Although I find Shadi Hamid a very thoughtful writer (more importantly, I find his stance against what happened in 2013 courageous when few from the intellectual class in my country (who later became my professors) took it, but I want to point two things a) you said "where he witnessed the despair of life under Mubarak’s authoritarian regime", I think if you told any Egyptian the following (in hindsight), they would laugh. The World Bank even wrote in 2015 "Judging by economic data alone, the Arab Spring should have never happened", Egypt's most prosperous years came from 2002 to 2010, the regime's expansion of bureaucrats, middle class and margin of freedom was its undoing, yes poverty was high and public services were failing but I think the revolution happened due to relative deprivation not absolute one b) Shadi Hamid was viewed by some intellectual in Egypt as someone out of touch with MB's project and what is happening on the ground, he was too focused on theory and grand narratives, and I agree that Shadi in 2012 was not witnessing what others in Egypt saw by the virtue of being pundit abroad (only writes and talks for living) and did not return neither before or after. I remember one of my professors who was christian (currently one of renowned professors on democratization and editor of democratization journal) replied to him on twitter telling him to try coming and living under religious fanatics. Shadi paints only one side of the story "Liberalism vs Democracy" (a correct one) but neglects the authoritarian part of the story like Trump now. The problem is not with electing illberal populists, the problem comes when these populists dismantles the institutions and processes electing and checking them after coming into power. Yes, with the power of hindsight, the threat of MBs was overblown in Egypt and the alternative was not good, but I can understand people with so much chaos in the streets in 2011 and 2013, and real fundamental concerns over governance might pivot to a return to status quo. I do not expect that a continuation of Mubarak would have evaded many problems the current regime witnessed had the revolution never happened, but the effect in my opinion would be smaller. I think the suspicion and criticism received during this period was partly justified. Additionally, despite his credentials, Shadi remains pundit rather a scholar like Tarek Masoud who happens to answer the same question Shadi discussed but empirically. I feel sympathy to Shadi not only because I agree with his priors but I find him attacked by intellectuals in Egypt and by some pro-israel voices in America, yet it is the cost of pursuing the life he chose to.
Watching the revolution and aftermath from my metaphorical armchair in New Zealand I remember it very differently: the Muslim Brotherhood were the liberals and it was the Salafists that were their primary opposition. As a democrat myself I was very happy to see the Brotherhood win because it meant democracy would have a good chance; the Salafists would have very likely ended it.
The tragedy was that Morsi turned out to be an incompetent President and that allowed Sisi to take advantage and end democracy.
The book discussing Islamists in the Middle East offers several intriguing insights and challenges common Western perspectives on the subject.
I agree with the critique that Western pundits calling for a Protestant-style reformation within Islam are misguided. This view often stems from a projection of historical paranoia about globalist Catholics onto contemporary globalist Islamists, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. In Sunni Islam, individual Muslims have traditionally had the authority to interpret the Qur'an for themselves, negating the need for a Protestant-like reformation.
Support for Islamism does not primarily come from Muslim elites or poor, illiterate villagers. Instead, it is often driven by the newly emerging middle class, similar to the demographic that supported communist movements a century ago.
While the book highlights that Islamists are not necessarily extremist jihadists and are contesting elections, this perspective overlooks crucial details. Islamists often respect elections only as a means to gain power, with the ultimate goal of dismantling the very institutions that allowed their rise. The example of Islamists in Turkey illustrates this point.
Moreover, many Islamist parties operate with a dual structure: a civil, mainstream wing that contests elections, and a more militant wing that intimidates minorities and liberals. The mainstream wing typically disavows any connection to the militant wing but stops short of condemning their violent tactics or supporting legal action against them.
Islamism, much like communism a century ago, is a globalist movement. Even when Islamists run for local elections, they often focus on broader issues like Palestine, adopting neo-colonialist narratives perpetuated by Western leftists. This globalist ideology takes precedence over national interests, leading to potential conflicts with non-Muslim neighboring countries. In Bangladesh, for instance, despite Israel's support for independence, the leadership prioritized aligning with Islamic countries, even sending troops to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war during a domestic famine.
"Support for Islamism does not primarily come from Muslim elites or poor, illiterate villagers. Instead, it is often driven by the newly emerging middle class, similar to the demographic that supported communist movements a century ago."
You mentioned the classes that supported communism, but were the same that supported liberalism in the West time ago (both, liberalism and communism, are universalist and teleological ideologies, secularization of previous religious ideologies). There were "aspirant elites", and we have to count with the "will of power" by some different groups of elites (political, cultural....).
I don't know anything of Islam or countries in the are, but I usually see a parallel between islamism and "the will of people" of democracies. The reject that the Islam shows to power non-islamic, is analogous to the reject of power non-elected in democracies. In both, it seems that if the power doesn't share the will, values or identities of people are bad and unfair. That's why, its seems to me, that the success of Islam is seen as the success of "we, the people" for all the believers, exactly the same that the winning of x political party is seen as the success of "we, the workers", "we, the French", "we, the educated and progressive".... Both share an idealistic apriorism, where a government worth not by they work if not by they origin. I don't know what do you think about this similarity between Islamism and democracies.
Yeah. More or less. The globalisation of Islam since the 70s is also undermining conventional nationalist movements as well. Again coming from middle classes learning about the Qur'an and realising that their traditional practices differed significantly from Islamic teachings.
