Islam and fascism

Islamofascism emerged as a contemporary concept in 1990 when Anglo-Irish writer Malise Ruthven mentioned it in an article.^[2] Ruthven used the concept to describe Arab autocracies that were appealing to religious traditions in order to unite the masses behind the ruling class.^[3]

The September 11 attacks caused a long-lasting change to the relationship between the United States (US) and the Muslim world, which came with some critics increasingly making references to "Islamofascism" when discussing Islamic extremism.^[4][5]

Some famous scholars, such as Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) and Robert Wistrich (1945 – 2015), said that Islam was fascist.^[9] Islam's defenders say this is an "oversimplification" of Islam.^[10] Specialized academic papers described the similarities between Islamism and fascism as follows:

1. Totalitarianism^[3][11]
2. Anti-liberalism^[3][11]
3. Ownership of paramilitaries^[3]
4. Mobilization of the masses to fight imaginary threats^[3][11]
5. Intolerance of dissent in pursuit of a new society free of deviations.^[11] Muslims not following the Sharia law are condemned as takfirs, sometimes executed^[11]
6. An imperialist vision of their religion's supposed global influence.^[3][11] According to these academic papers, many Islamists long for the so-called golden age of Arab caliphates and the Ottoman Empire – when non-Muslim minorities were enslaved or suppressed – just as European fascists long for that of Christian empires^[3][11]
7. Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil) is very similar to the concept of Dar al-Islam (the Abode of Islam). Both Nazi and Jihadi ideologies demand absolute loyalty and involve territorial concepts, are antisemitic, feel the need to create martyrs, are antisemitic. ^[12]