Islamism in the Twentieth Century: Similarities and Splits

Since the last century, Islamism has had major impacts on regional and global equations. It can be claimed that Islamism and its related phenomena are the most influential variables in the Middle East, the most volatile region in the world. Although Islamism is not a coherent phenomenon, the common point of all of its internal sects and movements is the endeavor to resolve the crises of the Islamic world by resorting to Islam and its linguistic elements. Meanwhile, the kind, nature, and structure of the crises have fundamental effects on the structure of the Islamists. While they all have a common Islamic tradition, their different structures have led to splitting points among different Islamist generations. This paper tries to demonstrate similarities and splits between classical fundamentalism and modern Islamism and the reasons behind the splits. The main hypothesis is that formation structure of modern Islamism is the main reason of split between modern Islamism and classical fundamentalism. Finally, through the case study of “Al- Muhajiroun”, the behavioral pattern of this Islamist group with non-conventional rationality is explained.