Shadi shows that the US-Europe Western hegemony has frequently been hypocritical in opposing and intervening against various local political trends because they aren’t democratic when in fact the Westerners sought allies and opposed enemies and determined these according to secular or Islamic, without regard to popular support, majority rule via electoral system or singular and repressive rule. However it does not necessarily follow that the objective of majority electoral system should be the principle of supporting or opposing trends. Pluralist state with orderly succession can be achieved through varied traditions and moreover there arise situations of instability where singular rule may be the only available means to stabilize and provide opportunity for more pluralist forms later. More basic than the electoral system are the needs for national state union, ascending the economic structure level (e.g. to processing before export or to industrialization or to software enabled), and operation of ethic systems to nurture families and capable citizens. A fundamental lever of western hegemony has been the secular lay conflict against local ethic systems which destabilizes the society by weakening the ethic system and not replacing it with any other ethic system. This is a prejudice against Islam chosen to destabilize local society not a mistaken understanding of electoral democracy. But practically shadi’s recipe of crusade without the crusaders frequently cannot discern positive directions of trends. By any path that HTS can reach agreement with SDF and incorporate or suppress the militias benefits Syria. HTS is salafi but has renounced supremacism and terrorism and has no ideology of electoral system. Saudi is a type of singular rule yet has potential to shepherd reintegration of the Land of Jerusalem. Turkiye is an electoral system and may align Syria and Jordan and also shepherd reintegration. The democracy filter provides no guide to vital and urgent progress of countries in these examples.
I have to read the book itself but from your summary here Shahid seems to be speaking from both sides of his mouth and wrapping it in grand rhetoric.
It’s not unusual though. I’ve seen this in his Wisdom of the Crowds essays as well.
It is a grave failure to apply his own claim to consistency when he claims that procedural democracy is what should be supported and also claim to deeply resent autocracy.
In effect he’s claiming that western powers should not support autocrats/monarchies that commit to some level of secularist tolerance, if insufficient. But western powers should accommodate the “procedural democracy” that allows increasingly intolerant Islamism to take power, rapidly dismantle democratic institutions, and crucially, then also become authoritarian (see Türkiye).
How does this logic make sense to a rigorous thinker?
And the attempt to separate Islamism from “so-called violent Jihadism” is tenuous at best. Islamism seems to be. purist political response to Jihadist takeover. Both do not sound to me, to be diametrically opposed in goals. Just in initial methods, initial membership (middle class vs lower class–although not always) and few peripheral differences.
That said, Islamism will fight whatever threatens its power over the state. Overtly (if in power), covertly if out of power. These types of fights do not tend to happen via ballot boxes, parliament or demonstrations. They are often bloody, and hit civilians the hardest.
I guess it depends on what you describe as “violent” and what we’ve seen is that whether or not an Islamist party embraces or rejects violence depends upon it’s goals, the extent to which violence serves it as a state and occasionally the rhetorical legitimacy it brings.
Sure they may not wish to overthrow the state, but Erdogan is arguably set on building a modern ottoman “caliphate,” Algeria is about as Islamist as you could have it and October 7 happened under Islamist Hamas. Neither RSF or SAF, the parties that ended the popular transitional (non-Islamist) government, can be viewed as wanting to build secularist autocracies/monarchies. Sometimes humans just want raw power and they will be Islamist if it serves them well. Or non-democratic autocrats.
“illiberal democracy” is hardly any different from authoritarian monarchies in form and substance.
That said, I have not engaged with the supposed western support for or rejection of Islamism. I think it’s a reductive point. Türkiye is still a NATO member, for example.
I agree with the perspective that outcomes are what is more important. But not just for the west. Even for middle eastern players. Islamist or monarch are a set of options to keep/get power. The end result is what’s important for both parties. In that sense, the Islamists are as guilty of hypocrisy and paying lip service to democracy as the “west”.
Same goes for relations with Israel. It is a means to an end as Mubarak demonstrated and as the Qataris (an Islamist monarchy exemplify). I don’t think pragmatism is lacking. I think Shahid doesn’t like/support the type of pragmatism that seems to currently dominate different spheres of the Middle East.
Hi Abraham, thanks for your post (because I like arguing!). I disagree with you in many ways. Here's my thoughts:
1) Not all Islamists are violent or intent on state capture.
Ennahda in Tunisia is a clear example—it’s remarkably moderate compared to groups like Hamas or Algeria’s FIS. After the 2011 revolution, Ennahda voluntarily stepped down in 2014 to prevent political instability. Morocco’s PJD has also operated peacefully within a democratic framework.
2) Algeria is not Islamist—at all.
The regime is a secular, military-backed Arab nationalist state that has long suppressed political Islam. That’s exactly what the civil war of the 1990s was about—and the secularists won. The current President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is firmly aligned with Algeria’s secular-nationalist regime, which has long treated political Islam as a threat and tightly controls Islamist movements.
3) Illiberal democracies and autocratic monarchies are fundamentally different.
While aren't liberal democracies, the structures, sources of legitimacy, and citizen participation diverge sharply:
Illiberal democracies (e.g., Hungary, Türkiye, India) hold elections—however flawed—and maintain weakened but existing institutions.
Monarchies like Saudi Arabia or the UAE are hereditary and often lack any meaningful checks on executive power.
Manipulated elections are not the same as no elections. There’s still some space—however limited—for contestation in illiberal democracies. That doesn’t exist in autocratic monarchies.
The world has never seen what it would be like to have a United States that was highly invested in the mission of spreading democracy. The US could force the entirety of Africa into democracy in the matter of a decade if it wanted to. There is nobody that could stop them and few who would even want to.
