It is often said that only some Muslims are “extremists’ while most are “moderates”. And then there is talk of “Islamists” as opposed to your everyday garden variety Muslims. One can question just how helpful and accurate such distinctions are.
Many are rightly suggesting that such language games help the cause of Islam while undermining the cause of peace and freedom. I have discussed these matters often. Twenty-two years ago for example I said this:
Church and state relations – so much of an issue of debate in Western Christian nations – is not even an issue in Islam. The Muslim world is at once both a religious and a political sphere. One can choose between God and Caesar in Christianity. Both are one and the same in Islam.
Another major difference lies in how the faith is to be propagated. The founder of Christianity made it quite clear that use of arms to impel conversion was totally out of place. True, this concern was not always heeded by his followers. Thus if a person kills someone today in the name of Christ, especially for religious reasons, one can rightly argue that they are perverting the very nature of Christianity and the writings of the New Testament.
It is by no means clear however if one could say the same about a Muslim who kills in the name of Allah. The Koran and Islamic law (Sharia) both offer plenty of justification for such actions. Moreover, both the example of Muhammad and Islamic history provide support for the use of force in promoting Islam.
Consider the doctrine of jihad. There are of course different understandings of what exactly is meant by jihad. Muslim moderates and apologists insist that jihad simply means to struggle or strive for a just cause. There is in fact a distinction in Islam between the “greater jihad” which is a kind of spiritual warfare against the selfish nature, and “lesser jihad” which means a struggle against non-Muslims.
It is this latter concept that we must deal with. Because there is no ultimate central authority in Islam, disagreement exists as to interpreting the Koran, the weight of tradition (Hadith), and the example of Muhammad. However, Koranic injunctions to fight are numerous, as they are in the various collections of Hadith. And Muhammad himself set the example of violent conquest. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2004/11/25/a-closer-look-at-religion-and-violence/
And in another piece also penned over twenty years ago I said the following:
It is interesting to note that no mainstream Islamic leader issued a fatwa (authoritative statement) condemning the suicide bombers following the September 11 attack.
Indeed, there are many reasons why a radical Muslim might take up suicide bombings. Several can be mentioned here. Many see such activity as an Islamic duty. The original sources of Islam seem to make this a duty to God, and most terrorists are in fact devout Muslims, who take their faith seriously. Of course there is heated debate within Islam as to whether this activity can be seen as a religious duty, or even legitimate.
Many others have said similar things, and some bullet points can be offered by way of summary:
-True, not all Muslims go around killing people, but one has to wonder why these “moderate Muslims” never seem to speak out against violent jihad nor protest against it.
-A case can be made that the devout Muslim is one who takes seriously the life, teachings and example of Muhammad, who WAS a violent warlord (and a misogynist, slave-trader, and so on).
-It is common for Muslim apologists and Western dupes to play language games to justify Islamic violence and seek to make the unacceptable seem acceptable.
With all this in mind, a new book I have been writing about lately is worth visiting once again. I refer to Danny Burmawi’s Islam, Israel and the West (Gerasa Books, 2025). This is one of my previous articles about this very important volume: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/03/17/clarity-on-islam-and-israel/
Here I want to look at how he discusses some of this terminology and the deception (taqiyya) that goes with it. Consider what he says is a section titled “Islam vs. Islamism”. He notes how the latter term is a relatively recent one, but it soon began to be used to cover a multitude of Muslim sins.
He says he was a Muslim for 20 years and never heard the term. He explains what is going on here: “The so-called Islamist is simply the Muslim who takes the religion seriously – who doesn’t pick and choose, who applies Islam to every part of life.” (p. 124)
ISLAM, ISRAEL AND THE WEST: A Former Muslim's Analysisby Burmawi, Danny (Author)
While we CAN speak of nominal (or fake) Christians versus real-deal Christians, that is not the case with Islam. The Muslim must buy the whole package:
Islam allows no such luxury. The Qur’an is the literal, eternal word of Allah. Muhammad is the perfect example for all mankind until the end of time. The Hadiths are binding. To reject them is to leave Islam. Even Qur’anists, the tiny minority who accept only the Qur’an and reject the Hadiths, are considered apostates by the rest of the Muslim world. This unity on the fundamentals is why the “moderate Muslim” vs. “Islamist” binary is so misleading.
The various sects, Sunni, Shia, Ibadi, may differ on who should have succeeded Muhammad or how certain rituals are performed, but they do not differ on the necessity of Sharia, the authority of the Qur’an, the obligation of jihad, or the supremacy of Islam over all other systems. Those are the points that define Islamism in Western parlance, and they are also the points that define Islam itself. (pp. 124-125)
Even though the Muslim does not need the term, Burmawi notes how Muslim apologists in the West were quite happy to latch onto it:
The West, however, needed the term. The atrocities of al-Qaeda and ISIS were so graphic, so impossible to sanitize, that Western apologists for Islam had to come up with a way to condemn the acts without condemning the theology that inspired them. Thus, Islamism became the escape hatch, a way to say, “This isn’t Islam, it’s a radical political movement.” And once that framing took hold, Islam itself was absolved.
But by pretending that Islamism is the problem, the West blinds itself to the real source of the threat. It ends up banning groups while leaving the ideology that produces them untouched. It condemns the bombings while protecting the scripture that commands them. It fights the symptoms while shielding the disease. And in doing so, it does Muslims no favors. You cannot reform what you refuse to diagnose. If you keep telling Muslims that Islam is peaceful and that only Islamism is the problem, they will never feel the need to examine the doctrines that make Islamism inevitable. (p. 125)
He goes on to say this:
You only need to accept the Qur’an and Sunnah as the ultimate standard for all human life to become what is called an Islamist. The first Islamist was Muhammad. Every Muslim who seeks to follow him fully, whether by preaching, lobbying, building parallel societies, or waging armed jihad, is walking the same path. The only difference between the “Islamist” and the “Muslim” is the degree to which they have the freedom, power, and will to act on what they believe.
That’s why the West’s linguistic firewall between Islam and Islamism is not only false but dangerous. It gives cover to those who share the ideology but have not yet, or cannot yet, translate it into force. By insisting that Islam is innocent and only Islamism is the problem, the West has built a wall of moral immunity around the doctrine itself. This absolves Muslims of confronting the supremacist elements in their faith, because the West has already declared those elements to be alien to Islam.
The result is a closed loop: every jihadist act is reframed as “not true Islam” – and therefore Islam requires no reform….
In this way, the so-called moderates become the unintentional bodyguards of the very system they claim to oppose. (pp. 126-127)
So we must beware of how the language is being manipulated here. The only genuine Muslim is the only who faithfully adheres to what is taught in Islam’s sacred texts, and who doggedly follows in the footsteps of the ‘perfect’ prophet Muhammad. And that includes slaying the infidel wherever you find them.
Speaking of Islam:
https://citizengo.org/en-au/ot/17773
A moderate Muslim will hold you down while an “Islamist” cuts off your head.