Difference between revisions 32347267 and 32347710 on enwiki

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'''Militant Islam''' is a contentious term, often used by Western political commentators to describe the ideologies of groups viewed as participating in [[Islamist terrorism]]. In fact, both these terms share many of the same shortcomings. [[Muslims]] opposed to violent political agitation, and especially [[liberal movements within Islam]], find their implicit association of [[Islam]] with militancy and aggression to be unacceptable. However, the term has been used so (contracted; show full)

In fact, the application of the term Islamic militancy is so broad that it encompasses any kind of revolutionary movement in any Islamic country. Invariably, this means that it lumps together such a variety of [[nationalist]], [[marxist]] and [[ethnic]] movements that it has no longer has any real ideological content. The only defining characteristic it has is that it is 
[[militarism]] in a Muslim context; the problem is thabut this explains very little.

The members of such groups are more likely to see themselves as [[freedom fighters]] rather than [[terrorists]], as the political origins of such groups in [[Israel]] and [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], Soviet-occupied [[Afghanistan]], [[Chechnya]] and most recently post-Saddam [[Iraq]] are often rooted in political demands for statehood and nationalist self-determination. In Muslim majority societies, these nationalist sentiments invariably are mixed with a feeling of Muslim(contracted; show full) [[Jacques Chirac]], characterizes the goal of modern militant Islam as to re-establish a [[Caliphate]], or a single common government for Muslims all over the world.  This might resemble [[world government]] or the [[Roman Catholic]] hierarchy in certain respects, but since most Muslims are [[Sunni]] and reject the role of a formal clergy (unlike the [[Shia]] who embrace it) this seems to be unlikely.

=== More than "fundamentalism"===

[[Islamic fundamentalism]] is not, by definition, militant.
 In general, Islamic fundamentalists may have some degree of agreement or sympathy for Islamic militants, as there is likely to be some overlap of views between them. However, just an one may hold [[leftist]] views without advocating [[revolutionary]] [[Marxism]], there is a glaring difference between the two groups.

The use of the term [[fundamentalism]] to decry and disdain [[religion]] as a solution to problems of the modern secular world, and to describe an insensibly wide variety of movements which could be said easily to include [[Baptist]], [[Mennonite]], [[Quaker]], [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish]], [[Zionism|Zionist]], [[Wahhabism|Wahabist]], and many others, came into fashion in the [[1980s]].  It had then, and still has, no integrity as an academic term, as the fundamentals in play in each such movement(contracted; show full)

==See also==
* [[Islam as a political movement]]
* [[List of Islamic terms in Arabic]]
* [[Jihad]]
* [[Qal3ah]], infamous for being the forums where announcements and discussions by Islamic extremists have taken place

[[Category:Islam]]