(Compare and contrast with how Britain (with US help) set out to end the slave trade. It cost them a lot of money but they cared more the morality of their mission.)
Democracy is just a very low priority for the US and in the case of countries surrounding Israel democracy is the enemy. I don't agree with Shadi Hamid that a democratic Middle East could co-exist with Israel. I reckon the US is correct to assess that propping up dictators surrounding Israel is the only way to keep Israel going, I happen to also think it's a bad trade-off.
Those Jews lived elsewhere for over a thousand years and it wouldn't hurt them much to go back to that state. Weighed against keeping about 150 million Arabs in dictatorships it's an easy decision.
As for Arabs being uniquely illiberal I also disagree with Hamid on this. Economic conditions are principal in what make a people liberal or not, not cultural factors. Democracy will at first mean conservatism reigns, but eventually, perhaps after several generations, liberalism will take hold.
In summary I agree strongly with Shadi Hamid on what should be done, I just disagree on what will happen as a result: eventually Israel would collapse and Arab nations would liberalise. And perhaps it has to happen in that order.
PS: I came up with the same idea as Hamid about two years ago but instead of "procedural democracy" I went with the phrase "open democracy".
We’ve already seen what U.S. investment in African democracy looks like—it was the 1990s! After the Soviet Union collapsed, Presidents Bush and Clinton began tying debt relief and access to World Bank and IMF loans to democratic reforms like multiparty elections and press freedom, especially as many African economies were bankrupt.
Take my country Ghana, Jerry Rawlings: an autocrat from 1979 to the early '90s, he only allowed multiparty elections in 1992 to avoid losing IMF and World Bank support—marking Ghana’s democratic transition. The same happened elsewhere. Ali Saibou in Niger, Banda in Malawi, Moi in Kenya, Kérékou in Benin, and Kaunda in Zambia all introduced elections under donor pressure. Mobutu in Zaire promised elections to regain aid but kept delaying them, fueling public anger and contributing to the First Congo War.
Before the 1990s, most of Africa was run by incompetent one-party autocrats. Today, it’s mostly incompetent multiparty democracies or autocracies that hold highly flawed elections(think Rwanda, Uganda, Mozambique)—with only a few one party autocracies left.
I reckon the 1990s was more like the US switching from actively suppressing democracy (if, or in case, socialism was chosen) to being largely indifferent to it. There were diplomatic efforts and some money; the US is a democracy and its people—including the ones who work for the government—are likely to support it in other countries as long as no orders from above contradict them.
But compared to the amount of money and effort the US put into reprisals/response from the 9/11 attacks it starts to become clear just how dramatically the US could improve the condition of democracy around the world if it really wanted to, if it was a strong directive coming from the top.
Jews lived in Europe and elsewhere for over a thousand years, often facing persecution, including murders, lynchings, pogroms, and expulsions. The Russian Empire — which included modern-day Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and more — was especially brutal toward Jews, confining them to the Pale of Settlement and subjecting them to frequent pogroms. This brutality was a major reason why many Jews began migrating to Ottoman Turkish Palestine in the late 19th century during the First Aliyah.
Even in Western Europe, discrimination persisted. In France — considered the most "enlightened" European country of the 19th century and the first to grant Jews full citizenship — the Dreyfus Affair exposed deep-rooted antisemitism, as a Jewish army officer was falsely accused of treason based on fabricated evidence.
I have been to Israel and have many Israeli friends. They believe their self-determination is sacred — and from everything I’ve seen, they would rather die than allow anyone to take that from them.
Jews lived in Europe for about 1,500 years in Europe without any interest in returning to the various places they had come from (mostly Israel and Iraq and thereabouts from my knowledge). Even when fully expelled from Spain into Morocco they didn't go to Israel. This to me indicates that the persecutions prior to industrialisation were not severe by the standards of the day.
But this changed dramatically when industrialisation and nationalisation happened (I conjecture it was the printing press and paper that started this process). The persecutions of Jews become unbearably severe and migrations to Israel began.
However I can't help but notice there has been rarely exceptionally few attacks against Jews in culturally European countries since the horrors of the Holocaust were fully unveiled. The reason for Jews to leave their home countries and go settle in Israel has dried up and does not look likely to ever return and yet they still leave.
If settling in Israel were a costless action then I see no problem with it, but it is a process that is causing great suffering and conflict (maybe as much as 100,000 dead in the past two years). It becomes a choice of the lesser evil.
But I was not originally expounding on the morality of Zionism or those who fight against it but predicting what would happen if democracy were to take hold in the countries surrounding Israel. Majority will would prevail and I predict that Arabs would sacrifice a lot in order to see Israel gone and that they would eventually have far more resources than Israel would.
I have no doubt that Israel Jews would fight hard to preserve their country. I still predict that they will lose though, should the surrounding Arab states attain durable democracy.
There are multiple inaccuracies and some points I agree with here:
Areas of Agreement:
Industrialization and nationalism: These certainly created conditions prompting mass Jewish emigration.
Post-Holocaust antisemitism: It's significantly reduced. Today, it's undeniably easier for a Jewish person to live in Austria or Poland compared to 80–100 years ago. (Many Israelis, though, strongly prefer life in Israel, and it's important to remember that a significant plurality are Middle Eastern Jews who left other regional countries due to various push-and-pull factors.)
Arab democracy and Israel: If robust Arab democracies existed, I agree they would likely unite strongly against Israel.
