Although the link between some Islamist movements and terrorism is real and deserves extensive analysis, the fact remains that the great majority of Islamist groups in the Middle East (and in the wider Islamic world) are non-violent and integrated in their respective political systems. Whereas Islamist terrorists grab the headlines, it is the moderate Islamist groups that affect the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Muslims more directly. These are complex social and political movements, with multiple roles, functions and objectives. Each has unique characteristics stemming from their particular contextual formation and development.

In the Introduction, I defined as ‘moderate’ those Islamist movements which eschew violent methods and have accepted, at least to a degree and on a formal level, democratic and pluralist values. (An equivalent shift towards more liberal and tolerant social ideas is not part of my criteria of moderation and is not, strictly speaking, my concern in this discussion. However, in the next two chapters, I will on occasion refer to Islamists' social views because they present an interesting contrast to their political ideas.) The concept of ‘moderation’, similarly to the notion of the political ‘centre’, is a relative one according to geographical and historical context – the same group and its ideas may appear moderate in one society or historical period, but extreme in another. Islamist moderates are not liberals – that variant of Islamism remains, at present, a rarity in the Middle East.