The Ideology We Refuse to Name

For decades, Western governments have focused on fighting Islamist terrorism. During my investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities across Europe and beyond, I found a different question emerging from government reports, intelligence assessments and historical examples: what happens when democracies become unwilling to confront the political ideology that often precedes the violence?

The First Warning

In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sentenced British author Salman Rushdie to death for writing The Satanic Verses. It remains one of the most extraordinary assaults on freedom of expression in modern history. A novelist living under British law found himself condemned by the ruler of a foreign theocracy because of a work of fiction.

Most people remember the fatwa. Far fewer remember what happened next. During a televised exchange, an Iranian representative in Britain was asked a simple question:

“Do you understand that we do not regard it as civilized to kill people for their opinions?”

The reply has echoed for more than three decades:

“Well, you may have different versions of defining civilization.”

That exchange was never really about Salman Rushdie. It revealed two fundamentally different understandings of freedom and authority. The interviewer assumed that murdering someone for writing a novel was self-evidently barbaric. The Iranian representative rejected the premise itself.

Thirty years later, Rushdie was stabbed while preparing to speak at a literary event in New York, losing sight in one eye. The ideas behind the original fatwa had outlived the headlines.

That was the thread I kept returning to throughout this investigation.

Over the past several months, I examined government reports, historical records and public statements concerning the Muslim Brotherhood and organisations accused of links to it across Europe and North America. What struck me most was not simply the allegations themselves, but who was making them. Increasingly, the warnings were coming not from activists or politicians, but from governments and intelligence services.

The question is no longer whether political Islam exists. The question is whether Western democracies have become reluctant to discuss it as a political ideology. That distinction lies at the heart of everything that follows.

Governments Are Beginning to Notice

If the Rushdie affair was an early warning about the challenge political Islam posed to liberal democracy, today’s debate has shifted into a different arena. It is no longer centred on novelists, protests or terrorist attacks. Increasingly, it concerns institutions.

One of the most significant developments I encountered during this investigation came not from a think tank or campaign group, but from the French state itself.

Last year, a confidential seventy-three-page report prepared by France’s Interior Ministry was leaked to Le Figaro. The report describes organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood as pursuing a long-term strategy of influence through civic foundations, charities, lobbying groups, youth organisations, municipal networks and religious institutions. Rather than seeking immediate confrontation with the state, it argues that these organisations aim to become so embedded in public life that elected leaders can no longer ignore their demands.

The significance of the report lies as much in its source as in its conclusions. For years, warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe were often dismissed because they came from campaigners or think tanks with obvious ideological positions. This time, the concerns came from France’s own Interior Ministry. President Emmanuel Macron attempted to prevent the report from being published before it was ultimately leaked, bringing a debate once confined to specialists into the public domain.

France was not alone.

Nearly fifteen years earlier, the Center for Security Policy in the United States published Shariah: The Threat to America, making similar arguments about the Muslim Brotherhood’s long-term ambitions. The report later became associated with efforts by Senator Ted Cruz to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. Almost immediately, however, public attention shifted away from its findings and towards the organisation that produced it. Critics challenged the Center itself, while supporters argued that the evidence had become secondary to arguments over motive and credibility.

That pattern repeated itself throughout my research. Again and again, discussions about political Islam became discussions about the people raising the issue rather than the issue itself. The Islamophobia Network criticised the Center for Security Policy by scrutinising its funding rather than directly addressing its conclusions. Similar criticisms were later amplified by organisations including CAIR before being echoed by the Bridge Initiative.

Whether those reports ultimately prove entirely correct is not the central point.

The more important question is why governments across the West appear increasingly willing to discuss Islamist terrorism while remaining far more hesitant to discuss Islamism itself. Long before violence becomes relevant, political movements seek legitimacy. They establish organisations, cultivate relationships and build institutions. The French Interior Ministry’s report argues that this gradual process is already taking place.

Influence Before Violence

When most people hear the words “Islamist threat,” they picture terrorist attacks, suicide bombings or lone actors carrying out atrocities. Those moments dominate headlines. The reports I examined describe something different: a political movement that seeks long-term influence through civic participation, charities, education, lobbying and public institutions rather than violence alone.

That is precisely why the French Interior Ministry’s report attracted so much attention. It argues that organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood pursue influence by becoming embedded in civil society. Civic foundations, charities, youth organisations, lobbying groups and religious institutions become vehicles through which ideas gradually acquire legitimacy. The report describes a strategy of institutional influence rather than immediate confrontation.

Throughout my research, I found that discussions about political Islam were frequently met with accusations of “Islamophobia.” Organisations responding to reports on the Muslim Brotherhood often concentrated on questioning the motives or funding of those producing them rather than engaging directly with their findings. Similar arguments appeared in France, the United States, Canada and Britain, where criticism of political Islam increasingly became intertwined with accusations of prejudice against Muslims.

This is a distinction democracies have to preserve. Islam is one of the world’s major religions, followed peacefully by millions of people across Europe and North America. Islamism is a political ideology seeking influence within democratic societies. Confusing the two does not protect religious freedom. It makes serious discussion of political ideology increasingly difficult.

