As a neologism it was adopted broadly in the wake of the September 11 attacks to intimate that either all Muslims , or those Muslims who spoke of their social or political goals in terms of Islam , were fascists . Khalid Duran is often credited with devising the phrase at that date . He used it in 2001 to characterize Islamism generally , as a doctrine that would compel both a state and its citizens to adopt the religion of Islam , journalist Stephen Schwartz has also claimed priority as the first Westerner to adopt the term in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center in an article in '' The Spectator '' , where he used it to describe the Wahhabi ideology of Osama Bin Laden . and defined it as the " use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology . " The term was sufficiently in vogue by 2002 to lead the cultural historian Richard Webster to remonstrate with its usage , in arguing that grouping many different political ideologies , terrorist and insurgent groups , governments , and religious sects into one single idea of " Islamofascism " both grossly oversimplifies , and induces us to ignore root causes , a key one of which , in his view , was ' the history of Western colonialism in the Middle East , and above all in Palestine '
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Islamofascism