Islamists and progressives: surprising common ground and why it matters

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• Defining Islamism: religion turned into political program
  • Key features of Islamist ideology
• How the 20th century shaped contemporary Islamist thought
• Anti-Semitism in modern Islamist movements: borrowed conspiracies and violent rhetoric
• Violence, networks, and the many faces of Islamist activism
  • Common tactics used by Islamist movements
• Where Islamist and progressive narratives intersect
• Identity politics and the appeal of Islamist frameworks in the West
• Why progressive milieus can become receptive to Islamist influence
• About the author

Discussion about Islam and Islamism often collapses into a blur of labels, assumptions and moral panic. That confusion matters: without separating faith from political ideology we lose sight of what drives movements that call themselves Islamist, how they evolved, and why they attract support from unexpected corners of the political spectrum.

Understanding Islamism as a political project—distinct from personal religious practice—clarifies why parts of the Western left and identity-driven progressivism sometimes find common cause with Islamist actors. The alliance is less an accident of fear or naivety than a collision of overlapping worldviews and tactical calculations.

Defining Islamism: religion turned into political program

At its core, Islamism is not simply devout Islam. It is a political program that draws on religious language and authority to pursue a specific public order. Think of it as a modern political blueprint wrapped in theological terms: law, governance, and society are recast as questions of religious legitimacy rather than civic choice.

This distinction matters because observant Muslims and Islamists are not interchangeable categories. Many practicing Muslims live within pluralist societies and accept secular institutions, while Islamists seek to reorder public life so that religious law and religious leaders determine political outcomes.

Key features of Islamist ideology

• Politics cloaked in religion: Public policy and governance are justified through religious claims rather than democratic deliberation.
• Rejection of liberal modernity: Many Islamists oppose core liberal values such as political pluralism, secular law, and individual liberties.
• Transnational vision: Rather than organizing around nation states, Islamists frequently advocate for a broader religious polity that transcends borders.
• Authoritative law: Concepts like Sharia are presented not as interpretive traditions but as fixed, divinely ordained legal systems.

How the 20th century shaped contemporary Islamist thought

Although critics often dismiss Islamism as a relic of medieval thinking, many of its central doctrines were formulated in response to 20th-century upheavals: the collapse of empires, colonial rule, and the rise of ideologies like nationalism and socialism. Islamist thinkers repackaged religious vocabulary to address the political crises of their time.

One crucial shift was the treatment of religious law. Where earlier Islamic jurisprudence allowed for debate and local adaptation, modern Islamist currents increasingly treat Sharia as a comprehensive and immutable legal code. That shift reflects an ideological move: law becomes sacramental, not just legal.

Anti-Semitism in modern Islamist movements: borrowed conspiracies and violent rhetoric

Hostility toward Jews has appeared in different forms across Muslim-majority societies, from medieval social hierarchies to discriminatory policies. But the virulent, conspiratorial anti-Semitism seen in many contemporary Islamist texts is largely modern in origin.

Instead of deriving its hostility from classical Islamic sources, some Islamist propaganda reworks European racial myths and political forgeries from the early 1900s. These narratives portray Jews as a secret global cabal manipulating wars, institutions and finance—an imported style of conspiracy that has been grafted onto local grievances and historic tensions.

Movements that employ such rhetoric often frame geopolitical events—colonial partitions, the establishment of new states, and international institutions—as the results of hidden machinations rather than complex historical processes.

Violence, networks, and the many faces of Islamist activism

Islamism is not a monolith. At one end are the jihadist groups that openly pursue armed struggle. At another are participationist or institutional Islamists who aim to influence politics by running parties, charities, schools, and community groups. Both strands share ideological roots, but they differ sharply on methods.

Islamists often operate through social and civil institutions—student groups, nonprofit organizations, religious schools—to cultivate support and normalize their agenda. Because they present themselves as defenders of community and faith, distinguishing between grassroots religious activity and political organizing can be difficult.

Common tactics used by Islamist movements

• Embedding political aims in charitable work and education
• Using religious authority to delegitimize opponents
• Creating front organizations to broaden influence
• Framing conflicts in existential, moral terms to mobilize followers

Where Islamist and progressive narratives intersect

It is tempting to explain Western progressive sympathy for Islamist causes purely as cowardice, opportunism, or ignorance. Those factors exist, but they don’t capture the deeper ideological overlap. In several respects, strands of contemporary progressivism and Islamist thought converge.

• Shared skepticism of Western modernity: Both can critique liberal modernity as tainted by colonialism, consumerism, or cultural imperialism.
• Distrust of nation-states: Transnational identities and critiques of national belonging appeal to people who see the nation-state as exclusionary or illegitimate.
• Intolerance of dissent: Certain forms of identity politics and Islamist doctrine both police speech and marginalize intra-group disagreement.

There are important differences too—particularly over gender and sexuality—but those differences don’t always prevent cooperation. Shared priorities such as anti-imperialism, opposition to perceived Western hegemony, or a focus on group victimhood can create tactical alliances.

Identity politics and the appeal of Islamist frameworks in the West

For some Western Muslims, Islam functions less as a private creed and more as a marker of belonging that competes with national identity. Scholars have observed that when identity becomes the central political axis, allegiance shifts from civic institutions to communal or transnational loyalties.

That dynamic can make Islamist narratives—especially those promising dignity, resistance to discrimination, and a larger-than-national community—attractive to people who feel alienated by mainstream politics. The result is a cultural overlap between Westernized identity movements and activists who prefer religiously defined political structures.

Why progressive milieus can become receptive to Islamist influence

Progressive circles often prize anti-colonial narratives, coalition politics and a focus on structural injustice. Those priorities can make activists sympathetic to groups that claim to resist Western dominance—even when those groups reject liberal democracy or basic human rights.

Ideological affinity, not just tactical convenience, explains much of the rapprochement: both sides criticize liberal institutions, both emphasize collective identities, and both can be suspicious of free-market and nation-state solutions. This shared vocabulary and set of grievances makes cooperation easier than many observers assume.

About the author

Daniel Ben‑Ami is a journalist and author who writes about political ideologies and contemporary anti‑Semitism. He manages Radicalism of Fools, a site dedicated to rethinking how anti‑Jewish prejudice and related political movements are understood.

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