The Inseparable Relationship Between Islam and Islamism
Summary
This episode explores the distinction between Islam and Islamism, drawing from Sayyid Qutb's "Milestones." It argues that Islamism, the movement to implement Islamic law (Sharia), is an inseparable part of Islam, not just a radical fringe element. The video highlights how Qutb's ideas, influenced by Leninist communism, emphasize that enforcing Sharia requires both preaching and active 'movement' to overcome societal obstacles.
Key points- Islamism is presented not as a fringe movement but as an integral part of Islam, focused on the implementation and enforcement of Sharia.
- Sayyid Qutb's "Milestones" is a key text, showing how his ideas on establishing God's rule on earth were influenced by Leninist communism.
- The enforcement of Sharia, according to Qutb, requires more than just preaching; it necessitates a 'movement' to overcome material and ideological obstacles.
- The concept of 'jihad' in this context is the 'movement' that complements preaching to achieve the submission of all mankind to Islam.
- Islam and Islamism are described as inseparable, with Islamism being the practice that implements the theory of Islam.
Chapters
Notable quotes (4)
“To establish God's rule means that his laws be enforced and that the final decision in all affairs be according to those laws.”
“and the abolition of man-made laws cannot be achieved only through preaching and there's the key preaching versus something else.”
“The expropriators will not tolerate their expropriation and will have to be expropriated by force.”
“This cannot be attained unless both quote preaching and quote the movement are used.”
0:00[music] [music]
0:10[music] Hey everybody, it's James Lindsay and you are listening to New Discourses Bullets where I give a short bullet point like summary of [music] one topic relevant to woke we all need to understand so we can defeat it. And as you know I've been doing some work on Islam or Islamism and in fact that's going to be the topic of this short episode. Islam or Islamism? What are we talking about? And you'll know that on the New Discourses podcast, I've done a few episodes and I will be doing more reading from the book milestones by Sed Kutba, who is considered to be one of the intellectual bosses, if you will, of
0:44the Muslim Brotherhood. He wasn't a founder. He got involved in the 1960s later on, but he wrote this book, Milestones, which is based on Vladimir Lenin's what is to be done. So, this is like Islamo bullsheism. It's like how do we make the model of communism fit a Salafist Muslim uh conquest project? And Salafism refers to um a branch of Muslim belief that the prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors, the first maybe generation or two of Muslims have uniquely the right model to follow. So it's like a call back to a call back to like early 7th century Islam as the only right way to do it. Um it's it's a Sunni project
1:33Sunni Islam project and the Salafists who are jihadis which is not all of them. There are nine branches of apparently according to Grock nine branches of Salafism. Well some of them are jihadist including the ones that have been backed by the Saudi Wahhabis uh that you've probably heard of. And these jihadis are responsible for something like 75 or 90% of the terrorism done in the world. These are the people. Okay. So I'm reading from this book milestones. Today I'm going to present something to you about the difference between Islam and Islamism as written by Kutba. He does not use that word Islamism. I'm going to present
2:15something that I think clarifies the difference. It's maybe a page and a half, two pages in a chapter about jihad. The title of the chapter is jihad and the cause of God. It is by far the longest chapter in this book. Um, which you might draw some lessons from that these jihadi salopists are very concerned with jihad. It's sort of central to what they do. Anyway, what you're going to find is that the two are inextricable. There is a describable difference. I think that kutba makes it clear that there's a describable difference so that we can use the words but we're not using them correctly right
2:55now. Islamism is not this thing that a few radicals do. It is part of Islam. It is fundamentally part of Islam and Kuta makes that clear too. But he does draw a distinction that I think is worth raising. So let's hear it in his words not mine. He says, this is starting, like I said, um, partway through the chapter on jihad in milestones, which is the fourth chapter. The way to establish God's rule on earth is not that some, and when we say God here, he means Allah. The way to establish God's rule on earth is not that some consecrated people, the priests, be given authority
3:34to rule, as was the case with the rule of the church, meaning the Catholic Church, nor that some spokesman of God, become rulers, as is the case in a theocracy. To establish God's rule means that his laws be enforced and that the final decision in all affairs be according to those laws. So he's talking about the implementation and installation of Sharia and also its enforcement. He says the establishing of the dominion of God on earth, the abolishing of the dominion of man, the taking away of sovereignty from the usurper to revert it to God. And you can hear a little bit of that uh communism leaking through that leninism
4:15soaking through and the bringing about of the enforcement of the divine law the sharia which also technically which literally I should say means the path and the abolition of man-made laws cannot be achieved only through preaching and there's the key preaching preaching versus something else. So we can't get Islam, we can't install Sharia according to Kutba only through preaching. So Christians, the great commission is not going to cut it. If you were Muslim, those who have usurped the authority of God and are oppressing God's creatures, notice this sounds like communism again, are not going to give up their power merely through preaching. This is what
4:58Markx said, by the way. The expropriators will not tolerate their expropriation and will have to be expropriated by force. That was Marx's take on how you going to install communism. The capitalists will not give up what they have. They will have to be forced out of it. Same idea. Those who are oppressing, those who have usurped the authority of God and are oppressing God's creatures are not going to give up their power merely through preaching.
