European Journal of Economic and Political Studies

Was Rumi the Chief Architect of Islamism?

A Deconstruction Attempt of the Current (Mis)Use of the
Term “Islamism”

Ihsan Yilmaz∗

Abstract:
This study problematizes the current usage of the term Islamism and endeavors to
deconstruct it. The distinction between Islam, Islamic and Islamism is difficult to discern
as they are used interchangeably. Its current usage does not allow it be an analytical
definition and tool to analyze socio-political phenomena. Some scholars label even
socially active observant Muslims as Islamists. Such usage of the term blurs the
differences between individuals who take Islam as an ideology and individuals who
simply see life as a divine test and try to follow religion’s basic tenets that demand
social activism. A good case in point is Rumi who lived in the thirteenth century. His
life and activities show that today’s habit of defining socially active Muslims ---who do
not espouse an anti-West rhetoric and stay away from daily politics--- as Islamists is
applicable to Rumi as well, showing that a more refined and fine tuned definition of
Islamism is needed and its arbitrary use to label every observant and socially active
Muslim to somehow imply that a good Muslim is a non-practicing and socially inactive
Muslim should be avoided. The paper also proffers that new terms should be coined to
discern several Islamist ideologies and groups from each other.

Keywords:
Islamism, Political Islam, Rumi, Social Activism, Muslims, Faith-based

∗
Fatih University, Istanbul/Turkey. iyilmaz@fatih.edu.tr

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Introduction
This study problematizes the usage of term Islamism among some academic
circles and endeavors to deconstruct it by analyzing the discourse and practice of the
towering thirteenth century Muslim scholar and poet Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi.
Unfortunately, although the term is widely used, it seems to be a blanket or umbrella
term without an agreed and precise meaning. This is not just an Orientalist --- with a
capital “O” in Edward Said’s terms ---- manipulation of the term in employing
knowledge in hegemonic power games but Muslims who call themselves Islamist use
it very loosely as well and claim the particularism/peculiarity/essentialism of Islam. This
understanding of imagined immutable particularism/peculiarity/essentialism of Islam
shows how Islamists agree with the Eurocentric claim of an essential difference
between Western and non-Western cultures.
Definitions of Islamism vary. The term has been used for at least the last two
decades, but the distinction between Islam, Islamic and Islamism is blurred and
difficult to discern as some writers use them interchangeably. The term generally
refers to political Islam, ideologisation of religion and instrumental use of Islam in
politics, especially with an anti-West rhetoric. Yet, some scholars label even socially
active observant Muslims as Islamists. Such usage of the term blurs the differences
between individuals who take Islam as an ideology and individuals who simply see life
as a divine test and try to follow religion’s basic tenets that demand social activism. A
good case in point is Rumi who lived in the thirteenth century, the most troubled and
restless period of the Anatolian Seljuks. A quick scan at his life and activities shows that
today’s habit of defining socially active Muslims ---who do not espouse an anti-West
rhetoric and stay away from daily politics--- as Islamists is applicable to Rumi as well.
If we label all socially active Muslims who work for the betterment of the world
through educational, social and charity projects; who contact rulers and politicians not
for the purposes daily politics but about their projects or to warn them in a religious
context Rumi must be considered as an Islamist too as “much of his work is dedicated
to waking people up, and encouraging them to experience life themselves, rather
blindly following the scholars of the day.” 1 As we will see below in detail, during his
period of turmoil, Rumi emerged as a powerful activist character and scholar. Rumi’s
activism included his spiritual guidance to the rulers. Not only did he communicate and
contact to the rulers but he also contacted the invading Mongols, for this he was and is
still accused of being a Mongol agent (see now in detail Küçük 2007). He earned the
trust and respect from the rulers and these men of high positions were very eager to
see him. He had disciples who were sultans and viziers but also a lot of disciples from
amongst the poor and common folk (Can 2005: 92). He was part of the urban elite in

1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/art/rumi_1.shtml

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the cosmopolitan capital city of Konya and was also involved in the political struggles of
his time in one way or another. As a matter of fact, this paper argues that if we do not
formulate a more refined and fine tuned definition of Islamism that takes into account
reactionary, modern, anti-western, anti-imperialist, exclusivist, ideological, strictly
instrumentalist and political dimensions and arbitrarily use it to label every observant
and socially active Muslim to somehow imply that a good Muslim is a non-practicing
and socially inactive Muslim, then Rumi must be defined as the chief architect of
Islamism.
To elaborate on this issue further, we will now start with a critical evaluation of the
current definitions of Islamism and then we will proceed to show in detail Rumi’s social
activism, his engagements in social projects and his almost constant contact with the
politicians.

