Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Yvonne Y. Haddad, The Muslims of 

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); 

Islamic Society of North America, 2004 Annual Report

(Plainfield, Ind.: ISNA, 2004); Sulayman S. Nyang, 

Islam in the United States of America (Chicago: Kazi 

Publications, 1999).

Islamism

Since the 1990s, Islamism has been used by 

Western scholars and some journalists as a term 

covering a variety of modern Islamic revolution-

ary groups and ideologies that have the goal of 

implementing Islamic law (

sharia

) as the absolute 

basis for every aspect of life in majority-Muslim 

countries.

Typically, Islamist groups strive to overthrow 

governments that are secular or that the Islamists 

believe are not properly implementing Islamic 

principles. Islamists seek to replace such regimes 

with governments they believe would embody 

what the Islamists perceive to be genuinely Islamic 

ideals. Some examples of many Islamist groups 

are the m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

, which has chapters 

in e

gypt

 and many other countries, h

amas

 among 

the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, h

iz

-

bUllah

 among Shiites in l

ebanon

, J

amaat

-

i

 i

slami

in p

akistan

, and 

al

-q

aida

 globally.

Islamists believe that the Islamic governments 

they institute must give their financial and politi-

cal support exclusively to Islamic schools and 

universities and ban all other forms of 

edUca

-

tion

, establish economic systems wholly free of 

dependence on Western countries, create societ-

ies where wealth is distributed equitably among 

all groups and where the large gaps that exist 

between the rich and poor are reduced, and enable 

the availability of health care and a wide array of 

social services, including orphanages and welfare 

services for all individuals in the Islamic state.

Islamists also have the objective of establish-

ing Islamically based moral codes that involve 

men and 

Women

 being required to dress in accor-

dance with the Islamists’ interpretation of Islamic 

law, the legally enforced separation of men and 

women who are not part of the same family, a 

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