph (i. e. of Ephraim and Manasseh,) though they were outwardly conformed to Islamism;³ and he himself, when in Arabia, met with Israelites who declared themselves, and were believed by the Jews, to be of the tribe of Dan. Their usual residence was near Terim in Hatramawt.

   • 1852, Washington Irving, Tales from the Alhambra:

     They were the outposts and frontiers of Islamism.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Islamism.
2. A popular reform movement advocating the reordering of government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam. [from 20th c.]
   • 2012, Malise Ruthven, ‘Reason & Religion’, Literary Review, number 399:

     Tibi makes an absolute distinction between Islamism, which he regards as a totalitarian political ideology resembling Nazism and communism, and Islam, the religion to which he adheres.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Islamism.
3. (by extension) Islamic fundamentalism, especially the forms that promote violence, hostility, and persecution of non-believers. [from 20th c.]

• Islamisme (obsolete)

• Muslimism

• Martin Kramer, Coming to Terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists?, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2003, pp. 65-77.

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