Islamist
Definition
Islamist refers to political ideologies and movements that seek to organize the state, law, and society according to a particular interpretation of Islam. In research on radicalization, the term usually denotes the strands of this outlook, including jihadist groups, that justify violence in pursuit of those aims.
In research published in Advances in Psychology, Islamist ideology appears as one component of composite or 'salad bar' extremism among male youths aged 14 to 19 radicalized online in Singapore. Applying the 3N (Narratives, Networks, Needs) framework to three cases recorded between September 2025 and July 2026, the analysis found that Islamist narratives and ISIS online networks formed the ideological core, with far-right, far-left, incel, and True Crime Community material layered on top. This reverses the Western pattern, in which salad bar extremism is usually rooted in far-right narratives. One case drew on a niche Islamist accelerationist group that called for violent 'chaos' to establish Islam as the leading global civilisation, and another chose knives after repeatedly viewing ISIS execution and stabbing tutorials. The authors still interpret the Islamist content as justification adopted after an attraction to violence, driven by a need to restore significance lost through bullying or romantic rejection.
Sources: Ramakrishna & Yeo (2026)
Related Terms
- networks (1 shared article)
- salad bar extremism (1 shared article)
- nihilistic violent extremism (1 shared article)
- far left (1 shared article)
- narratives (1 shared article)
- needs (1 shared article)
- accelerationist (1 shared article)
- composite violent extremism (1 shared article)
- far right (1 shared article)
- true crime community (1 shared article)
Applications
Islamist and Far-right Extremism
In Singapore's composite extremism cases, youths combined ISIS and Al Qaeda sympathies with far-right content, including anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi, and Atomwaffen Division accelerationist ideas. Islamist narratives served as the base, and far-right symbols and language were borrowed to justify violence without any doctrinal commitment, a reversal of Western cases where the far right usually forms the base.
Sources: Ramakrishna & Yeo (2026)
Islamist and Nihilistic Violent Extremism
The eclectic mix of Islamist and other ideologies is read as legitimizing violence the youths already wanted to commit. A proposed 'violence-first' sequence runs from lost significance, through nihilistic digital spaces that frame violence as a route to mattering, to the selective adoption of ideological fragments, pointing to an underlying current of nihilistic violent extremism.
Sources: Ramakrishna & Yeo (2026)