Areas of Disagreement:
1. Jewish interest in the Middle East pre-industrialization:
It's incorrect to claim European Jews had "no interest" in returning to the Levant before industrialization. Throughout medieval and early modern periods, Jewish communities maintained deep religious and cultural ties, aspirations toward Jerusalem, and undertook pilgrimages whenever possible. Practical mass migration was limited primarily due to logistical and political constraints—not lack of interest.
Your example of Spain (1492) expulsions is misleading: Yes, many settled in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, but significant numbers also migrated directly to Palestine, notably reestablishing vibrant Jewish communities in Safed, Hebron, Tiberias, and Jerusalem (collectively known as the "Four Holy Cities").
2. Severity of pre-industrial Jewish persecution:
Claiming pre-industrial persecutions were "not severe by standards of the day" is inaccurate. European Jews faced severe, recurrent persecutions: massacres (especially during the First Crusade in 1096), widespread expulsions (England 1290, France 1306, Spain 1492, Portugal 1497), forced conversions, violent pogroms (particularly in Eastern Europe), and harsh legal restrictions. These persecutions were severe and significant by any historical standard.
The conflict has lasted approximately 18 months, giving an annual death toll of around 35,000. While this is tragic, it's comparatively moderate in the context of Middle Eastern regional conflicts:
Syrian Civil War: 656K dead from 2011-2025, that's 47K deaths per year
Yemen Civil War: 377K dead from 2015-2025, that's 37.7K deaths per year
Sudan Civil War: 150K dead from April 2023-April 2025, that's 75K deaths per year.
Syrian Civil War: ~656,000 dead (2011–2025); ~47,000 deaths/year
Yemeni Civil War: ~377,000 dead (2015–2025); ~37,700 deaths/year
Sudan Conflict: ~150,000 dead (2023–2025); ~75,000 deaths/year
Every Palestinian life lost is precious, and having Palestinian Christian and Muslim friends, I deeply value their perspectives. However, it’s important to avoid special pleading on either side. Objectively, this conflict, while devastating, isn't the most severe war in recent Middle Eastern history. There is great suffering, but much of the attention comes from the fact that Israel is a Western country and not many Westerners care about dead Syrians, Yemenites, or Sudanese.
1. Yes, saying "no interest" was too rash a claim and I shouldn't have said it. Still, looking at the Jewish populations of various countries from the time of 300AD to 1800AD (where available) and I can't help but notice a far higher Jewish population outside Palestine than in it. That is vastly different from the situation today.
2. Yes, the persecutions of Jews in Europe in the middle ages were very severe (but compare also Protestant Christians' experience). And yet the vast majority who survived these persecutions stayed put, notably they did not immigrate to Israel at scale. I do not know why. Perhaps the persecutions in Palestine were even worse.
Persecutions after the development of nationalism were exceptionally severe and a mass exodus did follow in this case, to Israel. Perhaps the exodus was not actually caused primarily by the persecutions but by the concept of nationalism, but I don't know and I err on the side of the persecutions being the main factor.
3. I provided an upper bound of the death toll in the ongoing Gaza War and said so, you provide a lower bound. Our numbers do not conflict.
The populations of Syria, Yemen, and Sudan are a lot higher than Gaza, but I also wasn't trying to claim that the Gazan War is exceptionally important, merely that it is strong evidence that the negative impact of the existence of the Israeli state in Palestine and that this negative impact is larger than that that would be experienced by Jews giving up on a Jewish state.
It's a hypothetical, it's very hard to know for sure, but I fall on side of the continuing existence of Israel being a net negative for *all* involved. This also means I no longer see long term co-existence as feasible, I used to think it was but I no longer do.
PS: Did you know there is only a single guy who is mapping the Sudanese conflict? Just a random guy on twitter called Thomas van Linge. I don't use twitter myself but The Economist credits him as their source in their maps.
I disagree that economic growth automatically makes societies liberal. As countries grow richer, they tend to pick and choose which liberal values they adopt, often embracing modernization without fully embracing Westernization.
There are plenty of examples today that disprove the old notion that rising wealth leads to liberal democracy. China, Singapore, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have all seen rapid economic development without fully liberalizing politically or socially. They’ve consciously adopted certain aspects of modernity—technology, finance, infrastructure, even limited gender reforms—while rejecting broader liberal freedoms like open political competition, drug decriminalization, or LGBT rights.
Illiberal models can clearly coexist with economic prosperity. Wealth gives societies more room to selectively modernize without necessarily accepting the full package of liberal values. For example, Singapore remains harsh on drugs and restricts political dissent despite softening its stance on same-sex relationships. The UAE and Saudi Arabia now allow concerts and women driving, but still criminalize LGBT rights and limit political expression.
Getting richer may give societies more tools—but it doesn't automatically change which freedoms they choose to allow or reject.
North-western European culture (and its descendants) are exceptionally liberal, it should not be the standard by which another culture is measured as "fully liberal". Not that that even really makes sense as liberalisation is a process rather than an end-state. (I mean here social liberalisation rather than economic.)
When I look at how much Japan has changed over the past 500 years it is hard they haven't liberalised a great deal. Singapore as well is much changed, far more liberal than it was 50 years ago. And when looking at countries like Saudi Arabia I don't decide how liberal they are based on their form of government or their laws, but at how the people who live there actually think (still quite conservative to be sure, but how different were they before the oil money?)
I'm at a loss to name a single nation that has not become more liberal than it was a century ago. Rulers and laws perhaps, but not the actual people who live there.