5:28Tells us Kudba. If it had been so, the task of establishing God's religion in the world, that's Islam by the way, no other, would have been very easy for the prophet uh the prophets plural of God. This is contrary to the evidence from history of the prophets and the story of the struggle of the true religion spread over generations.
5:53this universal declaration of the freedom of man on the earth from every authority except that of God. That is KBA's characterization of what Islam actually gives you. And the declaration that sovereignty is God's alone and that he is the Lord of the universe is not merely a theoretical, philosophical and passive proclamation. It is a positive, practical and dynamic message with a view to bringing about the implementation of the Sharia of God and actually freeing people from their servitude to other men to bring them into the service of God, the one without associates. So there's a lot of kind of repeating of core Musl Islamic doctrine
6:39here that God has no associates. To associate God with others is called sherk. It's really bad. They'll probably kill you for it. um to implement Sharia is the ultimate goal uh that god is the only god you know this kind of thing this is all and he's the lord of the universe sovereignty is his alone and this idea of freeing man from the sovereignty of other men the claim at least that makes throughout this book so we'll assume that many of the salopists make is that authority under the beliefs of Islam resides in god alone it is in no people therefore no man has any right
7:15to rule over any other man. But Koopa's construction is very Marxist. It's kind of like the false consciousness true consciousness or false consciousness class consciousness dichotomy we see in Marxism or in critical theory false consciousness versus critical consciousness. You have people who are operating in ignorance of the Sharia of the divine law of Islam uh God's religion as he would have it which are in jahalyah. They're in a state of ignorance. And then you have the people who have uh accepted who are aware of these ideas and have accepted them who have submitted to them. Those who submit are called Muslims. So you have Muslims
7:50and you have people who live in ignorance, false consciousness and true consciousness. Same kind of idea. You see the communism leak through. But I digress because that's not our point. So here's how he concludes that problem. It's preaching is not enough. That's the point. We can't preach our way into a Muslim society. He says, "This cannot be attained unless both quote preaching and quote the movement are used." So there's your line. Preaching, if we're going to draw a line between Islam and Islamism, preaching is Islam. It is the religion and Islamism is the movement to force Islam onto the whole world, which is by the way the point. So we can distinguish
8:37between these things in an honest way following this guy preaching and the movement the religion and the movement to install the religion. But what we're going to see is that they are two parts of the same thing. So you have to use both. He says this is so because appropriate means are needed to meet any and every practical situation. Because this religion proclaims the freedom of man on the earth from all authority except that of God. It is confronted in every period of human history, yesterday, today or tomorrow, with obstacles of belief and concepts, physical power, and the obstacles of political social economic racial and
9:17class structures. Sounds like he's been dipping his toes in the communist waters there, right? In addition, corrupted beliefs and superstitions become mixed with this religion, working side by side with it and taking root in people's hearts. If through quote preaching beliefs and ideas uh are confronted through quote the movement sorry I this is this is an important sentence I should get this right if through preaching beliefs and ideas are confronted through the movement material obstacles are tackled so you'll see that what you see is preaching is not enough you have to have the movement Islam cannot be accomplished without Islamism if we use that terminology ology which I
10:02think is appropriate. So preaching confronts beliefs and ideas and the movement tackles the obstacles which he says are guaranteed to be encountered. Foremost among these is that political power which rests on a complex yet interrelated ideological racial class social and economic support. Sounds like he's been dipping into the communist waters. Thus these two preaching in the movement or in my lingo is Islam and Islamism united confront quote the human situation with all the necessary methods for the achievement of the freedom of man on earth of all mankind throughout the earth. It is necessary that these two methods should work side by side.
