Islamic Resurgence and Western Reaction

Islam is an ideology and a world religion with more than onebillion adherents spread around the globe (Kettani 1986). I Muslimsare a majority in more than forty-five countries from Africa toSoutheast Asia. Their populations continue to grow, as do the Muslimpopulations in the former Soviet Union, China, India, Europe, andthe United States. Islam seeks the evolution of a social structure basedon the concept of the unity of mankind and comprised of individualswho are ·living moral and spiritual lives. It seeks to build a transnationalsociety in which such narrow loyalties as color, race, and soon are negated, in which complete submission to the will of Allah isdisplayed, and in which Muhammad is the model to follow in dailyaffairs and is recognized as the chief interpreter of revelation.Denny (1993, 345) introduces Islam as "a vigorous, complexamalgam of peoples, movements, and goals, and not the monolithic,centrally coordinated, hostile enterprise that outsiders sometimesassume it to be." Muslim society is further characterized as having thecapacity to resolve any changes, new situations or problems facingthe ummah through the application of ijtihad. In the ever-changingsociocultural and socioeconomic conditions, it is ijtihad that preventsfossilization and precludes the development of stereotypes withinIslam. With ijtihad, Islam has the inherent capacity to address andrespond to change while still following the teachings of the Qur'anand the Prophet. Thus the term "fundamentalism," with its nonMuslimorigin in early twentieth century Protestant Christianity, hasno place in, and is therefore irrelevant to, the Islamic schema. This isnot only because of the specifically Christian heritage and nature ofthe term, but also because of the derogatory and negative undertonesthat have been attached to it. The term "Islamic fundamentalism" is,in fact, an oxymoron, for one cannot be a Muslim if one does notadhere to the fundamentals of Islam. Denny (ibid., 345-46) writes: ...