Moussa Bourekba, Research Fellow at CIDOB, reflects on the differences between Islam, Islamism, and jihadism on this podcast: “When people usually talk about political Islam, they refer to the use of Islam for political purposes. Under that perspective, Islam is not seen as a set of believes, rituals and practices, but rather as a set of values and norms that should regulate life in society, meaning these principles should regulate life in the social sphere, but also in the political, economic, and cultural spheres. The underlying idea behind political Islam is that the decline of Muslim civilisation is mainly due to the lack proper Islamic collective norms and regulations, but also the lack of truly authentic Islamic practices at the individual level. Political Islam developed as a political theory of a just society that is based on this search for Islamic authenticity. So, I would say that Islam is a religion, a set of believes, while political Islam encapsulates the political use of that religion with the aim of getting access to power and stablish an Islamic society.”
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