Islamism
Islamism is a controversial term and its definitions vary. Even though the term has
been used widely for at least the last two decades, unfortunately, the distinction
between Islam, Islamic and Islamism is sometimes blurred and difficult to discern as
some writers use them interchangeably.
As an essentially modern movement Islamism developed very much in reaction to
Western hegemony. Young Ottomans (Namık Kemal, Ziya Pasha, Ali Suavi and their
friends) were the first to respond to the Muslims’ weakness vis-à-vis western
hegemony, superiority and institutions by trying to formulate Islamic answers from the
original Islamic sources, blaming also their rulers for their corruption and for not
returning to authentic Islam.
They argued that many western institutions such as constitutionalism are already
authentic Islamic institutions (Türköne 1994, see also Mardin 1962). Young Ottomans
could be seen as predecessors of Jamal al-Din Afghani and Muhammed Abduh who
are widely known as first Islamists. But unlike Afghani and Abduh, Young Ottomans
were more politically-minded and their and their main concern was the heavy critic of
the Ottoman rulers. Thus, even though they were not practicing Muslims in their daily
lives, they instrumentally used Islamic concepts to legitimize their actions and mobilize
the elite & masses against the Ottoman establishment in a country where Islam was the
grammar of society. Their starting point actually was not Islam. First they accepted the
feasibility of transplanting of western institutions such as parliament and
constitutionalism. But to make them acceptable in a Muslim society they tried to
legitimize western institutions by an archeological work on the original Islamic
sources. If we understand Islamism as politicization of religion or instrumentalist use of
religion in politics, then, from this perspective as well, Young Ottomans must be
considered as the first Islamists.

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Islamism as movement emerged as a reaction to the Western colonialism in the

middle of the twentieth century. Islamism’s seminal thinkers and activists established
their organizations mainly in Egypt and Pakistan, while secularized Republican Turkey
was under authoritarian one-party regime and did not allow room for public, let alone
political, manifestations of Islam. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-
Islami’s foundations were laid by the Hasan al-Banna who established the Brotherhood
in 1928, and Sayyid Abu l’Ala Maududi who founded Jamaat-i-Islami in 1941. Even
though Hasan al-Banna is known to be sensitive about Islam’s spiritual and ethical
dimensions, most prominent Sunni Islamists have been strict advocates of the Salafi
epistemology, a broad scripturalist epistemology whose proponents—regardless of
their political attitudes—disregard Sufism and theosophical ideas, focus on scriptural
positivism, and usually give lesser importance to the inner dimension of religious life.
The term generally refers to political Islam, ideologisation of religion and
instrumentalist use of Islam in politics. Islamism is a set of ideologies enunciating the
view that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. But depending on the
one’s definition of politics, one could even call an apolitical individual Islamist. Thus, it
is sometimes employed to make reference to observant and socially active Muslims as
well regardless of whether these people see Islam as an ideology; a political project to
be implemented and see Islam just like any other religion’s followers see their religion.
Calling any socially active religious Muslim Islamist is thus simplistic as the main tenets
of Islam –and indeed any other major religion- require the faithful to be active
participants in the public sphere with an aim of reaching a more ethical and just
society. Such usage of the term blurs the differences between individuals who take
Islam as an ideology and individuals who simply sees life as a divine test and try to
follow religion’s basic tenets that demand social activism (such as saying prayers with
the community, going to pilgrimage and meeting brothers in religion, giving alms,
helping the needy, dealing with education, trying to tackle socio-economic inequalities
and so on).
The term is also used to define fundamentalist version of religion but still not all
fundamentalists have politics or political projects in mind. If the term Islamist is
continued to be used to cover observant Muslims as well, then we need to coin a
specific term that would only denote Muslims who ideologize Islam and see it as a
political project. As indicated above, sometimes the term is used to label socially
active Muslims. But in this case we need to call all observant Muslims as Islamists
starting from the Prophet and his companions which would raise the issue of
anachronism and the term Islamism would cease its meaning and original use of
defining something modern, anti-imperialist West and so on. The reason of the first
prophet, his companions and all observant Muslims would fall within the ambit of
definition Islamist –if we continue to stick to loose use of the term to mean socially
active Muslims- is simple: Islam by its very nature a social religion or to put it

