Rohan Gunaratna is Honorary Professor at the Sir John Kotalawala Defence University and Senior Advisor to its Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka. In this interview, he takes for granted a distinction between “Islam” and “Islamism” that is artificial and imposed from without. There has never in history been a form of Islam that rejected political engagement and the imperative of founding (or defending and fighting to expand) the Islamic state. There are not Islamist mosques and non-Islamist mosques, distinguishable from one another by the sign outside each, like Baptist and Methodist churches. On the contrary, “Islamists” move among peaceful Muslims with no difficulty; no Islamic authorities are putting them out of mosques, or setting up separate institutions to distinguish themselves from the “Islamists.” Maintaining the polite fiction that this distinction exists, however, is an indispensable prerequisite to being accepted as part of the counterterror establishment. Fantasy and wishful thinking are, in other words, required.
“Islam is under threat– Prof. Rohan Gunaratna,” by Nadira Gunatilleke, Sunday Observer, January 3, 2021:
…Q: What is the current situation of Islam in the world?
A: Islam is under threat from Muslim terrorists, extremists and exclusivists. Under the guise of spreading Islam, Islamism is propagated. The political ideology of Islamism is slowly and steadily supplanting Islam, as a religion. Today, the political, religious and cultural radicalisation presents a challenge to the Muslim and non Muslim world. The threat to Islam is not an exception. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism too have been exploited by religious entrepreneurs to spread political ideologies.
When Islam in history spread worldwide, it embraced other cultures and flourished. From Bukhara to Samarkhahd, Sumatra to Xinjiang, Islam created civilisations that produced science and medicine, math and astronomy, and philosophy and poetry. With the rise of political Islam since the 1980s, the rich Islamic cultural heritages are supplanted challenging social cohesion and fragmenting communities.
With radicalisation, the threat is manifesting in the form of exclusivism, extremism and terrorism. While exclusivism and extremism affect the stability and security of nations, terrorism presents a tier-one national security threat to most governments and societies. As such, law enforcement authorities entrusted with maintaining law and order should act both preventively and remedially.
The apex threat stems from two global threat movements. The so-called Islamic State and al Qaeda dominate the international threat landscape. Although core al Qaeda has suffered, its affiliates in Asia, Africa and the Middle East present a resurgent threat. The operational threat posed by the Islamic State has diminished from its peak in 2014. The Islamic State is de-centralising by co-opting threat entities and radicalising communities worldwide. It is compensating for its battlefield losses by deepening its investment in the surface, deep and dark web. With its mastery of the cyberspace, Islamic State centric threat entities craft and disseminate compelling narratives seeking to radicalise communities.
The Islamic State is expanding by radicalising and recruiting threat entities. Although it suffered territorial losses in Syria and Iraq in 2019, the Islamic State is creating provincial (wilayat), groups, networks, and cells. Although the number of attacks off-the battlefield has diminished due to lockdowns and partial lockdowns, the number of attacks in the battlefields has increased. Even more deadly is the radicalisation especially online radicalisation, a battle governments need to win….
Infidel says
‘Islamism’ and ‘Islamist’ are invented terms to allow one to pretend that there is a version of islam that’s as benign as Christianity or Buddhism. But even people who condemn ‘islamism’ as opposed to ‘islam’ still get tagged as islamophobes, so I have yet to figure out what advantage that gets anyone?
mortimer says
‘Islamism’ is a neologism invented by political scientists to explain the political side of Islam. It is a very useful term if you want to speak intelligently about this identifiable part of Islam.
‘Political Islam’ is every part of Islam that impacts on the kafir. ‘Islamism’ is the political ideology of Mohammed with respect to the kafir.
The source texts of Islam contain 51% political content. Only 18% of the Islamic primary sources are about Allah and the rest is about Mohammed.
