Political Islam: Violent and Non-violent Approaches

The role played by Islamism, or political Islam, in the contemporary world holds the key to understanding current geopolitical tensions both within the Muslim world and between the West and the Muslim world. This chapter explores some violent and non-violent manifestations of political Islam and offers analyses of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and, more generally, Salafi-jihadism. Political Islam considers Islam to be a totalizing entity that should shape the contours of society, culture, politics and the law—that is, it ideally seeks to achieve unity of state and religion (din wa-dawla). It expresses itself in multiple, and at times interlinked, ways that can encompass, among many others, a largely non-violent gradualist approach to power (Muslim Brotherhood), global terrorist action (al-Qaeda) and sectarian warfare combined with territorial control and state-building (Islamic State). The aim of this chapter is to capture some of the multifarious ways in which political Islam manifests itself.