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differently demands a socially active individual. Countless examples could be given

but let us only look at the fundamentals: Five pillars of Islam. 1. Witnessing that God is
one and Muhammad (PBUH) is his messenger (shadah) 2. Saying daily prayers (salah)
3. Fasting ( sawm) 4. Paying alms (zakah) 5. Going to pilgrimage (hajj). All of these five
pillars have something to do with other people, socializing, being socially active and
so on. Moreover, Qur’an puts unequivocally that the essential duty of a Muslim is
society is that he encourages good and discourages evil (amr bil ma’ruf wa nahy anil
munkar). It is thus obvious that at the moment, the term “Islamism” is “too nebulous a
formulation to act as an analytical guide capable of explaining either the nature of the
Islamist ideology or the scope of political activities undertaken in the name of Islam”
(Ayoob 2005: 952).
Even limiting the term’s meaning to political Islam, to instrumentalist use of Islam
in politics and to seeing it an ideology is far from satisfactory because it will still not
give us an idea if it means democratically participating at elections with a faith-based
ideological mindset or if it also means ideology of Islamizing the society with a top
down systematic social engineering effort after winning the elections. Furthermore, we
also do not have a clue when the term is used if it refers to a revolutionary ideology, for
which there is not a distinctive term.
Islamists’ discourse is based on the rejection of the West but it is not crystal clear if
they also completely oppose modernity project. Islamists --- based on ontological and
epistemological incompatibilities --- do not accept the rationalist and positivist thought
derived from the enlightenment. “It is certainly easy to see how... Islamism explicitly
renounces some of the core tenets of that inheritance - secularism, individualism,
tolerance, democracy, gender equality, among them” (Halliday 1995: 416). Yet, in
practice, Islamists accept, de facto, the other derivative of modernity, a system of
social organization produced by the industrial revolution. They use many modern
socio-political instruments and do not have any feasible alternative to many of modern
phenomena such as capitalism and consumerism. Islamists have not also developed
any alternative to modern state system, political economy and technology; they have
also accepted to work within the boundaries of the nation-state despite their rhetoric of
cross-national/transnational claims. Islamists are not Luddites and make use of western
technological products. Almost all Islamists implicitly accepted western institutions, if in
modified forms and contents.
As a matter of fact, even the enlightenment’s main aims –security, freedom and
wealth- are also major aims of the Islamists although it is obvious that these are also
aims of the Islamic inheritance, not exclusively derived from the enlightenment. In the
Turkish context Yıldız (2003: 189) confirms this analysis:
Relying on a Muslim version of the Weberian analysis of
Protestantism, WP (Welfare Party) cadres held the idea that religion
is the leitmotif of "development and progress." One of the mottos of

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the party was "spiritual development." The fact that religious and
spiritual issues have been voiced as the "spiritual development"
slogan highlights the deep impact of Enlightenment rationalist
philosophy and its teleological ideas of progress and development.
The post-World War II developmentalist paradigm has arguably
had a significant influence on the formation of the political discourse
of WP and other parties of the National Outlook. The party's name
"Welfare" draws, in a similar vein, on a developmentalist repertoire.
"The crescent" and "the ear" in the party emblem represents (sic)
the spiritual and material aspects of economic growth and spiritual
development.2

