islamist extremism
Islamist ideology that legitimises violence — a motive, not a separate offence
Islamist extremism is a term for an interpretation of Islamist ideology that accepts, legitimises or actively uses violence and other unlawful acts as a means of achieving political, religious or ideological goals. The concept is thus clearly distinguished from ordinary Islamic religious practice and denotes exclusively the violence-oriented or unlawful outer wing of Islamist thinking. In Danish intelligence and policing terminology, the parallel term 'militant Islamism' is often used, which the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste, PET) defines as an Islamist ideology that explicitly legitimises violence in order to advance such goals. In practice the two concepts overlap to a considerable degree and are used partly synonymously in public threat assessments and official communications.
In the language of crime and the justice system, Islamist extremism is typically linked to concrete acts such as terrorist attacks, knife attacks with an ideological motive, recruitment to terrorist organisations or the financing of terrorism. In this context the term functions as a description of the ideological character of the perpetrator's motive, not as an independent criminal-law category.
Under Danish law, Islamist extremism is not regulated as a separate statutory provision. Criminal liability for acts committed with an Islamist extremist motive follows instead from the general provisions on terrorism and other serious crime in the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven). The motive may nevertheless carry weight in sentencing and in the authorities' classification of a case as terrorism rather than ordinary crime.
Attacks such as a knife killing committed with a declared Islamist justification are, on this view, regarded as an expression of Islamist extremism, because the act was ideologically motivated and directed at civilians with the aim of creating fear or advancing an Islamist project. It is the combination of violent action and ideological legitimisation that places such cases within the scope of the concept.