Islam is a political religion or a religious polity … either way.
william carr says
Mortimer that is well put. As far as the left, liberals, feminists and other fellow travelers are concerned; Islam is also viewed as a coloured man’s religion, so therefore any criticism is forbidden on racist and latterly ‘islamophobic’ grounds. No argument is tolerated. This is the equivalent of the comedic device of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and shouting. Anyone who seriously looks at Islam in all its manifestations must only conclude that it is the worst ideology ever imposed on mankind.
The feminists are particularly disgraceful as they allow themselves to deny all their principles
as they cannot criticise a coloured man’s religion however awful it is.
Tony Said says
Ask one of the wives of a sultan or rich man Muslim bully how she feels most of the time about her situation in life, and if she dare she will start weeping.
Jayell says
Surely those statistics (51% politics/31% ‘Prophet’ = Political leader/18% ‘God’) sum it all up. Islam was never any more than part of the politics of the organised crime scene in the Dark Age desert with a fraudulent quasi-religious front to sell it to the local masses and any other credulous unfortunates who happened to be in the path of its barbaric imperialist expansion.
The only motivation for the bogus ‘islam/islamism’ split surely came with the attempted infiltration of the relatively succesfully-organised and sophisticated democratic West, where the inherently crude ‘bully-boy’ acquisitive pre-medieval nature of islam would prove destructive and counter-productive in any useful takeover, whereas a more subtle ‘peaceful’ and ‘persuasive’ Western concept of ‘religion’ would ‘fit with the system’ better and deliver the goods to them without destroying all the infrastructure that an islamic society could never have produced.
This would explain (a) the apparent ‘civilised’ and ‘co-operative’ attitude of many ambitious muslims in the West and their insistence on being accepted as bona fide ‘citizens’ when their creed actually militates against all of this, (b) the many instances of blatant misappropriation of established Christian values and intellectual property in order to sell islam as a ‘respectable religion’ and therefore ‘part of Western society’ when it palpably isn’t, and of course (c) the fabrication of this specious ‘islam/islamism’ split in order to promote a delusion of ‘civility’ for most muslims in the eyes of the Western public and distance them from those who practise the true nature of their religion.
A Gnostic Agnostic says
The problem is: Muhammad was a terrorist. People who imitate/emulate a terrorist tend to be terrorists.
Islam is nonetheless a divisive ideology: “believer vs. unbeliever”. It takes a “believer” to ever “believe” evil is good (ie. the opposite of what is true). That is what Islam is truly about: “belief”-based inversion. If you take anything that comes out of the mouth(s) of the “believers” & turn it upside-down, you have the reality. The MSM is the same because it is owned/operated by the Islamic Deep State.
Humanity needs to reject the divisive & destructive “believer vs. unbeliever” premise entirely. Islam can not be a “religion” if it permanently “divides” humanity. Division is the “opposite” of a religion & Islam is similarly always the opposite of what it claims to be.
mortimer says
GA said: “People who imitate/emulate a terrorist tend to be terrorists.” A fair comment. Mohammed was many horrible things that almost no one wants to be in today’s world. Mohammed is irrelevant and Muslims realize it.
mortimer says
GA is wrong here: ‘Islam can not be a “religion” if it permanently “divides” humanity.’
DUALISM is a normative part of Islam and over half of the source texts of Islam preach this dualism of Islamic ‘believer’ versus the dirty kafir.
Ask a Muslim whether he believes you are a ‘kafir’ and then watch his face contort as he tries to find a face-saving lie.
Walter Sieruk says
It should always be remembered and never forgotten “Islamism” is fake word that was made up after September 11, 2001 so that non-violent Muslims wouldn’t get their feeling hurt regarding their religion .
There is no such thing as “Islamism” is just Muslim terrorists putting into practice Quran based violent and deadly Islam
nicholas tesdorf says
Partial Islam is under threat from full and complete Islam would be a more accurate depiction. Islam is made up of the Book (Qur`an) and the man (Mohammed). Neither component looks good when examined closely.
mortimer says
very good
I add one element to the ‘Book and the Man’ … namely, the Narrative. All three fall apart when examined under the scientists magnifying glass.