It will not be wrong to suggest that Islamism is a hybrid product of modernity, anti-
modernity and a literalist interpretation of Islam cut off from its tradition. Modernity’s
penetration of Islamism should not be puzzling, as even so-called dichotomy of
modernity and tradition is blurred and let alone being diametrically opposite, they are
not even mutually exclusive. One can only talk about differences. But then, there are
even differences between several modernity projects or modernities. The main
difference of Islamism from modernity is in methodology. Whilst, modernity start from
empirical evidence to reach general conclusions, Islamists try to come from nass
(dogma) and try to interpret the empirical accordingly, disregarding the fact that even
nass was intentionally contextualized by asbab al-nuzul (cause of revelation, context)
to correspond with the empirical. A possible reason for this disregard of verses’
contextualisation could be the Islamists’ lay background. Islamism, like the other
religio-political ideologies in other religious communities, is generally championed by
lay-people with an applied-science, secular education or journalism background.
Necmettin Erbakan, for example, is a professor of mechanical engineering; many other
Islamist leaders are also trained in engineering. Rarely do Islamist leaders have a
social-science or humanities background and very few indeed took a formal education
in classical Islamic scholarship (Barton 2005: 8; Ayoob 2005: 952). Furthermore, the
ulama (plural of alim , Muslim scholar of the highest level in Islamic knowledge), the
traditional interpreters of Islamic scholars who studied and excelled in classical Islamic
subjects such as theology, exegesis and jurisprudence have been the Islamists’
favorite target of attack as for the Islamists, the ulama are a part of the problem and
most Islamists hold the ulama responsible for Muslim decline alongside the rulers who
succumbed to superior western power and hegemony (Ayoob 2005: 952).
Islamists’ reinvention of religion as a political ideology and not a theological or
socio-cultural construct provides the tools for dehistoricizing Islam and to separate it
from the various tempo-spatial contexts in which Islam has been practiced over the
fourteen hundred years. By this decontextualization of Islam, Islamists conveniently

2
On Turkish Islamism and dynamic relations between Secularism-State-Islam in Turkey, see in detail Yilmaz 2002, 2005,
2009.

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ignore, if only in theory, the social, economic and political milieu within which Muslim
societies operate (Ayoob 2005: 952). In practice, nevertheless, political manifestations
of Islam are dependent on local cultures and contexts. For instance, in contrast to the
Middle Eastern experiences, many Turkish Islamists are either close to or informal
members of officially outlawed Sufi orders. Despite the Islamists’ attempts to
decontextualise Islam, there are as many different versions of political Islams as there
are different socio-political contexts (Ayoob 2005: 953). As a matter of fact, non-
essentialist scholars who focus on culture, such as towering Clifford Geertz (1968),
argue that underneath the similarities of Islam there were such profound socio-cultural
in different contexts as to make one ask the question whether this is one religion with
different aspects or different religions sharing some common features.

Rumi’s Socio-Cultural and Political Activism

Rumi was born in the city of Balkh in 1207, at a time when all of Asia was suffering
from social, political, and military problems. The 13th century was dominated by the
Mongol invasions, which lay behind the turbulent political context of Rumi’s life and
work in Konya (then the capital of Anatolia). Rumi studied Islamic law in Damascus until
1237, when he took over his father’s post. In 1244, Rumi met Shams of Tabriz, who
became the central figure in Rumi’s life until he disappeared in 1247. Rumi’s poetry
was a continuing internal engagement with Shams’s powerful spiritual presence. It was
through his meeting with Shams that he furthered his spiritual journey and eventually
developed into the person who is now known the world over for his spiritual depth.
Rumi passed away in 1273.
Rumi's major works consist of two epic poems. The first is the Diwani Kabir or
Diwani Shamsi Tabrizi, named in honor of his friend Shams. It is often abbreviated to
Diwan. It consists of about 40,000 verses in a vibrant and energetic style. It has been
suggested that the Diwan represents Rumi's feelings while in a dance-induced spiritual
state. Although the Diwan contains many short didactic passages, on the whole it
appears as a collection of individual and separate crystallizations and concretizations
of spiritual states undergone on the path to God.3
The Mathnawi is his other seminal work. It consists of 25,000 verses, in six books
of poetry.4 The Mathnawi was written at the same time as the Diwan, and was probably
intended to place the Diwan within the wider context of Islam. It is regarded as an
explanation of some aspects of the Qur'an, placed within a more Sufi context:

3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/art/rumi_1.shtml ; for a recent bibliography attempt of Rumi see in detail
Lewis 2000: 271-326.
4
See an excellent overview of Mathnawi, Can 2005: 23-35.

