Isn't Islam inherently violent? What stopped the Islamic world having an Enlightenment? Why are some Muslims so into head-chopping? And isn't Hamas the same as Islamic State?
You draw the lines here with such necessary clarity — between Islam and Islamism, between faith and the political projects built on top of it. The way you place Hamas, ISIS and Zionism back in their historical and colonial context makes it much harder to hide behind the usual “ancient hatreds” story. Naming these distortions so plainly feels like a small but vital act of repair.
One detail in your article genuinely shifted something for me — the mechanical advantage Europe had because Latin script was easy to print, while Arabic script was not. I had never considered how such a simple technical factor could snowball into a civilizational narrative of superiority. That insight stayed with me and ended up opening a much wider line of thought. Thank you for highlighting it so clearly.
A helpful analysis of the ideology of various religions and their histories and influences. Nuances and let Palestinian speak for themselves are a must. Any claim superiority must be tested and carefully analysed. In comparison, indigenous Australians have a culture of over 60,000 years. Much would be gained if a culture with that heritage were compared with the Zionist ignorance.
One thing I would add: there was a (commercial) attempt to print Qurans in the 1500s in Venice, to sell to the Ottoman Empire, using moveable cast iron type. There's only one copy extant, because the Pope of the time had the rest burned. You can read more about it here: https://madainproject.com/paganini_quran.
So a big part of the reason why Islam didn't have a European-style Enlightenment is because of the epistemicide that took place at the hands of an Inquisition that had to destroy Islamic scholarship as it posed a threat (while simultaneously extracting knowledge from that very system and passing it off as its own).
The main reason though is that Islam doesn't have a sacred/secular binary, so science was never at odds with religion (in theory at least, and certainly up until colonisation).
However to go back to the printing point, even to the present time Qurans are generally lithographed handwritten pages rather than typeset...it seems easier to read and most ppl find it aesthetically preferable to typeset Arabic. There's a lot to unpack there in terms of how much the printed word influences learning and the way we filter the world, compared to something written by hand by a human being.
"Maybe it is time to focus a little less on what the Islamists are up to and start worrying a lot more about what Israel’s extremist Zionist rulers have in store for the world."
...., or as I have said countless times since I created a substack account three years ago: If Israel is not stopped, and soon, we will all be Palestinians. All 8 billion of us.
Since the end of WWII they have projected unto the German people their own ambitions of Lebensraum, or if you will, a Greater Israel from river (Nile) to river (Euphrates). Seven October, 2023 is now Israel's Crystal nacht. The Holocaust® card is now null and void.
Thank you, Mr. Cook for a very well written and informative post. There is only one thing I dislike about it. What you say about Al Quaida. I never heard of that organization prior to 9/11.
I challenge anyone to find two separate articles written before that date mentioning Al Quaida. Not articles written AFTER 9/11 talking about events that happened during the 90s. You can't find them because they don't exist.
I even question the existence of Al Quaida itself. You even make a good argument in your post for it being a Zionist creation. On the contrary, I do NOT question the existence of Muja Hedin back in the day. I do NOT question the existence of the rebels from Benghazi who morphed into the Free Syrian Army and the White Helmets a few months later. They were Zionist creations just like Hamas. As far as the latter is concerned, Israel needed an extreme opponent to the reasonable and moderate Al Fatah.
The BBC NEWS ONLINE home page right now carries the report that TOMMY ROBINSON has been acquitted of unlawfully refusing to allow police to search through the data on his electronic devices.
The report states:
'...Judge Sam Goozee said he could not be sure that the police stop had been lawful.
"I cannot put out of my mind that it was actually what you [Tommy Robinson] stood for and your political beliefs that acted for the principle reason for this stop", said Judge Goozee.
Robinson had been detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows officers to question people at UK ports to determine potential links to terrorism...
Supporters in the public gallery at Westminster Magistrates' Court cheered as he was cleared of all charges.
In a video recorded before the hearing, Robinson said his legal fees had been paid by Elon Musk.
After the verdict, he again thanked the Tesla boss billionaire again, saying: "Elon Musk I am forever grateful. If you didn't step in and fund my legal fight for this then I'd probably be in jail." '
NOW THAT seems inconsistent with previous Schedule 7 stop-and-search rulings, doesn't it?
