The ideas and practices of the leaders, preachers, and movements of the Islamic revival movement known as Islamism (also referred to as Political Islam) have been criticized by non-Muslims and Muslims (often Islamic modernists and liberals).
Among those authors, scholars and leaders who have criticized Islamism, or some element of it, are Maajid Nawaz, Reza Aslan,Aslan, Reza, No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Random House, 2005. Abdelwahab Meddeb,Meddeb, Abelwahab (2003). The Malady of Islam. Basic Books Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawi,Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn ed., Against Islamic Extremism: The Writings of Muhammad Sa'id al-Ashmawy, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, (1998) Khaled Abu al-Fadl,Abou El Fadl, Great Theft, 2005 Gilles Kepel,Kepel, Jihad, 2002 Matthias Küntzel,"Jihad and Jew Hatred." Voices on Antisemitism. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 17 July 2008. Web. 19 August 2013. Transcript. Joseph E. B. Lumbard, Olivier Roy,Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994 and Indonesian Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama..
Tenets of the Islamist movement that have come under criticism include: restrictions on freedom of expression to prevent apostasy from and insults to Islam;Fuller, The Future of Political Islam, 2003: p. 39 that Islam is not only a religion but a governing system;Halliday, 100 Myths, 2005: p. 85 that historical Sharia, or Islamic law, is one, universal system of law, accessible to humanity, and necessary to enforcement for Islam to be truly practiced.
Explanation Explaining the development of Islamism (or at least jihadist Islamism), one critic (Khaled Abou El Fadl) describes it as not so much an expression of religious revival and resurgence, but a phenomenon created by several factors: The undermining of the independence and religious authority of Islamic jurists, who traditionally "tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought and kept extremism marginalized". The state seizure of the private religious endowments (awqaf) that supported the jurists in most post-colonialist Muslim countries has relegated most jurists to salaried employees of the state, diminishing their legitimacy on matters social and political." The advance of Saudi Arabian doctrine of Wahhabism into this vacuum of religious authority. Financed by tens of billions of dollars of petroleum-export money and proselytizing aggressively, the doctrine billed itself not as one school among many, but as a return to the one, true, orthodox "straight path" of Islam – pristine, simple, straightforward.Abou el-Fadl, Place of tolerance in Islam, 2002: p. 9 It differed from the traditional teachings of the jurists in its "strict literalism ... extreme hostility to intellectualism, mysticism, and any sectarian divisions within Islam".Abou el-Fadl, Place of tolerance in Islam, 2002: p. 8 Added to this Wahhabi literalism and narrowness are populist appeals to Muslim humiliation suffered in the modern age at the hands of harshly despotic governments, and interventionist non-Muslim powers."Abou el-Fadl, Place of tolerance in Islam, 2002: p. 11
Suppression of dissent
Limits on freedom of expression According to Graham Fuller, a long-time observer of Middle Eastern politics and supporter of allowing Islamists to participate in politics, "One of the most egregious and damaging roles" played by some Islamists has been in "ruthlessly" attacking and instituting legal proceedings "against any writings on Islam they disagree with."
Some of the early victims of Islamist enforcement of orthodoxy include Ahmad Kasravi, a former cleric and important intellectual figure of 1940s Iran who was assassinated in 1946 by the Fadayan-e Islam, an Islamic militant group, on the charge of takfir.A Clarification of Questions, An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael by Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini), Translated by J. Borujerdi, with a Foreword by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Westview Press/ Boulder and London 1984
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a 76-year-old "practicing Muslim" and theologian was hanged in a public ceremony in Khartoum, January 18, 1985,Daniel Pipes The Rushdie Affair p. 76. for among other charges "heresy" and "opposing application of Islamic law". Taha had opposed Sharia law in its historical form, as it was instituted in Sudan, because he believed the Quranic verses on which it was primarily based (known as the Medina verses) were adapted for a specific place and purpose – namely ruling the seventh-century Islamic city-state of Medina – and were abrogated by verses revealed in Mecca, which (Taha believed) represented the Islamic "ideal religion".
Maybe the most famous alleged apostate in the Arab world attacked by Islamists was Egyptian author and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, who was harassed and stabbed in the neck by assailants, almost killed and crippled for the rest of his life. Others include novelist Egyptian Salahaddin Muhsin who ... was sentenced to three years hard labor for writings that 'offended Islam'; [Egyptian] feminist novelist Nawal El Saadawi has been repeatedly tried in court for anti-Islamic writing and her husband ordered to divorce her as a Muslim apostate, although the charges were ultimately struck down; Islamist lawyers also charged Islamic and Arabic literature professor Nasr Abu Zayd with apostasy for his writings on the background of the Qur'an, and his wife was ordered to divorce him. ..." Egyptian author Farag Foda was assassinated on June 8, 1992 by militants of the Gamaa Islamiya as an example to other anti-fundamentalist intellectuals.
