Marie-Thérèse Urvoy is a French scholar of Islam. She is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies, Medieval History of Islam, Classical Arabic and Arabic Philosophy at the Catholic Institute in Toulouse and taught Islamic Studies and Arabic Philosophy at the Institut de philosophie comparée (IPC) in Paris. She was also an associate professor at the Graduate School of the University of Bordeaux-III and a member of the editorial board of the journal Islamochristiana, published by the Pontifical Institute for Arabic Studies and Islamology. Wikipédia
Question: Doesn’t the distinction between Islam and Islamism nevertheless make sense?
Marie-Thérèse Urvoy: The distinction between Islam and Islamism is meaningful because Islam denotes the socioreligious system as such and Islam is also the conviction that the laws of Islam should prevail over the laws of man. However, it does not denote a simple distinction between moderation and radicalism. Moderation and radicalism are a matter for the individual Muslim.
A so-called moderate Muslim is someone who manages to put a distance between himself and the basic dogmas and is willing to practice his faith privately. An Islamist is someone who pushes the precepts of his faith to the extreme, the conquest of every place where the ummah is located. Wherever there are two believers, there is the ummah.
Unlike Christianity, Islam carries a political dimension from the very beginning. It is not just a religion, but a code that regulates the essentials of life. The Christian will not be able to derive any clear political commandments from the Gospels. Muslims, on the other hand, will always find politics in their sacred texts: Discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims is already enshrined in the Charter of Medina dictated by the Prophet. The distinction between Muslims and dhimmis is highly political, as is that between men and women, which is detailed in all treatises of Islamic law.
Hasn’t there always been a struggle in history between a moderate and a radical interpretation of the Koran?
This debate arose very early on, but as Islam spread geographically, it came to a halt. Between the 9th century, when the people resisted an attempt by the rulers to impose a rationalising dogma, and the 13th century, there was a series of three aggravations, traditionally called “restorations of Sunnism”, i.e. of the traditional view. In the first episode, the figure of Ibn Hanbal (d. 855) emerges to establish a school of law, the most literal, which is adopted by Wahhabism nine centuries later. This was a negative development. There was a decline in the spiritual debate in Islam.
The term “Enlightenment Islam” has its origin in France. Its proponents look to history for examples to whitewash it. They have instrumentalised Averroes and spread the mythicised image of an apostle of tolerance
What do you think of the French government’s efforts to regulate Islam in France?
I am often accused of pessimism. But I am often just one step ahead of the realisations made by the politicians themselves. There is a certain naivety at the beginning, and when it fades, it is too late. When I hear the Minister of the Interior say that he can’t close Salafist mosques for more than six months because that’s the law … then the law has to be changed.
As for the “Law on Islamist Separatism”, the very word “separatism” is problematic. It is not appropriate because Islamism does not aim at separation but at conquest. When demography permits, it does not want to separate and works to exploit the administrative and financial resources of the host country with the intention of subverting them in favour of the one universal community called the Ummah. This is evident in the famous proclamation faced by host countries, “We will win by your laws, and we will rule you by our laws”. Imam Iquioussen (a star preacher on the internet and member of the former UOIF, note) also illustrates this by urging his fellow believers to negotiate with candidates in elections: they should get votes if their demands are met. Le Figaro