Although I find Shadi Hamid a very thoughtful writer (more importantly, I find his stance against what happened in 2013 courageous when few from the intellectual class in my country (who later became my professors) took it, but I want to point two things a) you said "where he witnessed the despair of life under Mubarak’s authoritarian regime", I think if you told any Egyptian the following (in hindsight), they would laugh. The World Bank even wrote in 2015 "Judging by economic data alone, the Arab Spring should have never happened", Egypt's most prosperous years came from 2002 to 2010, the regime's expansion of bureaucrats, middle class and margin of freedom was its undoing, yes poverty was high and public services were failing but I think the revolution happened due to relative deprivation not absolute one b) Shadi Hamid was viewed by some intellectual in Egypt as someone out of touch with MB's project and what is happening on the ground, he was too focused on theory and grand narratives, and I agree that Shadi in 2012 was not witnessing what others in Egypt saw by the virtue of being pundit abroad (only writes and talks for living) and did not return neither before or after. I remember one of my professors who was christian (currently one of renowned professors on democratization and editor of democratization journal) replied to him on twitter telling him to try coming and living under religious fanatics. Shadi paints only one side of the story "Liberalism vs Democracy" (a correct one) but neglects the authoritarian part of the story like Trump now. The problem is not with electing illberal populists, the problem comes when these populists dismantles the institutions and processes electing and checking them after coming into power. Yes, with the power of hindsight, the threat of MBs was overblown in Egypt and the alternative was not good, but I can understand people with so much chaos in the streets in 2011 and 2013, and real fundamental concerns over governance might pivot to a return to status quo. I do not expect that a continuation of Mubarak would have evaded many problems the current regime witnessed had the revolution never happened, but the effect in my opinion would be smaller. I think the suspicion and criticism received during this period was partly justified. Additionally, despite his credentials, Shadi remains pundit rather a scholar like Tarek Masoud who happens to answer the same question Shadi discussed but empirically. I feel sympathy to Shadi not only because I agree with his priors but I find him attacked by intellectuals in Egypt and by some pro-israel voices in America, yet it is the cost of pursuing the life he chose to.
Watching the revolution and aftermath from my metaphorical armchair in New Zealand I remember it very differently: the Muslim Brotherhood were the liberals and it was the Salafists that were their primary opposition. As a democrat myself I was very happy to see the Brotherhood win because it meant democracy would have a good chance; the Salafists would have very likely ended it.
The tragedy was that Morsi turned out to be an incompetent President and that allowed Sisi to take advantage and end democracy.
The book discussing Islamists in the Middle East offers several intriguing insights and challenges common Western perspectives on the subject.
I agree with the critique that Western pundits calling for a Protestant-style reformation within Islam are misguided. This view often stems from a projection of historical paranoia about globalist Catholics onto contemporary globalist Islamists, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. In Sunni Islam, individual Muslims have traditionally had the authority to interpret the Qur'an for themselves, negating the need for a Protestant-like reformation.
Support for Islamism does not primarily come from Muslim elites or poor, illiterate villagers. Instead, it is often driven by the newly emerging middle class, similar to the demographic that supported communist movements a century ago.
While the book highlights that Islamists are not necessarily extremist jihadists and are contesting elections, this perspective overlooks crucial details. Islamists often respect elections only as a means to gain power, with the ultimate goal of dismantling the very institutions that allowed their rise. The example of Islamists in Turkey illustrates this point.
Moreover, many Islamist parties operate with a dual structure: a civil, mainstream wing that contests elections, and a more militant wing that intimidates minorities and liberals. The mainstream wing typically disavows any connection to the militant wing but stops short of condemning their violent tactics or supporting legal action against them.
Islamism, much like communism a century ago, is a globalist movement. Even when Islamists run for local elections, they often focus on broader issues like Palestine, adopting neo-colonialist narratives perpetuated by Western leftists. This globalist ideology takes precedence over national interests, leading to potential conflicts with non-Muslim neighboring countries. In Bangladesh, for instance, despite Israel's support for independence, the leadership prioritized aligning with Islamic countries, even sending troops to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war during a domestic famine.
"Support for Islamism does not primarily come from Muslim elites or poor, illiterate villagers. Instead, it is often driven by the newly emerging middle class, similar to the demographic that supported communist movements a century ago."
You mentioned the classes that supported communism, but were the same that supported liberalism in the West time ago (both, liberalism and communism, are universalist and teleological ideologies, secularization of previous religious ideologies). There were "aspirant elites", and we have to count with the "will of power" by some different groups of elites (political, cultural....).
I don't know anything of Islam or countries in the are, but I usually see a parallel between islamism and "the will of people" of democracies. The reject that the Islam shows to power non-islamic, is analogous to the reject of power non-elected in democracies. In both, it seems that if the power doesn't share the will, values or identities of people are bad and unfair. That's why, its seems to me, that the success of Islam is seen as the success of "we, the people" for all the believers, exactly the same that the winning of x political party is seen as the success of "we, the workers", "we, the French", "we, the educated and progressive".... Both share an idealistic apriorism, where a government worth not by they work if not by they origin. I don't know what do you think about this similarity between Islamism and democracies.
Yeah. More or less. The globalisation of Islam since the 70s is also undermining conventional nationalist movements as well. Again coming from middle classes learning about the Qur'an and realising that their traditional practices differed significantly from Islamic teachings.