Templer says
Only wish this was true and I only hope you can prove me wrong islam is a death cult santic evil but spreading like covid her in the U.K. London muslim mojortey with the prick off prick caren as in London mare shaw ,royron ,rochdalle .Birmingham ,all the same gold wick you get your hea d kick in for walking through the so ca Lyle. D Muslim area in a so called chirstain country fuck Islam andpedo mo and the unholy koran
Crusades Were Right says
“Islamism” “Islamophobia”.
The first word is a disguise for Islam, while the second is a dysphemism for seeing through the disguise! lol
Wellington says
Liar or ignoramus (N.B., being delusional about Islam is a subset of the ignoramus “category”). Take your pick.
And there is no third pick. One or the other. That’s all.
gravenimage says
‘Expert’: Islam ‘under threat from Muslim terrorists. Under the guise of spreading Islam, Islamism is propagated.’
………………….
Rohan Gunaratna is lying like a rug. “Islamism” is orthodox Islam.
Sid says
When has it ever been different? Are not followers of the pirate Muhammad always prone to instant violence like the two hundred pound uber chimps that have literally bitten off human faces (and yes, exactly this has happened. Never make an adult chimp angry or jealous.)
Who in their right mind would live with these human time bombs? Expel Islam, its accoutrements and its followers. There is no other cure.
OTTER says
There is huge money to be made in denouncing ‘Islamism’ but absolving ‘Islam.’ The two are indistinguishable as the first–in whatever sense it is used today– is inherent in and contained within the second.
Islam is such a violent religion that it is impossible for even Muslims to follow–it would go against the normal humdrum of life craved and valued by most of humanity. The result is that only a minority take up its true teachings of kill, kill, kill while the vast majority devote themselves to lies, subterfuge and protecting those actually go and apply the real message of Islam–of blood, hatred, division, and a perpetual dead end.
Colin Broughton says
The Turkish President Recip Erdogan, criticising a remark by the Saudi Crown Prince, said that Islam cannot be ‘moderate’ or not ‘moderate’. Islam can only be one thing.
‘’Recently the concept of ‘moderate Islam’ has received attention. But the patent of this concept originated in the West’, Erdogan said,
Most recently Erdogan has underlined what he meant by supporting the Azerbaijan attacks on the Armenian Christian enclave of Nagorno- Karabakh.
Vilhelm says
Islam is Islam. Islam is the text we find in the Quran and Sunnah ( Muhammed`s life). The goal of Islam is and has always been to force all mankind to live under Islamic Law ( Sharia Law). 1400 years of Jihad is the proof.
Prof. Rohan Gunaratna is wrong when he claims that: ” Islam is under threat from Muslim terrorist”,
the truth is that all of humanity is under threat from Islam.
Prof. Gunaratna should read in the Quran and Sunnah.
The Quran 8:12 9:29 9:5 9:73 98:6 47:4
Sahih Bukhari 2946 and 4.52.220
OLD GUY says
An expert on spreading muslim/islamic bullshit. Have you noticed that when someone comes out and talks about what is going on in islam, they are always experts, scholars, top government officials and leaders of mobs rioting. Most of the followers are afraid to speak about islam and its ideology as they know if they say something the leadership disagrees with they will lose their heads.
Michael Copeland says
Memo to Professor Gunaratna:
There is no mention of Islamism in the Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller”.
sidney penny says
“Maintaining the polite fiction that this distinction exists, however, is an indispensable prerequisite to being accepted as part of the counterterror establishment. Fantasy and wishful thinking are, in other words, required.”
The biggest user of this polite fiction is Daniel Pipes.
https://www.meforum.org/3984/daniel-pipes-explains-islamism
Islamism is Radical Islam so Moderate Islam is the solution says Daniel Pipes. It is a way of saying I am for the good Muslims not bad Muslims.
sidney penny says
“Islam is under threat from Muslim terrorists, extremists and exclusivists.”
Prof. Rohan Gunaratna is wrong.
Everybody and every religion is under threat from Muslim terrorists, extremists and exclusivists not just Islam.