ABSTRACT
The ideology of Islamism has cast a growing shadow as Islamist groups strive to create a unified ethos to enhance their own sense of empowerment in facing repressive regimes. And what they view as Western and Zionist hegemonic policies in the Muslim world. This chapter shows the design as an alternative to liberal humanism and socialism, as fundamentalist secularism and Marxism, Islamism has left itself vulnerable to attacks from various quarters. It also includes the regimes of some Arab countries, secularists, Zionists, humanists, socialists, feminists, and most recently the government of the US, which since 9/11 has dubbed Islamists as evil. The chapter analyzes these perceptions and the Islamist response that is based on Islamist literature, which is polemical on the Palestinian self-rule question and generally hostile toward Israel, and US foreign policy. The chapter presents the illustrations mainly from Islamist journals, newspapers, and other publications and is supplemented with interviews conducted with Islamists in Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Tunisia, and the US.
