Islamism (Islam+-ism; Arabic: الإسلامية al-ʾislāmiyyah) also Arabic: إسلام سياسي‎ ʾIslām siyāsī , lit., "Political Islam" is a set of ideologies holding that Islam is "as much a political ideology as a religion". Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary (see below). Leading Islamist thinkers emphasized the enforcement of Sharia (Islamic law); of pan-Islamic political unity; and of the elimination of non-Muslim, particularly Western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influences in the Muslim world, which they believe to be incompatible with Islam.

Some observers suggest Islamism's tenets are less strict, and can be defined as a form of identity politics or "support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity, broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization of the community". Following the Arab Spring at least one source has described Islamism as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world, such that "neither can now survive without the other."

Maajid Nawaz (ماجد نواز, born 1978 in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex) is a British Pakistani and former member of the Islamic political group Hizb ut-Tahrir. He holds a B.A. (Hons) from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies and a M.Sc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of Quilliam (think tank), the world's first counter-extremism think tank. He is also the co-founder of Khudi, a counter-extremism social movement working towards the promotion of social democratic change in Pakistan.

Nawaz cites racism whilst growing up and feeling divided between his Pakistani and British identities as important factors in his struggle to find his own identity. The Nation of Islam and genocide in Bosnia also influenced him. Maajid's experience of Islamism began at the age of 16 when he left home to pursue a design course in London - it was then that he was recruited to Hizb ut-Tahrir (The Liberation Party). Maajid very quickly became a national speaker and international recruiter for the party, travelling first to Pakistan and then to Denmark to export the party's ideology and set up cells from London. He resigned from Hizb-ut-Tahrir in May 2007.

William "Bill" Maher, Jr. ( /ˈmɑːr/; born January 20, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.

Maher is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary, which targets a wide swath of topics including religion, politics, bureaucracies of many kinds, political correctness, the mass media, greed among people and persons in positions of high political and social power, and the lack of intellectual curiosity in the electorate. He supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, and serves on the board of PETA. He is also a critic of religion and is an advisory board member of Project Reason, a foundation to promote scientific knowledge and secular values within society. In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. Bill Maher received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on September 14, 2010.

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief." As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.

Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal. His writing focuses on the American foreign policy, the Middle East, Islam and Islamism. He is also an Expert at Wikistrat.

After graduating with a PhD from Harvard and studying abroad, Pipes taught at a number of universities. He then served as director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, before founding the Middle East Forum. His 2003 nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush to the board of directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace was protested by Democratic leaders, Arab-American groups, and civil rights activists, who cited his allegedly rightist views and oft-stated belief that force was the most effective remedy to conflict. The Bush administration sidestepped the opposition with a recess appointment.

Pipes has written or co-written more than a dozen books, and has written columns or opinion pieces for many newspapers. He frequently participates in discussion panels on television, and has lectured prolifically in the U.S. and abroad. He served as an adviser to Rudolph Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign. According to The New York Times: "Among his supporters, Mr. Pipes enjoys a heroic status; among his detractors, he is reviled." He is currently the Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.