Political Islam Is Rank Populism That Perverts a Fundamentally Liberal Faith (Mohammed Nosseir, May 13, 2026, Unpopulist)
A critical distinction is therefore needed: Islam, the faith tradition, is categorically different than “Political Islam” or “Islamism,” which is fundamentally a political project. But opposing one does not mean opposing the other. In fact, we Muslims should be leading the charge against attempts to flatten our faith into a political agenda.
Political Islam, whose violent factions bear no true relation to the religion or to the vast majority of its adherents, rejects the core liberal principle that governments ought to promote the welfare of all citizens equally. In this respect, it shares much with populism and various strands of ethnonationalism. These movements determine a “true people”—defined by ethnicity, or adherence to a specific ideology or dogma—and treat those who fall outside that definition as second-class citizens at best and targets of active repression at worst.
Islamicists are their Integralists.