10:51This is a very important point and cannot be overemphasized. So let's not um cut it any slack. What Sed Kupa is doing is he's drawing a clear line between Islam as a religion and Islamism as a movement to install the religion to overcome the practical obstacles to making the entire world submit to the Sharia and the people who enforce the Sharia who are in no way anybody's overlords apparently through some kind of weird backwards logic that they use to confuse themselves.
11:25And then he says they're not separable. He goes on to say that it is not possible to do one without the other, to have one without the other. And that this point cannot be overemphasized. That you have to have preaching. You have to do the practices of the religion in order to uh confront beliefs and change ideas. But at the same time, you must engage in the movement, which here is jihad. That's the context of this chapter. The movement is jihad. So when I said that it's that the great commission is not enough, jihad takes the place of the great commission in Islam. You don't go preach, you don't go
12:08tell the good news, you bring war to the unbelievers. you find one way or another, whether it's physical war, whether it's terrorist activity, whether it's economic war, whether it's policy war like we're seeing in American cities and throughout Europe. You bring war to the people to get them stuck to submit to Sharia. That's the movement. That is Islamism. And the point is, and it cannot be overemphasized, he says that these are not separable. So I think that that's really the point obviously that I wanted to make that these two can't be separated for he says the achievement of the freedom of man on earth that means
12:50Islam all of mankind throughout the earth submitting to Islam it is necessary that these two methods which are the religion and or the preaching I should say and the movement to install it should work side by side. They are not separable. United they are united. Thus these two united confront the human situation with all the necessary methods. So Islam without Islamism does not have all the necessary methods to create submission to the Sharia which is to say to create Islam.
13:29That's very important for us to understand. So we are not just being bamboozled by this word Islamism as some authors are contending. It does have a distinct meaning. It is the movement in practice to install Islam. But again dipping our toes into the communist waters that inspired Kutba who was a Leninist for 15 years before he returned to his radical Islamic roots um in Egypt.
13:55Here we're talking about the combination of theory and practis. So which the communists say must be wedded. There is no distinction between the theory of communism and the practice of communism. The practice of communism is is is done in order to install in policy and in social uh behavior the the the the ideas, the beliefs, the theory of communism which will then socialize people into the correct way of being socialist. In other words, through the inversion of practice, they will become more socialist. And this will be repeated generation after generation and perpetual revolution until they are utopian socialists actually till they're full communist which will never actually
14:38arrive in practice. And the same idea is happening here. But there's a much more um kind of quick to the point conclusion to this process. Here you have Islam as the theory, Islamism as the practice and Islamism is an intrinsic part of the uh Islam just like with the communism except you aren't relying on some inversion of practice and social transformation and eventually it'll work. It is everybody's going to submit and there's going to be a court that makes everybody submit. You're going to be under the tyranny and that's as good as it gets. Of course, what's going to happen is it is like communism where
15:17communism, you know, oh, there's capitalists out there somewhere or there's capitalist uh belief, burgeois belief trapped within the people, therefore it doesn't work, so we have to go do another purge. Well, Islam supposes that when everybody is fully submitted to Islam and everything is fully Islamic that because everybody is following Sharia the path, everybody will receive the due blessings of their literally kind of openly tyrannical God and that the good times will flow. So when the good times don't flow, which they won't, they're going to look for people who don't believe it, right?
15:52which is why you have so much not just um terrorism against the west, terrorism against Israel from different factions of Islam, but you have countless countless countless examples, although they're not really promoted in the news, uh of Muslim on Muslim violence, whether it's Shia versus Sunni, whether it's subdivisions, you different kinds of Shiites fighting each other, different kinds of Sunnis fighting each other, or whatever else. So they will find reasons for to uh blame some external problem.
16:22But right now America, freedom, Jews and Israel are the problem that are somehow keeping Islam from succeeding. So we're the first target in their endless war for submission to Allah. And there you hear Islam and Islamism are inextricable concepts from one [music] another. In the words of Sait Kutba himself. Hey guys, let me interrupt the content here real quick to tell you about a cruise, a learning cruise that New Discourses is hosting this November 15th through 22nd, 2026. We're going round trip out of Tampa, Florida to all kinds of cool Caribbean locations and we're going to have onboard [music] lectures every day. This is the New Discourses
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