Islamist

A term, growing in popularity, to describe extremist Muslim groups determined to bring about an Islamic government through force (This term is also used to apply to any group of Muslims who allegedly use terrorism). This term was popularized by Muslims themselves to avoid use of the term Islamic fundamentalist.

A fundamentalist Christian is one who believes that the Bible is the literal Word of God. If the analog is that an Islamic fundamentalist believes the Qur'an is the literal Word of God, then every Muslim is an Islamic fundamentalist, as the belief that the Qur'an is a verbatim revelation to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is central to the faith. Also, Islamists have frequently used terrorism as the method for acheiving power, and the killing of unarmed non-agressors is expressly against Islamic law, much less fundamental to it.

A term, one of many to denote Muslims in the modern world. Others include "Islamic followers", "The Ummah", and of course "Muslims"

The differentiation of those supposedly involved in terrorist groups was initially done by muslims themselves to distance the true followers of the faith from those who were primarily obssessed with violence and little interested in the welfare of their fellow man, which is one of the primary concerns of Islam.

Lately though, the media has appropriated the term and used it to label any sort of protest movement against authorites that features muslims in its makeup. As such the term can be quite misleading. The distinction between terrorist (evil people who kill innocent people for purely political motives), and Muslim(nice people who care for their fellow man, worship God, and seek justice for all) should be clear enough to the intelligent observer, especially as terrorism is strictly forbidden in Islam. The usage of a term that mixes the two, like Islamist, may then be counterproductive, and quite confusing.