Islam and fascism (split from IS thread)

[Funky]

It is quite strange one-side affinity of cultural marxists to Islam. It is like they crave to be subdued and enslaved by faithful mujahideen.

Indeed. There could hardly be a more absurd alliance than that of the far left with Islam. Islam is opposed to everything the left allegedly stands for, and yet they desperately defend it whenever they can. It is kind of unfair to Karl Marx though to consider these leftists Marxists. To quote the exalted one himself:

The Koran and the laws derived from it reduce geography and ethnography to the simple and binary divide of believers and unbelievers. The unbeliever is the enemy. Islam despises the nation of the unbeliever and establishes a condition of permanent hostility between Muslims and infidels.

It seems Marx was a lot wiser than our leftists today.

There was another guy however who jumped to the defense of Islam:

The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France. Had Karl Martell not won in Poitiers, we would have embraced Mohammedanism earlier, this teaching in which heroism is rewarded. The seventh heaven belongs to the warrior alone!

 

[r16]

the phrase reaching out to Muslims should not be an off-putting remark , until the war started Adolf Hitler was the darling of all . Allthough it won't be much of a thing if a guy has decided to think a thing no matter what .

 

[Funky]

Since the 1920s when Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, Islam and fascism have been close partners. Since this time, Islamic scholars and religious figures have been stating ad nauseum how fond they were and are of the Italian system under Mussolini and National Socialism in Germany. "Mein Kampf" is a best-seller in many Islamic countries.
This bond should not be surprising. Afterall, both ideologies share basically all of their defining characteristics, with the exception that the ultimate authority in Islam is God. Apart from that they have pretty much everything in common: an authoritarian structure and hierarchy, unquestionable dogmas, harsh treatment of dissenters, depreciation of those who do not belong to the ideology, accentuation of war and military and so on.
One cannot understand Islam without understanding its close ties to fascism. For a more detailed view of this topic, I can highly recommend the book "Islamic Fascism" by Hamed Abdel Samad, an Egyptian author who used to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood and is now being hunted by his former associates.

 

[r16]

the Brotherhood was specifically an anti-Ottoman thing aiming to realise an armed Arab uprising . As the Ottomans fell and replaced by the Westerners throughout the area where the Brotherhood was supposed to rule , it's only normal that they should look outwards for support . Considering the ease they got to top in Egypt and run out for war elsewhere ı can only say they are real cozy with the democracies , too ...

 

[Thorgalaeg]

One cannot understand Islam without understanding its close ties to fascism

That is a bold assertion, having in mind islam predates fascim by 1300 year or so. I am sure there are better ways for islam bashing than recurring to the hitler argument.

 

[MacAttack]

Well, it is normal from Islamic point of view. You are allowed to consummate marriage if your wife reached 9 yo whatever your age is. Also you can have female sex slaves taken as war trophy.

But not from her Danish point of view.

That is a bold assertion, having in mind islam predates fascim by 1300 year or so. I am sure there are better ways for islam bashing than recurring to the hitler argument.

the term Fascism may not have existed before the 20th Century as you ascertain, but the principles of fascism have long existed throughout human civilization. Same goes for Communism and Democracy.

 

[Borachio]

I thought fascism was a throw-back to the Roman Empire, myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

Nothing to do with it? Ah. OK.

 

[MacAttack]

Terms change/warp meaning over time.

 

[Agent327]

Well, as soon as you start talking about 'fascist pigs' and 'fascist Islam' it's pretty clear the fascist bit has lost all meaning.

 

[Flying Pig]

But not from her Danish point of view.



the term Fascism may not have existed before the 20th Century as you ascertain, but the principles of fascism have long existed throughout human civilization. Same goes for Communism and Democracy.

Not quite, because fascism absolutely depends on certain ideas (most notably nationalism) that didn't exist before the 18th century at the earliest. Of course you can reduce it to absurdity and say that fascism is about strong leaders, and people have always had strong leaders. But that's not the 'point', as it were - the point is that fascism is an outgrowth of nationalism, which argues that people exist in natural communities that precede the state, and that the state should be expanded and/or contracted to encompass and provide a home for a single national community. Where fascism breaks off from ordinary nationalism is that it is anti-democratic and heroising - fascists argue that the nation (their nation) has a particular destiny that it must fulfill, but that its citizens are not blessed with the vision to see it or the conviction to bring it about. That is why fascists want to be led by a dictator, one who is specially able to understand the chosen nation's mission and make it happen. You can perhaps detect elements of this in Roman imperial ideology, but you're missing the crucial national element (the idea of Roman communities preceding and living outside the Roman empire didn't make sense; Roman identity was entirely a factor of being ruled by and owing allegiance to the Roman state) and the explicit theory of a national mission - the Romans thought that the gods had told them that they would be great, and their emperors wanted them to think that only they could keep Rome on its path to greatness, but not that there was a particular route that the gods or fate had commanded them to follow which was not obvious to anyone not sitting on the throne.

Reading that you will hopefully realise why 'fascist Islam' is a contradiction - almost nobody thinks of Islam as a national category. People can be 'French Muslims' or 'German Muslims', but they can't be 'French Germans' in the same way. The idea of a caliphate is similar, perhaps, but fundamentally distinct from the idea of a nation-state - though one might argue that the Zionists have already blurred the line a bit.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Is fascism always concerned with a "national destiny"? I thought at its most basic it argued that not only should the nation have a state, but the state needed to become the nation. As in individuals give up their freedom to the state, who then, through pulling everyone in the nation together create a stronger entity. The state runs everything for the individual because the individual and the nation as a whole are better off that way.

Or is that misguided/not articulate?