Shadi shows that the US-Europe Western hegemony has frequently been hypocritical in opposing and intervening against various local political trends because they aren’t democratic when in fact the Westerners sought allies and opposed enemies and determined these according to secular or Islamic, without regard to popular support, majority rule via electoral system or singular and repressive rule. However it does not necessarily follow that the objective of majority electoral system should be the principle of supporting or opposing trends. Pluralist state with orderly succession can be achieved through varied traditions and moreover there arise situations of instability where singular rule may be the only available means to stabilize and provide opportunity for more pluralist forms later. More basic than the electoral system are the needs for national state union, ascending the economic structure level (e.g. to processing before export or to industrialization or to software enabled), and operation of ethic systems to nurture families and capable citizens. A fundamental lever of western hegemony has been the secular lay conflict against local ethic systems which destabilizes the society by weakening the ethic system and not replacing it with any other ethic system. This is a prejudice against Islam chosen to destabilize local society not a mistaken understanding of electoral democracy. But practically shadi’s recipe of crusade without the crusaders frequently cannot discern positive directions of trends. By any path that HTS can reach agreement with SDF and incorporate or suppress the militias benefits Syria. HTS is salafi but has renounced supremacism and terrorism and has no ideology of electoral system. Saudi is a type of singular rule yet has potential to shepherd reintegration of the Land of Jerusalem. Turkiye is an electoral system and may align Syria and Jordan and also shepherd reintegration. The democracy filter provides no guide to vital and urgent progress of countries in these examples.
I have to read the book itself but from your summary here Shahid seems to be speaking from both sides of his mouth and wrapping it in grand rhetoric.
It’s not unusual though. I’ve seen this in his Wisdom of the Crowds essays as well.
It is a grave failure to apply his own claim to consistency when he claims that procedural democracy is what should be supported and also claim to deeply resent autocracy.
In effect he’s claiming that western powers should not support autocrats/monarchies that commit to some level of secularist tolerance, if insufficient. But western powers should accommodate the “procedural democracy” that allows increasingly intolerant Islamism to take power, rapidly dismantle democratic institutions, and crucially, then also become authoritarian (see Türkiye).
How does this logic make sense to a rigorous thinker?
And the attempt to separate Islamism from “so-called violent Jihadism” is tenuous at best. Islamism seems to be. purist political response to Jihadist takeover. Both do not sound to me, to be diametrically opposed in goals. Just in initial methods, initial membership (middle class vs lower class–although not always) and few peripheral differences.
That said, Islamism will fight whatever threatens its power over the state. Overtly (if in power), covertly if out of power. These types of fights do not tend to happen via ballot boxes, parliament or demonstrations. They are often bloody, and hit civilians the hardest.
I guess it depends on what you describe as “violent” and what we’ve seen is that whether or not an Islamist party embraces or rejects violence depends upon it’s goals, the extent to which violence serves it as a state and occasionally the rhetorical legitimacy it brings.
Sure they may not wish to overthrow the state, but Erdogan is arguably set on building a modern ottoman “caliphate,” Algeria is about as Islamist as you could have it and October 7 happened under Islamist Hamas. Neither RSF or SAF, the parties that ended the popular transitional (non-Islamist) government, can be viewed as wanting to build secularist autocracies/monarchies. Sometimes humans just want raw power and they will be Islamist if it serves them well. Or non-democratic autocrats.
“illiberal democracy” is hardly any different from authoritarian monarchies in form and substance.
That said, I have not engaged with the supposed western support for or rejection of Islamism. I think it’s a reductive point. Türkiye is still a NATO member, for example.
I agree with the perspective that outcomes are what is more important. But not just for the west. Even for middle eastern players. Islamist or monarch are a set of options to keep/get power. The end result is what’s important for both parties. In that sense, the Islamists are as guilty of hypocrisy and paying lip service to democracy as the “west”.
Same goes for relations with Israel. It is a means to an end as Mubarak demonstrated and as the Qataris (an Islamist monarchy exemplify). I don’t think pragmatism is lacking. I think Shahid doesn’t like/support the type of pragmatism that seems to currently dominate different spheres of the Middle East.
Hi Abraham, thanks for your post (because I like arguing!). I disagree with you in many ways. Here's my thoughts:
1) Not all Islamists are violent or intent on state capture.
Ennahda in Tunisia is a clear example—it’s remarkably moderate compared to groups like Hamas or Algeria’s FIS. After the 2011 revolution, Ennahda voluntarily stepped down in 2014 to prevent political instability. Morocco’s PJD has also operated peacefully within a democratic framework.
2) Algeria is not Islamist—at all.
The regime is a secular, military-backed Arab nationalist state that has long suppressed political Islam. That’s exactly what the civil war of the 1990s was about—and the secularists won. The current President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is firmly aligned with Algeria’s secular-nationalist regime, which has long treated political Islam as a threat and tightly controls Islamist movements.
3) Illiberal democracies and autocratic monarchies are fundamentally different.
While aren't liberal democracies, the structures, sources of legitimacy, and citizen participation diverge sharply:
Illiberal democracies (e.g., Hungary, Türkiye, India) hold elections—however flawed—and maintain weakened but existing institutions.
Monarchies like Saudi Arabia or the UAE are hereditary and often lack any meaningful checks on executive power.
Manipulated elections are not the same as no elections. There’s still some space—however limited—for contestation in illiberal democracies. That doesn’t exist in autocratic monarchies.
The world has never seen what it would be like to have a United States that was highly invested in the mission of spreading democracy. The US could force the entirety of Africa into democracy in the matter of a decade if it wanted to. There is nobody that could stop them and few who would even want to.
(Compare and contrast with how Britain (with US help) set out to end the slave trade. It cost them a lot of money but they cared more the morality of their mission.)
