Is it Islamism – or is there a problem with Islam?

Over recent years, many of those worried about Islamism as a political ideology associated with ISIS, Hamas, the Iranian regime, etc, have gone out of their way to distinguish this from Islam as a religion. The rise of nihilistic, theocratically justified violence – openly positing itself as the enemy of Western society, democracy and freedom – has brutally made its presence felt through murderous terror, from 9/11 to the massacres of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and pop fans at Manchester Arena. Recently, however, that distinction between a politicalised radical version of Islam and its more benign stature as a world faith has become fuzzier.

It’s certainly not an easy, clear-cut issue. Some arguments used as evidence that Islam inherently leads to violence don’t seem credible. The rape-grooming gangs, whose perpetrators were largely Pakistani Muslims, were not obviously motivated by politics or religion. Those undocumented young men arriving illegally from the Middle East – who may well have been radicalised in the Islamic world and represent a security threat – are very different to the majority of British Muslims who have lived here for decades.

Indeed, the data from recent polling for the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre indicates that the vast majority – 85 per cent – of British Muslims favour integration, feel at home living in a secular society and view British values positively. Only two per cent stated that they would like to live in separate Islamic areas in Britain, subject to Sharia Law. And support for full integration has risen from 38 per cent in 2024 to 45 per cent in 2026, and some interviewed even expressed nostalgia for a more cohesive past.

And yet, no matter what the stats say, there’s a sense of more segregated towns and cities, with Muslim communities a distinct demographic. Islamic-related cultural assertions of difference, whether increasingly organising public prayer or the growing numbers wearing full-face burqas, is creating community tensions. But is this more a consequence of the very Western enthusiasm for identity politics rather than Islam? Yes, too many British Muslims who are not supportive of radical Islam nonetheless hold and express unpleasant anti-Jewish attitudes. But such antisemitism mirrors the position of pro-Palestinian leftist activism in universities and progressive anti-Israel Palestine Action supporters. This outlook is embedded in very British institutions, whether in parliament or the BBC. Is this really a problem we can blame on Islam?

The conflation of Islam and Islamism has no doubt been compounded by those who have weaponised the term Islamophobia to silence any legitimate criticism or debate about Islam, its practices and its history, or have used it to demonise any challenge to problematic views if they are expressed by someone who happens to be Muslim.

But perhaps this attitude to open discussion does suggest a real problem within Islam? The FSU’s Ben Jones argues that the ‘distinction between “Islamism” and normative Islamic beliefs is becoming totally meaningless’. He suggests that ‘there is a fundamental incompatibility between normal Islamic views and preserving a culture of free speech’, noting that 52 per cent of British Muslims think depicting Mohammed should be illegal. Nonetheless, is there a danger that in removing the distinction, core Western Values, such as religious freedom, are undermined, or that bigotry based on prejudice is fostered?

Are all these finer distinctions just pedantic, distracting us from the elephant in the room? Or are there dangers for freedom, liberalism and fair treatment of all if we don’t insist on maintaining a distinction? Some argue that the real clash of civilisations is not between the West and Islam per se, but inside Islam. Is the real issue the failure of ordinary Muslims to take on and expose the political radicals, claiming to represent Islam? And as Islamism was only born in Egypt 100 years ago, with a very clear political lineage in its rejection of the authority of Enlightenment Reason, does making Islam the focus of concern miss the real ideological fights society needs to thrash out if the West is to defend its values and modernity?