 

[Flying Pig]

I think that you've just described a paternalistic version of nationalism, which wouldn't be entirely out of place coming from somebody like Alex Salmond. It is absolutely essential to fascism that the leader is superhuman, and that only he can see where the people need to be led. Hence the cult of personality that inevitably goes with it. I would also observe that you've couched it in terms of the individual good of the people living in the country, while fascists tend to talk about 'the nation' as some sort of metaphysical concept that doesn't seem to involve any real people. You hear phrases like 'Britain has to be great' which don't end up with 'because that will make the people who live in Britain happier and healthier'.

 

[Borachio]

I can see that fascism and Islam aren't an exact match, by any means.

But there's still something in their authoritarian natures and willingness, if not eagerness, to be downright brutal that makes Islamo-fascism a somewhat handy catch-all, imo

 

[Agent327]

Very handy indeed. Except for the fact that Islam is a religion which can be applied to very different ideas of politics - fascism not really being one of them, however. Other than that, very handy. We might even apply it to Franco Spain, referring to it as Christo-fascism.

 

[Flying Pig]

I can see that fascism and Islam aren't an exact match, by any means.

But there's still something in their authoritarian natures and willingness, if not eagerness, to be downright brutal that makes Islamo-fascism a somewhat handy catch-all, imo

Orwell saw you coming:

As used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless ... I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else ...

[T]he people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

 

[Tahuti]

A case could be made that Fascism is merely secularised Islam. Islam has a couple of concepts that - interpreted in a certain way - Fascists may find appealing such as Ummah, which in the Islamic context it means community of believers though it can also be translated as 'nation'. Replace Muslims with Germans or Italians.

Of course, Socialism would be secularised Christianity...

 

[Agent327]

A case could be made that Fascism is merely secularised Islam.

Only if you know nothing of the roots of Fascism. There are plenty of decent books on that to fill the gap.

 

[Funky]

Not quite, because fascism absolutely depends on certain ideas (most notably nationalism) that didn't exist before the 18th century at the earliest.

How clever. Define fascism to depend on nationalism. Nationalism didn't exist before the 18th century, Islam did. Hence Islam can't be referd to as fasicst. Then cite an author who wrote 70 years ago that the term "fascism" was overused, to silence anyone who notices similarities.

This is a word game. It is a abject attempt to define away a problem, no matter how obvious and acute it may be. It is a distraction from an actual discussion of the ideology of Islam and how it is practised and promoted by Muslim scholars and societies around the globe.

I already pointed out some of the obvious parallels between Islam and fascism. But let us let Hamed Abdel-Samad speak for a moment. This is a man, a Muslim, who was born in Egypt, used to be a fundamentalist and was part of the Muslim Brotherhood. After he wrote his book "Islamic Fascism", a fatwa was issued against him. He has since received thousands of death threats and is currently living in Germany under extreme police protection. The irony is that this reaction to his book only proves his point.

Fascism is a kind of "political religion". Its followers think they are in possession of the absolute truth. At the top of the hierarchy stands the charismatic, inerrant leader who has been endowed with the holy duty to unify the nation and defeat the enemies. The fascist ideology poisons its followers by instilling resentments and hatred into them, it divides the world into friend and foe and threatens its opponents with retaliation. It is opposed to modernity, the enlightenment, marxism and the Jews, and it glorifies militarism and self-sacrifice until death.
All of these characteristics also apply to modern Islamism, which began simultaneously to fascism in the 1920s. Both fascism and Islamism emerged from a feeling of defeat and humiliation. Both have the goal to create an empire and annihliate their enemies - world domination as a certified right. One movement believes in the superiority of the Arian race, the other is convinced of moral superiority of Muslims over the infidel rest of humankind.

What Abdel-Samad points out is that the ideological core of fascism is not bound to a nation in the strict political sense. Rather it defines and elevates an in-group in opposition to the rest of the world, in the case of Islam the "nation" of Muslims, the Umma. Whether the "nation" has terrestrial borders or not is irrelevant.

Since the 1920s, some of the most influential Muslim scholars to this day have viewed fascism as an exemplary ideological paradigm and have been avid and outspoken admirers of Hitler and Mussolini. You can draw a straight line from Al-Banna and Al-Husseini over Maududi and Chomeini up to Al-Baghdadi, as well as to many leading Muslim scholars and theologians today. The ideas of fascism are prominent throughout the Muslim world. There is virtually no Muslim majority country in which these ideas do not have a significant following, either in form of a movement within a country, or promoted by the government itself. Even the prime minister of Turkey displayed his adherence to basic fascist ideas when he said "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers."

Of course there are specific differences between the various implementations of fascism. But denying that the defining elements of fascist ideologies in general are found to a large extent in Islam and are followed and promoted by tens if not hundreds of millions of Muslims, is intellectually unsustainable.

 

[Tahuti]

Only if you know nothing of the roots of Fascism.

The direct roots of Fascism lie in French revolutionary thought. However, that isn't to say Nationalism - a component of both Jacobinism and Fascism - could not be partially adapted from Islam, since it has had some degree of influence over European thought.

 

[Agent327]

The direct roots of Fascism lie in French revolutionary thought. However, that isn't to say Nationalism - a component of both Jacobinism and Fascism - could not be partially adapted from Islam, since it has had some degree of influence over European thought.

I see you didn't actually bother to read any books on Fascism. Nor Islam for that matter. To start with the latter, Islam rose quite a few centuries before nationalism, which is a movement primarily from the 19th century. If you'd read any texts from either Fascists or Nazis, you'll find very little reference to the French revolution. Islamic thought - apart from the odd philosopher - has had next to naught influence on Western thought.