# First use of Islamofascist?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-islamofascist/394257>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 2, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-islamofascist/394257 "2007-03-02T01:37:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
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**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-islamofascist/394257/1 "2007-03-02T01:37:03Z")

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What is the first recorded use, print or radio or video, of the term Islamofascist?

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**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2007, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-islamofascist/394257/2 "2007-03-02T01:43:03Z")

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Per wiki, the origin is disputed:

> **[Islamofascism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascist)**
>
> Political Militant Islamofascism is a portmanteau of the words fascism and Islamism or Islamic fundamentalism, which advocate authoritarianism and violent extremism to establish an Islamic state, in addition to promoting offensive Jihad. For example, Qutbism has been characterized as an Islamic terrorist ideology. Interactions between Muslim figures and fascism began as early as 1933, and some used the term fascism to describe as diverse phenomenon as the Pakistan independence movement, Gamal Abd...

> [@](#):
>
> Origins and usage
> 
> According to Roger Scruton of the Wall Street Journal, the term was introduced by the French Marxist Maxime Rodinson to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978[11].
> 
> The origins of the term are unclear but appear to date back to an article which was published on September 8, 1990 in The Independent. In the article, “Construing Islam as a language,” Malise Ruthven wrote:  
> “ Nevertheless there is what might be called a political problem affecting the Muslim world. In contrast to the heirs of some other non-Western traditions, including Hinduism, Shintoism and Buddhism, Islamic societies seem to have found it particularly hard to institutionalise divergences politically: authoritarian government, not to say Islamo-fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from Morocco to Pakistan. ”
> 
> On the other hand, Albert Scardino of the The Guardian attributes the term to an article by Muslim scholar Khalid Duran in the Washington Times, where he used it to describe the push by some Islamist clerics to “impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry”.[12]
> 
> Michael Savage, host of the U.S. nationally syndicated radio show, the Savage Nation, has repeatedly maintained on his radio show that he had coined the term “islamofascism.”
> 
> The related term, Islamic fascism, was adopted by journalists including Stephen Schwartz[13] and Christopher Hitchens, who intended it to refer to Islamist extremists, including terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, although he more often tends to use the phrases “theocratic fascism” or “fascism with an Islamic face” (a play on Susan Sontag’s phrase “fascism with a human face”, referring to the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981). [14]