Why Words Matter: The Problem with the Term Islamist

Photo Credit Egyptian Streets

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 (MB) as well as anti-democratic terrorist groups like ISIS. 

In Libya, experiencing nearly a decade of civil war between complex factions, political parties and armed groups, the term “Islamist” has been used to describe designated terrorist groups such as al-Qa‘ida as well as democratically- oriented groups like the MB. For example, the term has routinely been used by Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled leader of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) to describe all of his opponents, including the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. The UN has relaunched a process aimed at unifying the GNA and LAAF in a single government and finally ending Libya’s second civil war. However, Libya’s last two wars have centred almost exclusively on the term Islamist. Haftar, who launched both of Libya’s civil wars has used the terms “Islamist” as a pretext to overthrow Libya’s first democratically elected parliament in 2014, and most recently to overthrow the GNA on April 4th 2019, the government established to end Libya’s last civil war. The dangers that can arise from blurring the important distinctions between democrats and terrorists in Libya are not simply an academic concern, they have policy implications and consequences for the diplomatic process too. In February 2020, the US state department described the civil war in Libya as being driven by “The Three M’s”— “Money, Militias, and the Muslim Brotherhood.”— Thus, the MB, a democratically-oriented political party, appears to be used as a catch-all phrase to describe “extremists” that would include ISIS in Libya. In a European 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. 

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