Democracy is just a very low priority for the US and in the case of countries surrounding Israel democracy is the enemy. I don't agree with Shadi Hamid that a democratic Middle East could co-exist with Israel. I reckon the US is correct to assess that propping up dictators surrounding Israel is the only way to keep Israel going, I happen to also think it's a bad trade-off.
Those Jews lived elsewhere for over a thousand years and it wouldn't hurt them much to go back to that state. Weighed against keeping about 150 million Arabs in dictatorships it's an easy decision.
As for Arabs being uniquely illiberal I also disagree with Hamid on this. Economic conditions are principal in what make a people liberal or not, not cultural factors. Democracy will at first mean conservatism reigns, but eventually, perhaps after several generations, liberalism will take hold.
In summary I agree strongly with Shadi Hamid on what should be done, I just disagree on what will happen as a result: eventually Israel would collapse and Arab nations would liberalise. And perhaps it has to happen in that order.
PS: I came up with the same idea as Hamid about two years ago but instead of "procedural democracy" I went with the phrase "open democracy".
We’ve already seen what U.S. investment in African democracy looks like—it was the 1990s! After the Soviet Union collapsed, Presidents Bush and Clinton began tying debt relief and access to World Bank and IMF loans to democratic reforms like multiparty elections and press freedom, especially as many African economies were bankrupt.
Take my country Ghana, Jerry Rawlings: an autocrat from 1979 to the early '90s, he only allowed multiparty elections in 1992 to avoid losing IMF and World Bank support—marking Ghana’s democratic transition. The same happened elsewhere. Ali Saibou in Niger, Banda in Malawi, Moi in Kenya, Kérékou in Benin, and Kaunda in Zambia all introduced elections under donor pressure. Mobutu in Zaire promised elections to regain aid but kept delaying them, fueling public anger and contributing to the First Congo War.
Before the 1990s, most of Africa was run by incompetent one-party autocrats. Today, it’s mostly incompetent multiparty democracies or autocracies that hold highly flawed elections(think Rwanda, Uganda, Mozambique)—with only a few one party autocracies left.
I reckon the 1990s was more like the US switching from actively suppressing democracy (if, or in case, socialism was chosen) to being largely indifferent to it. There were diplomatic efforts and some money; the US is a democracy and its people—including the ones who work for the government—are likely to support it in other countries as long as no orders from above contradict them.
But compared to the amount of money and effort the US put into reprisals/response from the 9/11 attacks it starts to become clear just how dramatically the US could improve the condition of democracy around the world if it really wanted to, if it was a strong directive coming from the top.
Jews lived in Europe and elsewhere for over a thousand years, often facing persecution, including murders, lynchings, pogroms, and expulsions. The Russian Empire — which included modern-day Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and more — was especially brutal toward Jews, confining them to the Pale of Settlement and subjecting them to frequent pogroms. This brutality was a major reason why many Jews began migrating to Ottoman Turkish Palestine in the late 19th century during the First Aliyah.
Even in Western Europe, discrimination persisted. In France — considered the most "enlightened" European country of the 19th century and the first to grant Jews full citizenship — the Dreyfus Affair exposed deep-rooted antisemitism, as a Jewish army officer was falsely accused of treason based on fabricated evidence.
I have been to Israel and have many Israeli friends. They believe their self-determination is sacred — and from everything I’ve seen, they would rather die than allow anyone to take that from them.
Jews lived in Europe for about 1,500 years in Europe without any interest in returning to the various places they had come from (mostly Israel and Iraq and thereabouts from my knowledge). Even when fully expelled from Spain into Morocco they didn't go to Israel. This to me indicates that the persecutions prior to industrialisation were not severe by the standards of the day.
But this changed dramatically when industrialisation and nationalisation happened (I conjecture it was the printing press and paper that started this process). The persecutions of Jews become unbearably severe and migrations to Israel began.
However I can't help but notice there has been rarely exceptionally few attacks against Jews in culturally European countries since the horrors of the Holocaust were fully unveiled. The reason for Jews to leave their home countries and go settle in Israel has dried up and does not look likely to ever return and yet they still leave.
If settling in Israel were a costless action then I see no problem with it, but it is a process that is causing great suffering and conflict (maybe as much as 100,000 dead in the past two years). It becomes a choice of the lesser evil.
But I was not originally expounding on the morality of Zionism or those who fight against it but predicting what would happen if democracy were to take hold in the countries surrounding Israel. Majority will would prevail and I predict that Arabs would sacrifice a lot in order to see Israel gone and that they would eventually have far more resources than Israel would.
I have no doubt that Israel Jews would fight hard to preserve their country. I still predict that they will lose though, should the surrounding Arab states attain durable democracy.
There are multiple inaccuracies and some points I agree with here:
Areas of Agreement:
Industrialization and nationalism: These certainly created conditions prompting mass Jewish emigration.
Post-Holocaust antisemitism: It's significantly reduced. Today, it's undeniably easier for a Jewish person to live in Austria or Poland compared to 80–100 years ago. (Many Israelis, though, strongly prefer life in Israel, and it's important to remember that a significant plurality are Middle Eastern Jews who left other regional countries due to various push-and-pull factors.)
Arab democracy and Israel: If robust Arab democracies existed, I agree they would likely unite strongly against Israel.
Areas of Disagreement:
1. Jewish interest in the Middle East pre-industrialization:
It's incorrect to claim European Jews had "no interest" in returning to the Levant before industrialization. Throughout medieval and early modern periods, Jewish communities maintained deep religious and cultural ties, aspirations toward Jerusalem, and undertook pilgrimages whenever possible. Practical mass migration was limited primarily due to logistical and political constraints—not lack of interest.
