@andreas_krieg has a sad habit of peddling third rate Qatari and Islamist propaganda. In this dismal essay he blames the UAE for “merging the narratives about ‘Islamism’ with ‘terrorism’.” I hate to break it to Krieg but #Islamism does indeed merge with #terrorism. I pity him. https://twitter.com/AlaaAmeris/status/1333530216606658563

After 30 years of experience with Islamist networks, I find it grotesque, distasteful, disingenuous, horrific that a whole cadre of superficially educated western scholars-for-hire continue to hold a candle for Islamist fascism and expect us Muslim to accept it. We will not.

The tactics and stunts of Islamist groups inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood are nothing new, so Krieg and his ilk need to stop pretending that all of us are oblivious to how Islamist networks function, support, interpenetrate, dovetail and coalesce with extremism and terrorism.

From the genesis of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and in Saudi Arabia (before being banned), and in Jordan, Libya, Turkey, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Malaysia, and its front organisations in Europe/North America—the story of Islamist quest for power, hate and control is the same.

The Muslim world and its communities elsewhere are in an existential war with Islamism—against a suffocating ideological worldview that glorifies intellectual mediocrity, encourages hate speech, promotes violence, and wants to impose a leviathan monster upon all and sundry.

Islamists are not your pluralism-interfaith-diversity-democracy-loving neighbour. They are its exact opposite, which is why they cannot disconnect from extremism and terrorism. So please, western “scholars”, spare us the sanctimonious drivel of repackaged Islamism-lite.

And what great gift has Islamism thus far offered to Muslims or the world? Its theology is unsophisticated and shallow by Islamic standards; its lacks depth in virtually all the Islamic intellectual sciences; its spiritual psychology is unrefined; ...

it has no pedigree in philosophy, art, logic, poetry, music, architecture—all key components of the Islamic civilisation. Its modern take on the social sciences is equally dismal, with mediocre books that they pass as “Islamic”. Who are they kidding? Why should any Muslim buy it?

We have civilisation that has produced polymaths in all fields of human endeavour like Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rush, Rumi, Biruni, Ibn Arabi, Ibn Ataillah, Zarruq, Al-Razi, Ibn Khaldun—and instead we have to pretend that our apex is reached with Mawdudi, Banna, Qutb or Khomeini?

Islamism did not define our past, or our present, and will not define our future. It doesn't have in its DNA what it takes to rebuild a compassionate civilisation or an ethos that respects diversity, knowledge and progress. Islam is a way of life, not an ideology.