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...the Mathnawi is a commentary upon these mystical states

and stations. It places them within the overall context of Islamic and
Sufi teachings and practice. And it corrects the mistaken impression
that one might receive by studying different poems in the Diwan in
isolation and separating them from the wider context of Sufism and
Islam.5

Fihi Ma Fihi is composed of Rumi’s speeches on different subjects. Rumi himself

did not prepare or write these discourses. They were recorded by his son Sultan
Valad or some other disciple of Rumi and put together as a book. Some of the
discourses are addressed to Muin al-Din Pervane. Some portions of it are commentary
on Mathnavi. There are also references to Shams-i Tabrizi, Burhan al-Din Tirmidhi, and
Salah al-Din Zarqubi (Can 2005: 36). In this study we extensively use Fihi Ma Fihi’s
English translation by Arberry (2000) as a primary source as it shows Rumi’s socially
active side and moreover details his relations to the politicians, underlining that he was
in contact with the politicians for the betterment of the world but not for daily political
gains or power seeking.
In his works, in opposition to stereotypical accounts of Sufis, Rumi strongly
underlines that humans –even if they are derwishes- should not ignore the doctrine of
causes, not to sit around heedlessly waiting for Allah’s favor, but rather to exert
themselves endlessly in order to transform this broken world into the world of peace
and justice:
I am looking all over the world for students of action so that I can teach
action. I am looking all over the world for anyone who knows action, but I find no
student of action—only of words (Rumi 2000: 133-134).

His activism is different from stereotypical Sufi remoteness to socially active units
and personalities:
The Amir, surprised by an unexpected visit from Rumi, said:
“Master, how gracious of you to honor me in this way. I never
expected this. It never even entered my mind that I could be
worthy of such an honor. By rights I should be standing night and
day in the ranks and company of your servants and attendants. I’m
not even worthy of that. How gracious this is!” Rumi said: It is all
because of your lofty spiritual aspirations. The higher and greater
your rank and the more you become occupied with important,
exalted worldly affairs, the more you consider yourself to have
fallen short of your spiritual purpose. You are not satisfied with what
you have achieved, thinking that you have too many obligations.
Since none of these attainments can blind you from that divine

5
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/art/rumi_1.shtml.

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attainment, my heart is moved to serving you. And yet for all that,
still, I wanted to pay you formal honor as well (Rumi 2000: 34).

It is obvious that in his understanding, living in the world but not of the world,
allowing no inner attachment to it is the essence of Muslim’s whole social action.
Invading Mongols’ basic policy was decentralization, and this included support for
local Sufi groups that were less doctrinaire and more open to the non-Muslim
population than the madrasa-based Seljuk orthodoxy had been. In effect, Sufi lodges
became populist civic spaces.
Rumi tried to reduce the gap between ‘ulema Islam’ and folk Islam. Rumi
communicates many things, multiple meanings, at many levels, simultaneously; he
provides explanations and keys to unlock the meaning of reality; all the words, all the
stories and explanations he conveyed say nothing more than reality, which has been
expressed so far by all the great masters of the tasawwuf tradition in Islam. He
communicated through the power of literature what he learned from the madrasah to
the hearts of the people around him, as well as the religious and political elite (Ugur
2004: 332). Rumi’s Mathnavi is for both well-educated people and people with little
education (Can 2005: 26).
Social and political conjuncture was very turbulent when Rumi emerged. It was a
period in which so many conflicts and disorders were being experienced one after the
other. There was first a great deal of dissidence and apostasy as a result of the
marginal Babai movement. People were exasperated with the continuous assaults,
pillage and invasions of the Mongols. As to the administration, the Seljuks state was
significantly weakened and getting deteriorated, fastened by the inability to cope with
internal conflicts, divisions and mismanagements. The other powerful state, the
Kharzamshahs, which once fought against the Genghis Khan’s armies and stopped
them and defended the Muslims, then turned against and were fighting the Anatolian
Seljuks and organizing territorial incursions and invasions. Benefiting from the chaotic
atmosphere and lack of authority in the region neighboring communities of the other
faiths were exploiting the circumstances for their own material and political interests.
During this period Rumi emerged as a powerful activist character and scholar. Not
only he talked about but also actively produced an atmosphere of dialogue and
tolerance through his lyrics, poetry, Mathnawi and of course, followers. Through
tolerance, he was conveying his message, which clarifies the relation of man to his/her
Creator, and one’s relation to the others and fellow beings.
Rumi’s activism included his spiritual guidance to the rulers, including the
invading Mongols (see now in detail Küçük 2007). Rumi gained much love and respect
from the sultans, viziers, and kings. These men of high positions were very eager to
see him. However, Rumi seldom accepted their invitations. He spent most of his time

