Boko Haram, the violent group that kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school at Chibok in Nigeria in mid-April, is always described in the press as “Islamist”. This handy word for a sort of Muslim that we don’t like was unknown until 1980, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the twin senses of “fundamentalist” and “advocate of increasing the influence of Islamic law in politics and society”. And who could be more chillingly Islamist than the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau? His “swaggering, unhinged style on videos” as the Mirror put it last week, “has earned him a reputation as part spiritual leader, part gangster”.“In late 2012, he declared his group's allegiance to al-Qaeda,” wrote Coli