War on Islam controversy

The "War on Islam" is a concept advocated by some Muslims to denote what they perceive as a concerted effort by non-Muslims and "false Muslims" to harm, weaken, or annihilate Islam and Muslim society around the world. This effort is described as consisting of any level of military, economic, social, or cultural interference in the affairs of Muslim-majority countries, accompanied by negative portrayals of Islam in the media. Though the idea itself was put forward by some Muslim scholars centuries ago, it became particularly widespread in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the beginning of the global war on terrorism in 2001. Generally, the themes of the "War on Islam" mostly concern the issues of modernization and secularization in Muslim society, as well as current international power politics. Many Islamists who have asserted the "War on Islam" theory have cited the Crusades as the earliest manifestation of an ongoing organized campaign to destroy Islam.

The phrase or similar phrases have been used by several notable Muslim figures, such as Egyptian political theorist Sayyid Qutb; Iranian revolutionary Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution; Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki; Saudi-born militant leader Osama bin Laden, who founded al-Qaeda in 1988; Chechen warlord Dokka Umarov; British-Pakistani cleric Anjem Choudary; and Palestinian-American ex-soldier Nidal Hasan, who perpetrated the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The concept has also been repeatedly invoked by a number of jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The English-language political neologism of "War on Islam" was coined in Islamist discourse in the 1990s and gained significant popularity as a conspiracy theory after 2001. While the "War on Islam" theory primarily and most frequently targets the Western world and Israel as the perceived orchestrators, it has also been used to antagonize a variety of other societies and countries, namely India, Russia, and China, as well as the governments of Muslim countries that are seen as subservient to the aforementioned non-Muslim orchestrators' interests.

American author Jonathan Schanzer has argued that the historical Muslim indifference to the Western world turned to "alarmed dislike" with the beginning of Western military and economic superiority in the 17th century. However, since the end of the era of Western colonialism, the rage among Islamists towards non-Muslims and the governments of Muslim-majority countries stems not from alleged non-Muslim aggression and enmity, but from frustration over the unrelenting encroachment of non-Muslim culture, technology, economies, and from a yearning for a "return to the glorious days when Islam reigned supreme."