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with the poor and needy. He had disciples who were sultans and viziers but also a lot
of disciples from amongst the poor and common folk (Can 2005: 92).
He was part of the urban elite in the cosmopolitan capital city of Konya. He was
also involved in the political struggles of his time in one way or another. He was in
contact with the rulers. On this, he says that:
Mohammed, the great Prophet, once said, “The worst of
scholars are those who visit princes, and the best of princes are
those who visit scholars. Wise is the prince who stands at the door
of the poor, and wretched are the poor who stand at the door of the
prince.” Now, taking the outward sense of these words, people
think that scholars should never visit princes or they will become
the worst of scholars. That is not the true meaning. Rather, the worst
of scholars are those who depend upon princes, and who revolve
their life and purpose around the attention and favor of princes.
Such scholars take up learning in hopes that princes will give them
presents, hold them in esteem, and promote them to office.
Therefore, such scholars improve themselves and pursue
knowledge on account of princes. They become scholars from their
fear of princes. They subject themselves to the princes’ control.
They conform themselves to the plans that princes or a prince visits
them, still in every case they’re the visitors, and it is the prince who
is visited. However, when scholars do not study to please princes,
but instead pursue learning from first to last for the sake of truth—
when their actions and words spring from the truth they have
learned and put to use because this is their nature and they cannot
live otherwise—just as fish can only thrive in water—such scholars
subject themselves to the control and direction of God. They
become blessed with the guidance of the prophets. Everyone living
in their time is touched by them and derives inspiration from their
example, whether they are aware of the fact or not. Should such
scholars visit a prince, they are still the ones visited and the prince
is the visitor, because in every case it is the prince who takes from
these scholars and receives help from them. Such scholars are
independent of the prince. They are like the light-giving sun, whose
whole function is giving to all, universally, converting stones into
rubies and carnelians, changing mountains into mines of copper,
gold, silver and iron, making the earth fresh and green, bringing
fruit to the trees, and warmth to the breeze. Their trade is giving,
they do not receive (Rumi 2000: 3-5).

His book “Letters” composed of 147 letters written to the authorities show Rumi’s
personal relationships with various authorities of this violent era, using extant letters to
suggest his skill at combining diplomacy with pastoral counseling. This book is
composed of letters by Rumi written to state officials. Like all of his other books, Rumi

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did not write these letters himself. He dictated them. This book, which contains 147
letters, was published in Persian by Feridun Nafiz Uzluk in Istanbul in 1937 (Can 2005:
36). These letters were translated into Turkish by Abdulbaki Gölpınarlı (1963) . Some
of the discourses are addressed to the Seljuk vizier Muin al-Din Pervane.
His Fihi Ma Fihi is full of examples of his contact with and guidance to the rulers:
“My purpose in speaking this way to the Amir (the Ruler, IY) was so that he could see
the matter correctly, and accept the will of God humbly. He has fallen out of an
exceedingly high state into a low state, yet in this way he may grow. Life can show the
most wonderful things, but behind all of them lies a trap should we forget the source of
this wonder. God has devised this plan so that we will learn not to claim, out of
arrogance and vanity, these ideas and plans as our own” (Rumi 2000: 11).
When the Ruler says: “Night and day my heart and Soul are intent upon serving
God, but because of my responsibilities with Mongol affairs I have no time for such
service.” Rumi’s answer would be: “Those works too are work done for God, since
they are the means of providing peace and security for your country. You sacrifice
yourself, your possessions, your time, so the hearts of a few will be lifted to peacefully
obeying God’s will. So this too is a good work. God has inclined you towards such
good work, and your great love for what you do is proof of God’s blessing. However, if
your love of work were to weaken, this would be a sign of grace denied, for God leads
only those who are worthy into those right attitudes that will earn spiritual rewards”
(Rumi 2000: 19). After the Ruler left, someone said: “When the Amir comes, the Master
utters mighty words. The words never stop, because he is a master of words. Words
flow from him without interruption.” Rumi replies: “If in winter time the trees do not put
forth leaves and fruit, people should not think they are not working. They are
continually at work. Winter is the season of gathering; summer is the season of
spending” (Rumi 2000: 95). When the Ruler arrives, Rumi says: “I’ve been longing to
call on you. But, knowing you were busy with the interests of the people, I spared you
the trouble” (Rumi 2000: 98). The Ruler says: “The unbelievers used to worship and
bow down to idols. Now we are doing the selfsame thing. We go and bow down and
wait upon the Mongols, and yet we consider ourselves Muslims. We have many other
idols in our heart too, such as greed, passion, temper, envy, and we are obedient to all
of them. So we act in the very same way as the unbelievers, both outwardly and
inwardly, and we consider ourselves Muslims!” Rumi answers: “But here is something
different; it enters your thoughts that this conduct is evil and utterly detestable. The eye
of your heart has seen something incomparably greater that shows up this behavior as
vile and hideous. Brackish water shows its brackishness to one who has tasted sweet
water, and things are made clear by their opposites” (Rumi 2000: 138).
In short, Rumi was not a politician but a spiritual guide who was perfectly aware of
the realities of the mundane world, essential to be a proper spiritual guide. Even
though he did not deal with daily politics, he faced and is still facing political