Your example of Spain (1492) expulsions is misleading: Yes, many settled in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, but significant numbers also migrated directly to Palestine, notably reestablishing vibrant Jewish communities in Safed, Hebron, Tiberias, and Jerusalem (collectively known as the "Four Holy Cities").
2. Severity of pre-industrial Jewish persecution:
Claiming pre-industrial persecutions were "not severe by standards of the day" is inaccurate. European Jews faced severe, recurrent persecutions: massacres (especially during the First Crusade in 1096), widespread expulsions (England 1290, France 1306, Spain 1492, Portugal 1497), forced conversions, violent pogroms (particularly in Eastern Europe), and harsh legal restrictions. These persecutions were severe and significant by any historical standard.
3. Exaggerated death toll
The death count isn't 100K. As of yesterday, the Hamas ministry of Health says the death toll is 52K: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/war-gaza-israel-death-toll-april-2025/
The conflict has lasted approximately 18 months, giving an annual death toll of around 35,000. While this is tragic, it's comparatively moderate in the context of Middle Eastern regional conflicts:
Syrian Civil War: 656K dead from 2011-2025, that's 47K deaths per year
Yemen Civil War: 377K dead from 2015-2025, that's 37.7K deaths per year
Sudan Civil War: 150K dead from April 2023-April 2025, that's 75K deaths per year.
Syrian Civil War: ~656,000 dead (2011–2025); ~47,000 deaths/year
Yemeni Civil War: ~377,000 dead (2015–2025); ~37,700 deaths/year
Sudan Conflict: ~150,000 dead (2023–2025); ~75,000 deaths/year
Every Palestinian life lost is precious, and having Palestinian Christian and Muslim friends, I deeply value their perspectives. However, it’s important to avoid special pleading on either side. Objectively, this conflict, while devastating, isn't the most severe war in recent Middle Eastern history. There is great suffering, but much of the attention comes from the fact that Israel is a Western country and not many Westerners care about dead Syrians, Yemenites, or Sudanese.
1. Yes, saying "no interest" was too rash a claim and I shouldn't have said it. Still, looking at the Jewish populations of various countries from the time of 300AD to 1800AD (where available) and I can't help but notice a far higher Jewish population outside Palestine than in it. That is vastly different from the situation today.
2. Yes, the persecutions of Jews in Europe in the middle ages were very severe (but compare also Protestant Christians' experience). And yet the vast majority who survived these persecutions stayed put, notably they did not immigrate to Israel at scale. I do not know why. Perhaps the persecutions in Palestine were even worse.
Persecutions after the development of nationalism were exceptionally severe and a mass exodus did follow in this case, to Israel. Perhaps the exodus was not actually caused primarily by the persecutions but by the concept of nationalism, but I don't know and I err on the side of the persecutions being the main factor.
3. I provided an upper bound of the death toll in the ongoing Gaza War and said so, you provide a lower bound. Our numbers do not conflict.
The populations of Syria, Yemen, and Sudan are a lot higher than Gaza, but I also wasn't trying to claim that the Gazan War is exceptionally important, merely that it is strong evidence that the negative impact of the existence of the Israeli state in Palestine and that this negative impact is larger than that that would be experienced by Jews giving up on a Jewish state.
It's a hypothetical, it's very hard to know for sure, but I fall on side of the continuing existence of Israel being a net negative for *all* involved. This also means I no longer see long term co-existence as feasible, I used to think it was but I no longer do.
PS: Did you know there is only a single guy who is mapping the Sudanese conflict? Just a random guy on twitter called Thomas van Linge. I don't use twitter myself but The Economist credits him as their source in their maps.
I'll respond to your other points later but you can look up Sudanese War Monitor on substack!
Thanks! I'm a proponent of Cunningham's Law, if you couldn't tell already 😅
I disagree that economic growth automatically makes societies liberal. As countries grow richer, they tend to pick and choose which liberal values they adopt, often embracing modernization without fully embracing Westernization.
There are plenty of examples today that disprove the old notion that rising wealth leads to liberal democracy. China, Singapore, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have all seen rapid economic development without fully liberalizing politically or socially. They’ve consciously adopted certain aspects of modernity—technology, finance, infrastructure, even limited gender reforms—while rejecting broader liberal freedoms like open political competition, drug decriminalization, or LGBT rights.
Illiberal models can clearly coexist with economic prosperity. Wealth gives societies more room to selectively modernize without necessarily accepting the full package of liberal values. For example, Singapore remains harsh on drugs and restricts political dissent despite softening its stance on same-sex relationships. The UAE and Saudi Arabia now allow concerts and women driving, but still criminalize LGBT rights and limit political expression.
Getting richer may give societies more tools—but it doesn't automatically change which freedoms they choose to allow or reject.
North-western European culture (and its descendants) are exceptionally liberal, it should not be the standard by which another culture is measured as "fully liberal". Not that that even really makes sense as liberalisation is a process rather than an end-state. (I mean here social liberalisation rather than economic.)
When I look at how much Japan has changed over the past 500 years it is hard they haven't liberalised a great deal. Singapore as well is much changed, far more liberal than it was 50 years ago. And when looking at countries like Saudi Arabia I don't decide how liberal they are based on their form of government or their laws, but at how the people who live there actually think (still quite conservative to be sure, but how different were they before the oil money?)
I'm at a loss to name a single nation that has not become more liberal than it was a century ago. Rulers and laws perhaps, but not the actual people who live there.
I agree with this clarifying point completely.