Not radical _____, not militant _____, not fundamentalist _____, not _____ic extremism, not _____ism, and certainly not _____o-Fascism, but _____

Paul Nachman writing at the Vdare blog discusses the long struggle for the truth about Islam and generously treats my own contributions to that effort. He recommends a new book by Gregory Davis, whose clear and cogent writings on Islam I encountered for the first time the other day at Jihad Watch. In this connection I should also mention Bruce Tefft who in a FrontPage Magazine interview last week drove Jamie Glazov almost out of his gourd by insisting that Islam (not one of those fake substitutes) is the problem. That’s two new people discovered in one week who speak the truth about Islam.

To avoid the appearance of a contradiction, let me make it clear that that for rhetorical purposes I sometimes speak of “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism,” and also that I say that those expressions, as well as “militant Islam” and “Islamic fundamentalism,” would be acceptable substitutes to be used by people who now use the totally unacceptable expressions “Islamism” and “Islamo-fascism” but are not yet ready for “Islam” straight up. At the same time, I consistently state that our adversary is not some variant of Islam, but Islam itself.

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Jeff C. writes:

You wrote:

To avoid the appearance of a contradiction, let me make it clear that that for rhetorical purposes I sometimes speak of “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism,” and also that I say that those expressions, as well as “militant Islam” and “Islamic fundamentalism,” would be acceptable substitutes to be used by people who now use the totally unacceptable expressions “Islamism” and “Islamo-fascism” but are not yet ready for “Islam” straight up.

Why is it okay to speak in these terms, even occasionally? “Radical Islam” implies there is a non-radical form of Islam. “Islamic extremism” hints that there is Islamic non-extremism. “Militant Islam” suggests that there is an acceptable non-militant Islam (there is a non-militant Islam, but its adherents use the legal process slowly to institute Sharia, which isn’t acceptable). The only term I’m comfortable with out of these terms is “Islamic fundamentalism,” which suggests that there’s such a thing as Islamic non-fundamentalism, which is true—they just radically distort the meaning of the Koran and have few adherents. A person who’s accepted the term “Islamic fundamentalism” accepts that the Koran itself preaches Sharia and Jihad, which is a major step forward. The other terms obscure the issue.

LA replies:

There are compelling reasons for using a range of expressions, depending on context. For example, there are functional differences among different types of Muslims. There are terrorist Muslims, and then there are jihadist Muslims who support terror but don’t commit it, and then there are spreading-sharia-peacefully Muslims, then there are weakly observant or non-observant Muslims. In the big picture they may all be part of Islam, but in specific contexts it may be necessary to emphasize one or another aspect of Islam.

Also, sometimes I’m discussing writers who are discussing “Islamism” or “Islamo-fascism,” so in order to remain on the same page with them, I need to use some equivalent of the same concept.

LA continues:

I forgot to mention the best term, which ought to be acceptable to everyone: jihadists. This covers the gamut. It works (or ought to work) for those who feel that the problem is only those who actively wage jihad, so that when they say “jihadists,” they would feel they are distinguishing the jihadists from the moderate Muslims; and it also works for those who believe that jihadism is an instrinsic part of Islam, so that when they say “jihadists,” they feel they are only describing the front rank of the Islamic community as a whole.

Alan Levine writes:

I was a bit surprised to see you suggest that the term “Islamic fundamentalism” is an acceptable synonym for jihadist or radical Islam. It seems to me that the term originated as an attempt to palliate jihadism or Qutbism or at least bracket it as “no worse than” fundamentalist forms of Protestantism liberals and leftists find distasteful. At best it is a cheap effort to score off or piggyback on such distaste, much the way the Horowitz brigade uses the term “Islamofascism.” to describe a phenomena that has nothing to do with European fascism. To quote an article I wrote a few years ago, one doesn’t have to have much use for Protestant fundamentalists, to see that the worst thing they have done is give us the Scopes Monkey Trial—not September 11.

My view of “mainstream Islam” is less unfavorable than yours so I feel more need than you to find a distinct term for our principal enemies. It seems to me that jihadist, Qutbist or radical Islam are the best terms available.

Will try to think of a better one.

LA replies:

While of course liberals sometimes equate fundamentalist Islam with fundamentalist Protestantism, I wasn’t aware that that was the origin of the term. I thought it came into fashion at the time of the Iranian Revolution, and it was not at all a softening term but a critical one. America did not like fundamentalist Islam, it saw these fundamentalist Moslems in Iran as a bunch of dangerous crazies who hated America.

In more recent years, I had noticed that the term had fallen into complete misuse for some reason, and I thought it would be an acceptable term to bring back into use for people who are not ready to oppose Islam as such. But the idea may not fly, as the term “fundamentalist Islam” seems to have gone the way of Seventies Nostalgia parties.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 29, 2007 11:57 PM | Send