Egypt and Syria: Islamism as a Functioning Political Ideology

Abstract

By examining recent conflicts in both Egypt and Syria, this paper examines whether or not Islamism has the potential to serve as a functioning political ideology. Through Middle Eastern countries previous attempts to Islamize politics, the existence of militant/radical Islamists, and western countries stereotyping of Islam, this paper argues that though Islamism cannot be ruled out as a valid political ideology; it is currently unable to be a functioning political ideology due to the fact that previous attempts to make Islamism the main political ideology have led to hindrance of democracy and violent uprisings across the Middle East that has yet to pacify.