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This article highlights aspects of Islamism ignored in much conventional political science by applying to it a composite conceptual framework made up of Hannah Arendt’s concept of totalitarianism as an ideology, movement and system of rule; political religion conceptualised both as a cultural system and as an ideology; the growing ‘cultur ation’ and ‘religionisation’ of politics; and the politicisation of Islam. When applied to Islamism this approach highlights the fact that its use of terrorism is one aspect of a much broader reaction to the threat of Islam society’s radical secularisation under the impact of the universalisation of western values. At its core lies an imagined umma community postulated as an alternative model of civilisation to one offered by ‘the West’ – that claims global hegemony for its values. The analysis stresses that Islamism is not to be equated with Islam, or treated as a monolith, but rather as a religiously and culturally diversified phenomenon whose common denominator is adherence to din-wa-daula, i.e. the unity of Islamic religious principles as the legitimation of a totalitarian government. As a transnational force waging an irregular war fuelled by a fundamentalist interpretation of religion, it is resistant to attack by conventional military or security measures.