How Islamic Movements Succeeded in Politicizing Religion: Details
Because they rely on religious heritage in their project, whenever they commit a crime, they rush to find a stance from religious heritage that legitimizes these crimes, rather than the opposite, making Islam in this process represent an ideological tool in the hands of these groups, enabling them to shape their desires in a religious form that negates any objection or opposition, where objection at this time expresses a rejection of divine judgment and thus a rejection of religion.
Political Islamic movements bet on the validity of Islam for every time and place, placing the disagreement with this bet as a disagreement with God, where here the difference is considered a rejection of unlimited divine wisdom in terms of time or place and a defiance of it, according to what the “al-Hal Net” website has stated. The website believes that these movements present their projects under the slogan “Islam is the solution,” a slogan that implies the absence of Islam from these societies from one angle, and the presence of Islam with these groups from another angle; thus, they position themselves as exclusivist like the prophets and messengers, and present their proposal as a divine proposal superior to all the projects presented.
According to the mechanisms of work of political Islamic groups as observed by the website and their ambitious pursuit of power, they operate according to Machiavellian politics; the end justifies the means, and they treat Islam as a consumable means to attain power, to create popularity for themselves by playing on the religious dimension on one hand, and using it as a political and moral tool against opposition on the other hand, where the opposer is considered opposing Islam, which these groups declare they represent, call for, and see as a solution.
Additionally, political Islamic groups place themselves in a state of antagonism with modernity and the components of the modern state, insisting on the political consumption of religion, and not isolating religion from politics on one hand, and insisting on imparting a conspiratorial dimension to modernity and demonizing it, and rejecting the state carrying its components and tools of success within it, because at this time it will reveal the emptiness of the project of political Islam from any practical developmental vision, bearing within it the possibility of practical presence on the ground, and it suffices to declare its pursuit for the hereafter (the abode of residence and decision).
Political Islam also succeeds in taking advantage of the political defeat and the lack of political vitality of Western Europe as an entry point to blackmail Muslim sentiment, and presents its project as a noble project against European ambitions in the lands of the Islamic Orient.
