Middle East Conflict
The notions of Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic-Jihadi terrorism are often used as interchangeable in the Western discourse. They are often confused in the minds of people in the Western world. Such confusion leads to misunderstanding and misperception of certain developments, ideas, people and their beliefs, which ends up in hostility. Meanwhile, their meanings are different and these notions may be applicable only in certain contexts. While Islamism is a political and civil conservative movement, Islamic fundamentalism often describes the general characterization of contemporary Muslim religious and political movements, whose ideology in various interpretations is based on an appeal to the religious, social and political experience of early Islam of the times of the Prophet Muhammad (“Islamic fundamentalism,” 1998). On the other hand, Islamic terrorism is a form of religious terror, which propagates violence and jihad (holy war). Islamism is a peaceful ideology, which does not represent real danger for the Western states, and Islamic fundamentalism in its initial concept is just the way for people to exercise their religion. At the same time, Islamic-Jihadist terrorism, which has its roots in the most radical branches of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism, represent a global threat to the Western-US security.
Islamists are usually called those who believe that Islam as a doctrine contains important indications of a socio-political structure, and must determine what policy is appropriate in the modern Muslim world (and in the world as a whole), and seeks to implement these ideas in some way (Kramer, 2003). The widespread uncertainty in the understanding of Islamism, which in the light of activation of Islamic terrorism and the activity of the so-called Islamic State will remain on the regional and global agenda for a long time, comes from the difficulty in defining Islamism. Islamism is an intellectual, moral, social, economic, political and interstate movement, the main reference of which is Islam, and the main concept is the creation of a "new" person, society, politics, the state, the system, and finally, in a universal sense, the creation of the Islamic Union (Mozaffari, 2007). In other words, ideally Islamism implies actions aimed at establishing Islamic norms and the formation of any social relations within the framework of Islam.
In addition to such a popular term, widely used in Islamic literature, there is the term Islamic fundamentalism, which refers to the positions of exclusively those Islamists who propose to return to the origins, the foundation of Islam, and adhere to the literal and a narrow understanding of the Quran. One should not confuse the concepts of Islamism (political Islam) and Islamic fundamentalism. The latter is a religious phenomenon, which means strict adherence to the rules and norms set forth in the Quran and the Sunnah in everyday life and social practice (“Islamic fundamentalism,” 1998). Islamism, or political Islam, is more of a political phenomenon. It reflects the desire of a certain part of Muslim society to preserve its historical traditions, religion, culture, national identity, in the context of globalization. At the same time, …
