Islam and the Languages of Modernity

Abstract

The secular bias of modernization theory has had a significant role in deflecting attention away from role of religious practices and values in contemporary societies, particularly in Muslim majority world. In early 1960s, a leading public intellectual saw Muslim world as facing an unpalatable choice: either a neo-Islamic totalitarianism intent on resurrecting past, or a reformist Islam that would open the sluice gates and swamped by deluge. A principal difficulty with Huntington's West versus Rest formulation is that, having reintroduced culture and religion to thinking about politics, he overstated their coherence and force, in addition to treating Muslim world as a monolithic bloc. Culture became an independent variable. As a result of direct and broad access to printed, broadcast, and electronically recorded word, more and more Muslims take it upon themselves to interpret textual sources—classical or modern—of Islam.