Islamism a religio-political ideology that seeks to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory, purify it of foreign elements, reassert its role into "social and political as well as personal life" where "government and society are ordered in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" (aka Sharia).
It is thought to have started to form towards the end of the 19th Century with Sayyid Rashid Rida, developed as an idea "more or less in 1940" (according to Olivier Roy), under Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Sayyid Qutb, Abul A'la Maududi, and Ruhollah Khomeini; surprising the world with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, and going on to "arguably" alter "the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders" (according to author Robin Wright).
As of 2020, at least some observers have detected a decline in the vigor and popularity of the ideology, as well a backlash against Islamist rule in some countries (Turkey, Iran, and Sudan).
Precussor events
Debate on revival of Caliphate
The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire, which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne, the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly exercised by the Government in Angora (now Ankara) over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, Mehmed VI, departed the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. In March 1924, the Caliphate was abolished, marking the end of Ottoman influence. This shocked the Sunni clerical world, and some felt the need to present Islam not as a traditional religion but as an innovative socio-political ideology of a modern nation-state. The success of the October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin in 1917 was a source of inspiration. Though militantly atheist (and though they subjected Muslims under their control to "vigorous state-sponsored anti Islamic propaganda" (29)), Bolsheviks were the enemy of their enemy, branded themselves as the movement of the future that overturned the economic, political system of European colonialism. In British India, the Khilafat movement (1919–24) following World War I was led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abul Kalam Azad as an expression of this desperation. The reaction to new realities of the modern world gave birth to Islamist ideologues like Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi and organizations such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam in India. Rashid Rida was a prominent Salafi theologian of Egypt who called for the revival of Hadith studies in Sunni seminaries and a pioneering theoretician of Islamism in the modern age. During 1922–1923, Rida would publish a series of articles in Al-Manar titled “The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate”. In this highly influential treatise, Rida advocates for the restoration of Caliphate ruled by muslim jurists and proposes gradualist measures of education, reformation and purification through the efforts of Salafiyya reform movements across the globe. Ayatullah Khomeini's book government of the jurist is greatly influenced by this book, so is his call to the pure Islam () and his analysis of the post-colonial Muslim world. Sayyid Rashid Rida, a student of Muhammad Abduh, had visited India in 1912 and was impressed by the Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama seminaries. These seminaries carried the legacy of Syed Ahmad Barelvi and his pre-modern Islamic emirate. Maududi was an Islamist ideologue and Hanafi Sunni scholar active in Hyderabad Deccan and later in Pakistan. Maududi was born to a clerical family and got his early education at home. At the age of eleven, he was admitted to a public school in Aurangabad. In 1919, he joined the Khilafat Movement and got closer to the scholars of Deoband. He commenced the dars-i nizami education under supervision of Deobandi seminary at the Fatihpuri mosque in Delhi. In 1925, he wrote a book on Jihad, al-Jihad fil-Islam(), that can be regarded as his first contribution to islamism. He was a prolific writer and wrote many books. His writings had a profound impact on Sayyid Qutb.