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accusations, such as seeking political power or being a traitor. Even in his day, Rumi
was sought out by merchants and kings, devout worshippers and rebellious seekers,
famous scholars and common peasants, men and women. When he passed away in
1273, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Arabs, Persians, Turks and “Romans” honored him at
his funeral, and men of five faiths followed his bier. The flood of people in Rumi’s
funeral was the sign of that he was understood very well and that he became and
established such a sound foundation for the community, and communities. Even this
sufficiently shows that he was not an Islamist despite the fact that he was a socially-
active scholar working for the betterment of the world, who did not hesitate to meet
with and talk to politicians.

Conclusion
It is clear that Islamism refers to the modern period, it is a totalitarian political
ideology or metanarrative and its constitutive other is the West. Islamists argue that
contemporary Muslims must return to the roots of their religion and be united
politically. Islamism “entails a political ideology articulating the idea of the necessity of
establishing an Islamic government, understood as government which implements the
shari‘a” (Ismail 2004: 616). The Islamists endeavor to articulate an Islamic ideology that
could respond to their societies’ current political, economic and cultural deficits. They
imagine Islam as a complete and ready-to-use, “divine system, with its superior
political model, cultural codes, legal structure and economic arrangement --- a system
that responds to all human problems. More importantly, this Islam was to offer Muslims
a sense of self-respect, self-confidence, and a discursive autonomy” (Bayat 2007a: 14).
Islamists aim to apply their version of shari‘a in full and to eliminate western influences
in the “Muslim World” especially in the areas of politics, economy, society and culture,
which they consider to be incompatible with the “true and authentic” Islam.
Obviously, Rumi was not Islamist even though he was a socially active observant
Muslim scholar. In a similar vein, many Muslims are just similar to Rumi and contribute
to social and educational projects but they are arbitrarily labeled as Islamists even
though they do not have any political discourse and do not even espouse anti-Western
rhetoric. Saying this does not mean that they do not care about politics. Many of them
do as active citizens and they participate at the elections but they vote any centre right
or left party and in most cases they avoid voting Islamist parties. Several examples
could be given from the West European and Turkish cases.
In concluding, the term “Islamism” should --- at least --- be limited to mean “a
form of instrumentalization of Islam by individuals, groups and organizations that
pursue political objectives. It provides political responses to today’s societal
challenges by imagining a future, the foundations for which rest on reappropriated,
reinvented concepts borrowed from the Islamic tradition” (Denoeux 2002: 61). It

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should be underlined that these political objectives and political responses are openly
voiced by actors who are involved in daily politics in the name of Islam. Claims of
universalism and monopoly of religious truth, exclusivism, obligation, and
responsibility and anti-West rhetoric are the main tenets of Islamism. Generally
speaking, inclusion, compromise and tolerance are anathema to Islamism. Clearly
overwhelming majority of Muslims --- be socially active or not --- do not fall within the
ambit of Islamism. Thus the arbitrary use of the term should be avoided for academic
concerns. It must be noted that the above-given definition has still some limitations and
does not address several problems that we elaborated on in this study. Thus, further
terms should be coined to discern several Islamist ideologies and groups from each
other, based on their rhetoric on and attitudes towards democracy, violence,
radicalism, exclusivism, nationalism, revolution, piecemeal approach, social
engineering mentality and so on.

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