Further, MEE (middleeasteye.net) has this on its home page right now:
'Exclusive: Violent Maccabi fans were organised fighters 'linked to IDF', UK police found
'By Imran Mulla
Published date: 4 November 2025 15:14 GMT
'Dutch police told their British counterparts that over 200 Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans who wreaked havoc in Amsterdam in November 2024 were "linked to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)", and that hundreds more were "experienced fighters", "highly organised" and "intent on causing serious violence"...
'...[UK Culture Secretary Lisa Mandy] claimed the ban [of Maccabi fans attending this Thursday's football match] was "based in no small part on the risk posed to those fans that are attending who support Maccabi Tel Aviv, because they are Israeli and because they are Jewish".
Former Labour leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn told MEE on Tuesday: "Lisa Nandy must tell us whether she knew about this shocking intelligence before she smeared and attacked those of us who supported the ban"...'
Brilliant Jonathan, this is vital context, succinctly explained. Ta much.
I think it’s also vital to understand the role of oil/the establishment of the Saudi Monarchy/western backing all had on the export of the nomadic tribes fundamental Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia into the greater arab world. A tale wonderfully told in Adam Curtis’ brilliant experimental documentary “Bitter Lake”, which i highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Given the complexities and breadth of the subject I have never read such a concise and honest explanation that in a few paragraphs explains the dilemma of the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Thank you
I do like the metaphor, a simple idea really, of approaching a mountain. It's the same mountain but people coming from east, west, north, south have very different ideas of what the mountain is. I say this because I well remember how in the late 40s and all the 50s, 60s, for my family and their circle, Zionism was a very different mountain from what we know it to be today. Increasing numbers of Jews, especially amongst the young, especially in the USA, but elsewhere too, now see Zionism as having been always the wrong answer to the historical persecution of Jews. But it didn't seem that way back then to most of the people most emotionally invested in getting that bolt-hole, Israel, the people for whom "Never again" didn't generalise the way it was to do later.
Here I would put in a word for language, tone and not merely out of charity or from a wish to be polite. Although I'm now completely anti-Zionist, I wasn't always ("brainwashed" in childhood if you like) and the cure was long with relapses along the way. (Compare e.g. what the repression of the Hungarian revolution did for many European devotees of Communism -- for many it was a tough struggle to abandon a deep faith in what had been a creed for them.)
But I still -- even now -- cringe at the way Zionism is spoken of in the rowdiest parts of TwitterX and I have to check what's left of my emotional responses to it. Indeed there was a time years ago when the often ugly, visceral depictions of Zionist acts, however true, accurate, appropriate, would -- and this is the main point -- arouse the old feelings in a reactionary way and I'd come to the defence, not of Zionism, but of my fellow Jews: tribal, if you want.
Not everyone, not every Jewish Zionist can get past the stubborn cherished notion and the danger is that the more intemperate the anti-Zionist rhetoric, the more counterproductive for justice for Palestinians it can become. Jewish Zionists (and I think many Christian ones too) get even more defensive and reactionary, more weapons pour in, the justifications for atrocities get more vehement.
I'd recommend sticking to the known facts. The IDF (IOF) did this, the zealot settlers did that, these acts of torture occurred and so on. Yes, we all want to express the outrage and horror we feel at all of it. But does it help? That's my point.
In the end, perhaps it's Planck's Principle again. The old die off and their ideas and old ways go with them, the future belongs to the young bringing better, fresher, progressive ideas. It's looking that way with Zionism. Too late, too slow for us, of course. And it's impossible and insulting to ask patience of Palestinians at this stage of their long agony. We've had the slave revolt (as Norm Finkelstein called it at the time) and it's probably changed everything.
It has been a long road for those of us of the Christian tradition, too, to recalibrate the understanding of Israel and its place in the C20th/C21st world.
At the time of the Six Days War it was inconceivable for me, a senior schoolboy, to have thought of Israel as I do now.
And I have never been a Zionist (not hearing of the movement until the last decade or so) so I didn't have that conceptual straight-jacket to slough off.
Thanks very much for that, Richard. An irony I've come across once or twice where I, a Jew, was arguing how Israel had always been the wrong response to history and was now a danger to Jews and my Christian (or non-Jewish) acquaintance was doing his best to tell me how wrong I was and how much I and my kin needed Israel more than ever! I had to laugh (quietly to myself).
Everyone needs to read Engdhal's Manifest Destiny to understand how the US Neocons with the help of MI6 and Mossad, have used the Muslim Brotherhood for decades under various guises (Al Qaeda, ISIS, Al Nusra, HTS, etc) to keep any Arab nationalist aspirations in check and control their natural resources.
