Who started using the phrase islamofascist?

Michael Savage? Rush Limbaugh? Bush?

:D

as his own. Which leads me to believe its origin is someone else entirely.

(This Wikipedia entry seems well-referenced.)

British journalist Christopher Hitchens used the term "Islamic fascism" or "theocratic fascism" to describe the fatwa declared on February 14, 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses, an event that was pivotal in shaping the attitude toward Islamism of Hitchens and several other prominent journalists on the left. Hitchens also used the term "fascism with an Islamic face" in The Nation after the 9/11 attacks, when the phrase spread to the blogosphere, shortened to "Islamofascism." For Hitchens and ex-Marxist Julie Burchill, who also uses these terms, there is a resonance with phrases like clerical fascism used by Marxists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism_%28term%29

Disillusioned Marxists seem to have helped create this ugly word. They abandoned their earlier beliefs but did not free their language. (I remember Burchill's Thatcher-love from "The Face.")

Roxanne Euban of Wellesley is one of several cited who abhor the neologism:

Fascism is nationalistic and Islamicism is hostile to nationalism. Fundamentalism is a transnational movement that is appealing to believers of all nations and races across national boundaries. There is no idea of racial purity as in Nazism. Islamicists have very little idea of the state. It is a religious movement, while Fascism in Europe was a secular movement. So if it's not what we really think of as nationalism, and if it's not really like what we think of as Fascist, why use these terms?"

The word is incorrect, an insult to Islam & a misuse of the English language.

It appeared about the same time as 'zionazi'.

One was a response to the other, IIRC.

Origins and usage
The origins of the term are unclear, but appear to date back to an article, "Construing Islam as a language", by Malise Ruthven that appeared on September 8, 1990 in The Independent, where he wrote:

Nevertheless there is what might be called a political problem affecting the Muslim world. In contrast to the heirs of some other non-Western traditions, including Hinduism, Shintoism and Buddhism, Islamic societies seem to have found it particularly hard to institutionalise divergences politically: authoritarian government, not to say Islamo-fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from Morocco to Pakistan.

The Guardian attributes the term to an article by Muslim scholar Khalid Duran in the Washington Times, where he used it to describe the push by some Islamist clerics to "impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry".<7>

British journalist Christopher Hitchens used the term "Islamic fascism" or "theocratic fascism" to describe the fatwa declared on February 14, 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses, an event that was pivotal in shaping the attitude toward Islamism of Hitchens and several other prominent journalists on the left.<8> Hitchens also used the term "fascism with an Islamic face" in The Nation<9> after the 9/11 attacks, when the phrase spread to the blogosphere, shortened to "Islamofascism." For Hitchens and ex-Marxist Julie Burchill, who also uses these terms, there is a resonance with phrases like clerical fascism used by Marxists.

The scholar Walter Laqueur has also described Islamism as a new form of clerical fascism.<10>

On October 6, 2005 President George W Bush used the term Islamofascism in a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy.<11>

Radio talk show host Michael Savage has used the term "Islamofascism" frequently on his program. The context suggests the invocation of Islam to justify fascist-like activities.



In his 2004 book Power, Terror, Peace and War, Walter Russell Mead invoked a different but related term, which he calls "Arabian Fascism", to describe both secular and Islamic "enemies" of America in the Middle East.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism

all the time.

Just because some people don't want to draw a distinction doesn't mean it shouldn't be drawn. At one point many people didn't want to draw the distinction between different types of communist governments, and people *did* want to draw the distinction between Nazism and fascism.

The former became important; the latter ceased being important. Many here want to draw a distinction between different kinds of Democrats, and not between different kinds of conservatives. Both sets of distinctions are worthwhile.

There are Islamists that are a problem, but who are simply like Christian Dominionists. The NYT even profiled one who was a 'moderate' imam, on the lecture circuit, and who wanted to see shari'a instituted in the US by popular election. DUers hate the Dominionists; some Islamists are their kissing cousins. What would happen to religious minorities in those kinds of states depends strongly on the flavor of Islamism or Dominionism. (I would use the term 'Reconstructionism', since my understanding of how *they* use the word 'dominion' in their writings is greatly at odds with yurica's.)

There are Islamists that have few cognates among Christians these days. They want to use violence and militias to set up an Islamic state. There aren't many Xians like that, currently; the Lord's Army, but they're clearly apostate and shunned by most Xians worldwide. What would happen to religious minorities under such theocratic states is very easy to determine. They're quite clear about it, and their goals: business would fall in line, and in such states businesses seem to 'donate' whenever they're asked, but the countries have typically been poorly corporatized. Observance of Islam is obligatory for Muslims; and non-Muslims must not give offense by actually being seen to worship. Very unpleasant.

It's unpleasant to point out these two kinds of Muslims because "there's only one Islam." Clearly a fallacy, but a deeply held one.