Political influence also requires resources. One organisation that repeatedly appeared during my investigation was the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations, better known as FEMYSO. FEMYSO has reportedly received €6.75 million from the Islamic Development Bank together with substantial funding from Qatar since 2016. It has also received funding through European Union programmes while facing accusations from critics regarding proximity to Islamist networks.

These allegations sit within a broader discussion about foreign influence. Qatar has sought to expand its presence in Europe not only through charitable and educational initiatives but also through political relationships. Corruption allegations involving senior European politicians provide a compelling reason to examine ideological influence with the same seriousness applied to other forms of foreign interference.

The point is not that every organisation discussed in these reports is guilty of wrongdoing. It is that democracies routinely investigate foreign influence from hostile states. If governments are prepared to scrutinise those networks, it is reasonable that allegations of organised ideological influence should also receive careful public examination.

Britain’s Blind Spot

If France illustrates how governments are beginning to recognise the challenge of political Islam, Britain raises a different question. What happens when individuals who once defended Islamist causes become accepted participants in the political establishment?

The Rushdie affair offers one answer. When Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced Salman Rushdie to death, he did not act alone. Archival footage shows individuals in Britain openly celebrating the fatwa and calling for Rushdie’s death. At the time, those views were not confined to Tehran. They were being expressed publicly on British streets.

One example stood out. Inayat Bunglawala publicly supported Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa before later serving in an advisory role to the UK Home Office on counter-extremism. His views have also appeared regularly in mainstream British media. The point is not that people cannot change their opinions. It is that governments should be clear about where they draw the line between engagement with religious communities and engagement with individuals whose previous public positions remain deeply controversial.

More broadly, Western governments have become increasingly confident in condemning acts of terrorism while remaining considerably less comfortable discussing the political ideology that often surrounds them. Politicians are balancing competing priorities: protecting religious freedom, maintaining social cohesion and responding to growing public concern about extremism. Those are legitimate responsibilities. But they become harder to fulfil if the distinction between a religion and a political ideology disappears from public debate.

Some of the strongest warnings I encountered did not come from Europe at all. A senior official in the United Arab Emirates argued that Europe’s reluctance to confront political Islam risks creating more radical extremism in the future. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, it is striking that some of the clearest warnings featured in my reporting come from governments in the Middle East that have spent decades confronting Islamist movements themselves.

Sudan Is Not Europe. It Is a Warning.

At first glance, Sudan appears to have little in common with France, Britain or the wider European debate. One is a country devastated by civil war. The others are stable democracies. That is not the comparison I am making. The comparison is about institutions.

Throughout my investigation, Sudan appeared repeatedly as an example of what can happen when an ideological movement gradually embeds itself within the machinery of the state. Sudan was not transformed overnight. Its civil service and armed forces became increasingly shaped by Islamist ideology over many years. By the time open conflict erupted, institutions that should have served the public had become increasingly defined by ideological loyalty.

The consequences have been devastating. Nearly 19.5 million people now face acute hunger, millions have been displaced and much of Sudan’s economic, legal and public infrastructure has collapsed. Sudan is not simply another humanitarian tragedy. It is a warning about what can happen when ideology steadily eclipses institutions.

Europe is not Sudan. Nor does this investigation argue that it is becoming Sudan. The point is simpler. Political movements rarely reveal their ultimate ambitions at the outset. They build influence, cultivate institutions and establish legitimacy long before their broader objectives become visible.

The Sudanese Armed Forces under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became increasingly influenced by Islamist ideology over many years. The conflict with the Rapid Support Forces is no longer merely a struggle between rival military leaders, but a contest over the political future of the Sudanese state itself.

Nor is Sudan’s war purely domestic. Egypt, Turkey, Eritrea and Qatar all have strategic interests in the conflict, while the weakening of Iranian influence has created a new competition over Sudan’s future. Ideology, geopolitics and control of the Red Sea are overlapping dimensions of the same conflict.

Sudan matters because it demonstrates how ideological politics, foreign influence and institutional capture can reshape a country over decades before the consequences become impossible to reverse.

The Lesson We Still Haven’t Learned

When I began this investigation, I expected to spend most of my time examining organisations, reports and funding networks. Instead, I kept returning to one moment in 1989.

A British interviewer asked an Iranian representative whether murdering someone for writing a book could ever be considered civilized.

The answer was simple:

“You may have different versions of defining civilization.”

That exchange has never really been about Salman Rushdie. It was about whether liberal democracies are prepared to defend their own understanding of freedom when confronted by political movements that reject it.

Political influence almost never begins with violence. It begins with institutions. It begins with charities, civic organisations, educational networks, lobbying groups and political relationships. That is the thread running through the French Interior Ministry’s report, the organisations examined in Britain and the United States, and the story of Sudan itself.

The Rushdie affair showed what happens when an ideology rejects freedom of expression. The challenge facing the West today is different. It is whether we still possess enough confidence in our own democratic values to recognise political ideologies for what they are, debate them openly and distinguish them carefully from the religions they claim to represent.

Democracies have always been remarkably effective at confronting enemies they are willing to name. Their greater failures begin when they refuse to recognise them at all.