Peace Be Upon You another remark : There is no similarity whatsoever between Zionism and Islam. Zionism is a racist ideology that reinforces the notion of the superiority of the Jewish race, whereas Islam is a religion that establishes equality among all human beings, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse :“The most honored among you in the sight of God is the most righteous.”
Thank you for your reply, but Islamism also cannot be compared to Zionism, because it means governing according to the full set of Sharia laws, which are meant to govern a Muslim community and encompass all areas of life - economy, politics, etc.
I appreciate your distinction. But for this articles's purposes, the parallel makes sense in that both use religion or religious/tribal origin to fuel militant, expansionist agendas.
There is a significant difference between Islamic extremism, in which the interpretation of Sharia texts is highly rigid and extreme, and Islamism, which refers to the implementation of Islamic Sharia rulings according to the divine justice approach established by the Messenger of Truth, Muhammad-that is, without exaggeration, without harshness, and with intelligence and mercy.
The relationship between Islam and Islamism cannot be separated so easily because Islamists are
politically active whilst the ordinary muslim in the street is not. The consequence is that in recent decades it is Islamists who form political parties and often vie with secular parties for the vote. Precisely because they offer a moral vision in comparison to the common materialist corruption of secular regimes, they get the votes of ordinary muslims. However the problem with religion in politics is that such parties believe that their programme follows the will of God whereas secular parties do not. This means that at heart they regard democratic institutions as merely a means and not a core aspect of civic life to be protected. And this leads to another kind of corruption, the conceit of religious power and the delegitimisation of opposition. Whether it is Iran, Israel, Turkey or Republican America, the totalitarian dynamic of religious power is a threat to freedom and human rights. Secular western societies should view the state as holding the ring for a participatory democracy in which fundamental rights of the individual restrict the reach of the state. (Admittedly we are busy forgetting that with the rise of ever greater means of state surveillance and control). But we should not abandon our clear understanding of the risks of religion in politics.
You draw the lines here with such necessary clarity — between Islam and Islamism, between faith and the political projects built on top of it. The way you place Hamas, ISIS and Zionism back in their historical and colonial context makes it much harder to hide behind the usual “ancient hatreds” story. Naming these distortions so plainly feels like a small but vital act of repair.
One detail in your article genuinely shifted something for me — the mechanical advantage Europe had because Latin script was easy to print, while Arabic script was not. I had never considered how such a simple technical factor could snowball into a civilizational narrative of superiority. That insight stayed with me and ended up opening a much wider line of thought. Thank you for highlighting it so clearly.
A helpful analysis of the ideology of various religions and their histories and influences. Nuances and let Palestinian speak for themselves are a must. Any claim superiority must be tested and carefully analysed. In comparison, indigenous Australians have a culture of over 60,000 years. Much would be gained if a culture with that heritage were compared with the Zionist ignorance.
You need sources if you are going to paint with huge brushes like Islam, Europe or Enlightenment.
A brilliant article, dealing lucidly with complex, vital issues. Thanks!
Thank you for this excellent deep dive.
One thing I would add: there was a (commercial) attempt to print Qurans in the 1500s in Venice, to sell to the Ottoman Empire, using moveable cast iron type. There's only one copy extant, because the Pope of the time had the rest burned. You can read more about it here: https://madainproject.com/paganini_quran.
So a big part of the reason why Islam didn't have a European-style Enlightenment is because of the epistemicide that took place at the hands of an Inquisition that had to destroy Islamic scholarship as it posed a threat (while simultaneously extracting knowledge from that very system and passing it off as its own).
The main reason though is that Islam doesn't have a sacred/secular binary, so science was never at odds with religion (in theory at least, and certainly up until colonisation).
However to go back to the printing point, even to the present time Qurans are generally lithographed handwritten pages rather than typeset...it seems easier to read and most ppl find it aesthetically preferable to typeset Arabic. There's a lot to unpack there in terms of how much the printed word influences learning and the way we filter the world, compared to something written by hand by a human being.
Excellent, Jonathan. Thank you!
"Maybe it is time to focus a little less on what the Islamists are up to and start worrying a lot more about what Israel’s extremist Zionist rulers have in store for the world."
...., or as I have said countless times since I created a substack account three years ago: If Israel is not stopped, and soon, we will all be Palestinians. All 8 billion of us.
