Radical Sheik

In 1970, the American author Tom Wolfe coined a phrase to describe nonrevolutionary people who claim to support revolutionary causes: “radical chic.” This chapter applies the pun “radical sheik” to Muslims who considered al-Qaida and the self-proclaimed Islamic State to be anti-imperialist heroes, but did not actually support revolutionary violence. The more that the revolutionaries targeted Muslims, in an attempt to polarize society and drag the masses into battle, the less popular the revolutionaries became. Instead, Muslims turned in much larger numbers to the revolutionaries’ religious competitors, such as apolitical pietism, liberal Islam, and nonrevolutionary Islamism, all of which denounced terrorism.