Politics of Religion in Northern Nigeria

The term Islamist has meant different things at different times to different people. Today, when used in English, it usually conjures up terrifying images of masked gunmen on the streets of European capitals killing innocent civilians in the name of Islam. Ironically, the term first began to take hold amongst Western academics and policymakers so that they could talk about largely non-violent Islamic activism in the Muslim world without resorting to the derogatory label of ‘Islamic fundamentalism.’ This, in turn, appears to have influenced democratically-oriented Islamic movements in the Middle East to refer to themselves using the term’s Arabic equivalent: Islamiyyūn. Yet, the word Islamist is used today by media commentators and policymakers alike to describe both democratically oriented political parties like the Muslim Brotherhood as well as anti-democratic terrorist groups like ISIS. In a Western context, we are far more careful in making such distinctions, for example between Nazism and liberalism, despite the fact that both are technically ‘Western’ ideologies that have emerged out of the Enlightenment and uphold secular values. —Dr Usaama al-Azami, Sadeq Institute