Since the end of WWII they have projected unto the German people their own ambitions of Lebensraum, or if you will, a Greater Israel from river (Nile) to river (Euphrates). Seven October, 2023 is now Israel's Crystal nacht. The Holocaust® card is now null and void.
Thank you, Mr. Cook for a very well written and informative post. There is only one thing I dislike about it. What you say about Al Quaida. I never heard of that organization prior to 9/11.
I challenge anyone to find two separate articles written before that date mentioning Al Quaida. Not articles written AFTER 9/11 talking about events that happened during the 90s. You can't find them because they don't exist.
I even question the existence of Al Quaida itself. You even make a good argument in your post for it being a Zionist creation. On the contrary, I do NOT question the existence of Muja Hedin back in the day. I do NOT question the existence of the rebels from Benghazi who morphed into the Free Syrian Army and the White Helmets a few months later. They were Zionist creations just like Hamas. As far as the latter is concerned, Israel needed an extreme opponent to the reasonable and moderate Al Fatah.
RE THE UK TERRORISM ACT...
The BBC NEWS ONLINE home page right now carries the report that TOMMY ROBINSON has been acquitted of unlawfully refusing to allow police to search through the data on his electronic devices.
The report states:
'...Judge Sam Goozee said he could not be sure that the police stop had been lawful.
"I cannot put out of my mind that it was actually what you [Tommy Robinson] stood for and your political beliefs that acted for the principle reason for this stop", said Judge Goozee.
Robinson had been detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows officers to question people at UK ports to determine potential links to terrorism...
..."I cannot convict you," Judge Goozee concluded.
Supporters in the public gallery at Westminster Magistrates' Court cheered as he was cleared of all charges.
In a video recorded before the hearing, Robinson said his legal fees had been paid by Elon Musk.
After the verdict, he again thanked the Tesla boss billionaire again, saying: "Elon Musk I am forever grateful. If you didn't step in and fund my legal fight for this then I'd probably be in jail." '
NOW THAT seems inconsistent with previous Schedule 7 stop-and-search rulings, doesn't it?
Further, MEE (middleeasteye.net) has this on its home page right now:
'Exclusive: Violent Maccabi fans were organised fighters 'linked to IDF', UK police found
'By Imran Mulla
Published date: 4 November 2025 15:14 GMT
'Dutch police told their British counterparts that over 200 Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans who wreaked havoc in Amsterdam in November 2024 were "linked to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)", and that hundreds more were "experienced fighters", "highly organised" and "intent on causing serious violence"...
'...[UK Culture Secretary Lisa Mandy] claimed the ban [of Maccabi fans attending this Thursday's football match] was "based in no small part on the risk posed to those fans that are attending who support Maccabi Tel Aviv, because they are Israeli and because they are Jewish".
Former Labour leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn told MEE on Tuesday: "Lisa Nandy must tell us whether she knew about this shocking intelligence before she smeared and attacked those of us who supported the ban"...'
Just to keep up to date.
Brilliant Jonathan, this is vital context, succinctly explained. Ta much.
I think it’s also vital to understand the role of oil/the establishment of the Saudi Monarchy/western backing all had on the export of the nomadic tribes fundamental Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia into the greater arab world. A tale wonderfully told in Adam Curtis’ brilliant experimental documentary “Bitter Lake”, which i highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Another informative and educational piece by Jonathan Cook. That's why I follow you Jonathan.
Given the complexities and breadth of the subject I have never read such a concise and honest explanation that in a few paragraphs explains the dilemma of the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Thank you
I do like the metaphor, a simple idea really, of approaching a mountain. It's the same mountain but people coming from east, west, north, south have very different ideas of what the mountain is. I say this because I well remember how in the late 40s and all the 50s, 60s, for my family and their circle, Zionism was a very different mountain from what we know it to be today. Increasing numbers of Jews, especially amongst the young, especially in the USA, but elsewhere too, now see Zionism as having been always the wrong answer to the historical persecution of Jews. But it didn't seem that way back then to most of the people most emotionally invested in getting that bolt-hole, Israel, the people for whom "Never again" didn't generalise the way it was to do later.
Here I would put in a word for language, tone and not merely out of charity or from a wish to be polite. Although I'm now completely anti-Zionist, I wasn't always ("brainwashed" in childhood if you like) and the cure was long with relapses along the way. (Compare e.g. what the repression of the Hungarian revolution did for many European devotees of Communism -- for many it was a tough struggle to abandon a deep faith in what had been a creed for them.)
