While professing unwavering faith in a transcendent deity, radical Islam also presents itself as a militant, politically activist ideology whose ultimate goal is to create a worldwide community, or caliphate, of Muslim believers. Determined to achieve this new world order by any means necessary, including violence and mass murder, radical Islam is characterized by its contempt for the beliefs, practices, and symbols of other religious traditions. This intolerant, condemning creed serves as the ideological justification that contemporary Islamic terrorists cite for their actions.

Radical Islam’s kinship with terrorism, and its willingness to use violence as a means to its ultimate ends, is clearly spelled out in a training manual produced by the radical Islamist terror group al Qaeda, whose operatives carried out the 9/11 attacks. Noting that among al Qaeda’s “long-term goals” is “the establishment of an Islamic state,” this publication candidly says that an “Islamic government would never be established except by the bomb and rifle. Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun. The young came to prepare themselves for Jihad [holy war], commanded by the majestic Allah’s order in the holy Koran.”

Jihad (sacred war) against non-believers is a concept central to Islam. For radical Islam in particular, jihad is a historically violent phenomenon that has visited misery and death on non-Muslims for many centuries. As Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes explains, "The way the jihadists understand the term is in keeping with its usage through fourteen centuries of Islamic history. . . . The goal is boldly offensive, and its ultimate intent is nothing less than to achieve Muslim dominion over the entire world. . . . Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. . . . Today, jihad is the world's foremost source of terrorism, inspiring a worldwide campaign of violence by self-proclaimed jihadist groups."

Scholar of Middle East affairs Martin Kramer elaborates further on the goals of radical Islamists: “The idea is simple: Islam must have power in this world. It is the true religion—the religion of God—and its truth is manifest in its power. When Muslims believed, they were powerful. Their power has been lost in modern times because Islam has been abandoned by many Muslims, who have reverted to the condition that preceded God’s revelation to the Prophet Muhammad. But if Muslims now return to the original Islam, they can preserve and even restore their power. That return, to be effective, must be comprehensive; Islam provides the one and only solution to all questions in this world, from public policy to private conduct. It is not merely a religion, in the Western sense of a system of belief in God. It possesses an immutable law, revealed by God, that deals with every aspect of life, and it is an ideology, a complete system of belief about the organization of the state and the world. This law and ideology can only be implemented through the establishment of a truly Islamic state, under the sovereignty of God. The empowerment of Islam, which is God’s plan for mankind, is a sacred end.”

When trying to explain the Islamists' global campaign of conquest and mass murder, both liberals and conservatives assume that the Islamist holy war against the West revolves solely around Westerners themselves, around the moral drama of their goodness or their wickedness, rather than having something to do with Islam itself. For example, people on the anti-war left believe that al Qaeda attacked the U.S. because it is imperialist, racist, or insufficiently responsive to the needs of the Third-World poor. By contrast, the pro-war right (including President Bush) maintains that the Islamists hate Americans for their freedoms, opportunities, and overall success as a society.  In other words, the left believes that the Islamists hate Americans for their sins, and the right believes that the Islamists hate Americans for their virtues. 

A very different perspective on the Islamist mindset is offered by Mary Habeck, a military historian at Yale University. Habeck holds that radical Muslims base their war against non-Moslems on the Islamic sacred writings, particularly the Sira, which, unlike the Koran, tells the story of the Prophet Muhammed's life in chronological sequence. Using Muhammed as their model, the jihadists think and act within paradigms provided by the stages of Muhammed’s political and military career. According to Habeck, this internally driven logic of Islam, and not any particular provocation, real or imagined, by some outside power, is the key to understanding why the jihadists do what they do. While specific actions by the West might provoke the jihadists to greater attacks, their fundamental strategic and military decisions are not determined by anything done by the United States, Europe, or any other perceived enemy of Islam, but rather by tenets within Islam itself that call for the killing of the foes of Allah.

The term "Islamofascism," which is often used to describe the ideology of today's radical Islamists, was introduced by the French writer Maxime Rodinson to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. She wrote:

“A quick review of ideology is in order. ... No other type of ideology, (democracy, communism, or despotism) matches what our enemy stands for as does the ideology of fascism. Islamofascism is the Islamic jihadist ideology grafted onto the totalitarian dictatorial system of fascism where the goals of Islam are more important than that of the individual. It seeks to re-create a mythical past, glorification of war, violence, intimidation, belligerency, superiority over non-believers, anti-Semitism and anti-liberalism are all components of this ideology. ... The pairing of the two words "Islamic" and "fascism" conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam. Who are the Islamofascists? They are the practitioners of militant Islam. Militant Islam contains elements of terrorism, religious fundamentalism, and the exploitation of social and economic injustice. It has ideological fervor, it has global reach, it is ambitious and it has staying power. They seek to re-create the Caliphate that once existed from southern France, to the gates of Vienna, to the plains of India, the steppes of Russia and western China -- and then once regaining that, beyond. Islamofascism is now a global threat because certain Arab and Muslim governments have chosen to export it.”

Radical Islamists tend to gravitate toward any of three major methods of achieving their ultimate objective. The first method is to fight the Near Enemy prior to fighting the Far Enemy. The Near Enemy is anyone inside Islamic lands, whether it is an occupier or someone who has taken away territory that used to be Islamic. The second method is to fight the Greater Unbelief—the major enemy, which today is the United States—before the Lesser Unbelief. And the third method is to fight the Apostates (false Muslims) first, and then the other Unbelievers. Each of these three traditions stresses the overriding importance of conquering infidels; they differ only in how they prioritize the deeds necessary to achieve that conquest.

In this section of DiscoverTheNetworks, the category titled Radical Islam's Nature, Goals, & History examines the phenomenon of radical, or fundamentalist, Islam -- its roots, its guiding principles, and its ultimate objectives.

The category titled Islamic Genocide Plan examines the murderous intentions of the Islamo-fascists, as told in their own words. The speakers include primarily political figures, terror group leaders, clerics, and scholars. Excerpts from the founding charters and other key documents of various Islamo-fascist organizations are also included.

The category titled Islamic Law (Sharia) examines the system of Islamic Law known as Shari'a, which Muslims consider to be the divinely ordained commands of Allah. Sharia is, in many ways, incompatible with Western legal systems.

The category titled Women and Radical Islam examines the subjugation of women under Islam, which treats them as second-class citizens.

The category titled Islamic Slavery explores the history of slavery in the Islamic world, where the practice persists, in certain places, to this day.

the category titled Islam and Political Freedom / Repression examines the question of whether or not Islam is compatible with democratic forms of government.

The category titled Muslim Persecution of Christians explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, Christians are mistreated in Islamic nations.

The category titled Radical Islam in the West examines the proliferation and influence of radical, militant Islam in the United States and the rest of the Western world.

The category titled Radical Islam and U.S. / European Prisons examines the infiltration of American and European prisons by jihadist imams and jihadist literature.