What is an Islamist and Are you an Islamist?

[Qeelbax]

I keep seeing this word and I’m confused. Some use it as an insult against any practicing Muslim and others use it to describe anyone that agrees with implementing Shariah, while others only use it for extremists.

I personally see the word “Islamist” as a code name for “Muslims that don’t believe in the separation of state and Islam”. So I would consider myself one.

Some Muslims and non-Muslims are under the impression that Muslims can choose to have a separation of state and religion when in a majority Muslim state. My personal conviction is that, it’s wrong and that all Muslims should be classified as Islamists as you can’t separate Shariah from state and society. A Muslim who doesn’t believe in such is committing a grave sin. I want to repeat that this is only for Muslims in Muslim countries, so don’t bring up the west or where we reside.

What are y’all’s thoughts on this matter?

 

[sunnews27]

yeah am muslim

 

[Qeelbax]

@guycalledAmin @Idrus

Islamist is a neocon code word for a real Muslim, not a phony one.

 

[Hamzza]

Very well explained

 

[The alchemist]

Islamist is a liberal concept of, "Wait, you actually believe the world should be based on what you believe, rooted in what your religion says and not confining it to an individual personalized belief" type of deal.

No Muslim would call themselves Islamist, and any Muslims who call other Muslims Islamist are either mistaken or suspect agents.

There is this constant contrast between Western culturally Christian people with Muslims. That's how Westerners judge us, like we're 100 years behind and stubborn, holding on to things they let go of when they became secular and not backward. In that world, Christianity is nothing beyond the individual and superficial (believing does not cost the individual anything nor society -- it should be secondary to the secular ideals, and the individual should dictate a non-demanding relationship with their belief) in the West and so actually believing the world should reflect what you believe based on what the religion says (falsely thinking that you can be a Muslim and wish non-Islamic propagation is an Islamic option) is a sense of an extreme.

It is this Western tool to shoehorn the dual dynamic association with basic Islam, from a place of ignorance and religious bigotry, with what it means to be Muslim in the first place. Normal Islamic conditions, in that case, are extreme, so the good moderate Muslims are the ones that are more liberal-leaning and overemphasize how it is tolerant of Western values, etc.

I checked a study of what constituted a fundamentalist in psychology literature. Basic Islamic commitment and I mean what it means to be Muslim (not radicals), was classified as an extreme fundamentalist. With answering questions like (paraphrasing), "Do you believe the world should be based on your religion?" or "Do you believe your religion has the solutions to the world's problems" or "Do you see other people as wrong for not holding the same view" and "Do you believe you can go to hell for holding different contradicting views" etc -- really straightforward questions that are easy to answer, would place us all in the fundamentalist bracket.

So in this case, the "nuance," the center of where things stand at the balance according to their world is a liberal disposition with the measuring of how much one deviates from that being considered extreme. The term "Islamist" is thus an ideological tool to frame the average Muslim to conform away and not commit to his or her belief, with the barometer based on how one disagrees or agrees with the Western ideology that thinks of itself as a self-evident paradigm that needs no justification.

What they did, as you mentioned, is make Sharia a separate and independent, unneeded conceptual factor to Islam in their heads. Not understanding Islam is a comprehensive way of life. Sharia is an Islamic functional application, not the extreme framework to realize some extraneous over-reach. Their framing is that we're extending toward potentially dangerous radicalism, spreading this ignorant lie that Islamic law and political system are so far off the norm that we Muslims have to be on the defensive and apologetic about positive Islamic systemic solutions that are very basic to our religion.

So, in a way, liberal Muslims are sometimes people who were weak-willed and got socially pressured to conform and declare parts of their deen as a problem to signal to ajnabi that they are not a threat. Some liberal Muslims are undoubtedly just munafiqs that know better but chose the liberal lifestyle over their religion but there are those that fell into that by being made to look like that accepting that part of Islam is barbarism, and comply with what it means to be a good Muslims based on Western standards which are only portrayed as good since you're a kid.

For example, let me tell you something about my personal life. As a child, having several wives were brought up in a mocking joking manner by the ajnabis, and me not have much Islamic knowledge besides the basic, internalized idea that having several wives was some backward practice. Later it came up through a conversation with my mom, me in a kind of mocking way talking about two wives of some person we knew and my mother told me if I wanted I could get a second wife, being a responsible Muslim. I thought it was a joke, a meme. So I replied to my mother that it was bad for no reason other than it was something I was not familiar with and preconceptions, having the conditioning at the back of my subconscious. After that, I got educated on it and changed my position fairly easily. It's that kind of socialization that many Muslims go through where they are made to feel different about their deen based on nothing but liberal priming. Now, thankfully, it was not much more than that with me as I had pretty strong beliefs growing up and well integrated with the local Muslim community, not completely isolated among cadaan people, so my susceptibility was limited.

 

[Khaem]

@guycalledAmin @Idrus

Islamist is a neocon code word for a real Muslim, not a phony one.

Yes I am in fact a real Muslim. So real that I plan a jihad against the gaalo Itoobiya iyo Kiinya.