But I still -- even now -- cringe at the way Zionism is spoken of in the rowdiest parts of TwitterX and I have to check what's left of my emotional responses to it. Indeed there was a time years ago when the often ugly, visceral depictions of Zionist acts, however true, accurate, appropriate, would -- and this is the main point -- arouse the old feelings in a reactionary way and I'd come to the defence, not of Zionism, but of my fellow Jews: tribal, if you want.
Not everyone, not every Jewish Zionist can get past the stubborn cherished notion and the danger is that the more intemperate the anti-Zionist rhetoric, the more counterproductive for justice for Palestinians it can become. Jewish Zionists (and I think many Christian ones too) get even more defensive and reactionary, more weapons pour in, the justifications for atrocities get more vehement.
I'd recommend sticking to the known facts. The IDF (IOF) did this, the zealot settlers did that, these acts of torture occurred and so on. Yes, we all want to express the outrage and horror we feel at all of it. But does it help? That's my point.
In the end, perhaps it's Planck's Principle again. The old die off and their ideas and old ways go with them, the future belongs to the young bringing better, fresher, progressive ideas. It's looking that way with Zionism. Too late, too slow for us, of course. And it's impossible and insulting to ask patience of Palestinians at this stage of their long agony. We've had the slave revolt (as Norm Finkelstein called it at the time) and it's probably changed everything.
It has been a long road for those of us of the Christian tradition, too, to recalibrate the understanding of Israel and its place in the C20th/C21st world.
At the time of the Six Days War it was inconceivable for me, a senior schoolboy, to have thought of Israel as I do now.
And I have never been a Zionist (not hearing of the movement until the last decade or so) so I didn't have that conceptual straight-jacket to slough off.
Thanks very much for that, Richard. An irony I've come across once or twice where I, a Jew, was arguing how Israel had always been the wrong response to history and was now a danger to Jews and my Christian (or non-Jewish) acquaintance was doing his best to tell me how wrong I was and how much I and my kin needed Israel more than ever! I had to laugh (quietly to myself).
Everyone needs to read Engdhal's Manifest Destiny to understand how the US Neocons with the help of MI6 and Mossad, have used the Muslim Brotherhood for decades under various guises (Al Qaeda, ISIS, Al Nusra, HTS, etc) to keep any Arab nationalist aspirations in check and control their natural resources.
Peace Be Upon You another remark : There is no similarity whatsoever between Zionism and Islam. Zionism is a racist ideology that reinforces the notion of the superiority of the Jewish race, whereas Islam is a religion that establishes equality among all human beings, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse :“The most honored among you in the sight of God is the most righteous.”
I believe that Jonathan drew his comparison between Zionism and Islamism, not Islam.
Thank you for your reply, but Islamism also cannot be compared to Zionism, because it means governing according to the full set of Sharia laws, which are meant to govern a Muslim community and encompass all areas of life - economy, politics, etc.
I appreciate your distinction. But for this articles's purposes, the parallel makes sense in that both use religion or religious/tribal origin to fuel militant, expansionist agendas.
In that case, it is better to use “Islamic extremism” instead of Islamism and Thank you.
With all due respect, I don't see the difference.
There is a significant difference between Islamic extremism, in which the interpretation of Sharia texts is highly rigid and extreme, and Islamism, which refers to the implementation of Islamic Sharia rulings according to the divine justice approach established by the Messenger of Truth, Muhammad-that is, without exaggeration, without harshness, and with intelligence and mercy.
The relationship between Islam and Islamism cannot be separated so easily because Islamists are
politically active whilst the ordinary muslim in the street is not. The consequence is that in recent decades it is Islamists who form political parties and often vie with secular parties for the vote. Precisely because they offer a moral vision in comparison to the common materialist corruption of secular regimes, they get the votes of ordinary muslims. However the problem with religion in politics is that such parties believe that their programme follows the will of God whereas secular parties do not. This means that at heart they regard democratic institutions as merely a means and not a core aspect of civic life to be protected. And this leads to another kind of corruption, the conceit of religious power and the delegitimisation of opposition. Whether it is Iran, Israel, Turkey or Republican America, the totalitarian dynamic of religious power is a threat to freedom and human rights. Secular western societies should view the state as holding the ring for a participatory democracy in which fundamental rights of the individual restrict the reach of the state. (Admittedly we are busy forgetting that with the rise of ever greater means of state surveillance and control). But we should not abandon our clear understanding of the risks of religion in politics.