While Islamists are often separated into "bad" extremists, and "good" moderates working within the system, political scientist Gilles Kepel points out that in Egypt in the 1990s "Islamist moderates and the extremists complemented one another's actions." In the case of Farag Foda's killing, "moderate" Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali ("one of the most revered sheiks in the Muslim world"), testified for the defense in the trial of Foda's killers. "He announced that anyone born Muslim who militated against the sharia (as Foda had done) was guilty of the crime of apostasy, for which the punishment was death. In the absence of an Islamic state to carry out this sentence, those who assumed that responsibility were not blameworthy."Kepel, Jihad, 2002: p. 287
Takfir Some Islamists have evolved beyond targeting liberal and secular intellectuals to attacking more mainstream Muslims (what researchers Matteo Sisto and Samir Gurung dub "Neo-Takfirism"). In the Algerian Civil War the insurgent/jihadist Islamist group GIA viewed all who failed to actively support its jihad as collaborators with the government, and thus apostates from Islam and eligible military targets. The group slaughtered entire villages, murdered foreigners, and executed Algerians for "violating Islamic law," for "infractions ranging from infidelity to wearing Western clothing." In the Iraq civil war, takfir was also defined broadly by Sunni Islamist insurgents. By mid-2006, at least two falafel venders in Baghdad were killed "because falafel did not exist in the seventh century", and was thus an unIslamic "innovation" (Bid'ah) in the eyes of the killers. This was seen as a reflection of how far the followers of Sayyid Qutb had progressed in their willingness to takfir and kill those who (they believed) were guilty of apostasy according to some (such as journalist George Packer). As of mid-2014, the jihadi Islamist groups Al Qaeda and Da'ish had killed "more than 300 Sunni imams and preachers", according to one "prominent Iraqi Sunni cleric" (Khaled al-Mulla). Some months later Da'ish reportedly executed one of its own Sharia judges on the grounds that he had "excessive takfiri tendencies".
Khawarij
Some Islamists have been condemned by other Muslims as Kharijites for their willingness to takfir (declare other Muslims to be unbelievers) and kill self-professed Muslims. While Islamist often argue that they are returning to Islam unpolluted by Western Enlightenment ideas of freedom of thought and expression, early Islam also condemned extreme strictness in the form of the 7th century to the Kharijites. From their essentially political position, they developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for their readiness to takfir self-professed Muslims.
Historical basis
Debate on early Islam Some critics (such as Tunisian-born scholar and journalist Abdelwahab Meddeb) have bemoaned the Islamist belief that in 1400 years of Muslim history, true Islam worthy of imitation was enforced for only a few decades. Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) preached that Islam has been extinct for "centuries" and that it is "necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original form,"Qutb, Milestones, 1981: p. 9 and follow the example of Muhammad and his the original companions (Sahabah), who not only cut themselves off from any non-Islamic culture or learning – Greek, Roman, Persian, Christian or Jewish logic, art, poetry, etc. – but separated themselves "completely" from their "past life," of family and friends.Qutb, Milestones, 1981: pp. 16–20
Islamists do not agree on when true and original Islam was in existence. Abul Ala Maududi indicates it was the era of the Prophet and the 30-year reign of the four "rightly guided caliphs" (Rashidun).Mawdudi, Islamic Law and Constitution, (1955), p. 259 Qutb's brother Muhammad thought the only time "Islam was ... enforced in its true form" following the death of Muhammad was for fifteen years, during the first two caliphs, plus three years from 717 to 720 A.D.Qutb, Muhammad, Islam the Misunderstood Religion, pp. 176–78 For the Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini, the reign of Muhammad and the five-year reign of Caliph Ali were the truly Islamic eras Muslims should imitate.Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, p. 57
Meddeb protests that this excludes not only any non-Muslim culture, but most of Muslim history including the Golden Age of Islam:
He and at least one other author (Tarek Osman) have questioned how perfect an era was where three of the first four caliphs were assassinated, while "enmities" and "factional disputes" and "almost continuous embarrassing episodes of blood-letting and internal struggles",Egypt on the Brink by Tarek Osman, Yale University Press, 2010, (p. 213) were played out. Meddeb points out the celebration of rightly guided originated not shortly after their end but generations later, with conservative scholar Ibn Hanbal.Meddeb, The Malady of Islam, (2003), p. 44
Ideological flaws
Vagueness Author Tarek Osman has criticized Islamism as promising "everything to everyone", leading to unsustainable conflicts and contradictions: an alternative social provider to the poor masses; an angry platform for the disillusioned young; a loud trumpet-call announcing 'a return to the pure religion' to those seeking an identity; a "progressive, moderate religious platform' for the affluent and liberal; ... and at the extremes, a violent vehicle for rejectionists and radicals."Osman, Tarek, Egypt on the brink, 2010, p. 111
Emphasis on politics Although Islamism is a movement devoted to the preeminence of Islam in all fields some have suggested that belief has been neglected in favor of politics, and that "organizers, enthusiasts, and politicians," rather than those focusing on spirituality or religion, have "had the most impact" in the movement.