Bassam Tibi’s book Islamism and Islam represents an extremely important contribution to the fight against fundamentalist Islam...
His basic point is that there is a distinction between the religion of Islam and an extremist offshoot of Islam that he calls Islamism that began in Egypt in the 1920s and that includes al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other fundamentalist groups. He argues against three groups that he thinks are deluding themselves in thinking that Islam and Islamism are identical: (1) the Islamists themselves, (2) conservatives in the West, and (3) leftists in the West.
I'm not sure how much weight I would give to this argument, but it certainly seems plausible, and fits what I understand of the rise of radical Islam in the 20th century. As I am a fundamental Christian who would prefer not to occupy the same mental head space as the Branch Davidians or the Westboro Baptist Church, I am definitely sympathetic to the "don't confuse us with those loons!" argument. It's just that, well, there are so many of "those loons", and they're so vocal - and so violent - that one starts to wonder if the lack of moderate Muslim opposition is an indication of approval for their actions.
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