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Aftermath (Islam)
Aftermath (Islam)
By 1818 British hegemony over India was complete, and many other colonies and
mandates followed. Not all Muslim territories were colonized, but nearly all
experienced some kind of dependency. In the 19th century Westernization and
Islamic activism coexisted and competed in Islamdom. In the 19th-century
Ottoman Empire, selective Westernization coexisted with a reconsideration of
Islam. In Iran the Qājār shahs brought in a special "Cossack Brigade" led by
Russians. Islamic protest often took the form of jihads against Europeans. Al-
Afghānī, Iqbāl assumed that without Islam Muslims could never regain the
strength they had possessed when they were a vital force in the world. In many
regions of Islamdom the movement known as Salafiyyah also identified with an
ideal time in history.
The early 20th century to the present Reform and revival in the colonial period
Between the two World Wars, two distinct interpretations of Islam emerged from
the Salafiyyah movement. One interpretation politicized Islam by taking its
scriptures to be the proper foundation of the social and political order. The other
sought a renovated religion that would be grounded in and faithful to the early
scriptures. The question of whether Islam should be the foundation of a national
culture and politics dominated political discourse in Islamic countries throughout
the 20th century and beyond. In Egypt, for example, liberal intellectuals such as
Ṭāhā Ḥusayn viewed national culture as incorporating Islamic, Arab, ancient
Egyptian, and European elements.
After the Six-Day War in 1967, political Islam emerged as a public force. Egypt
withdrew from military and other treaties with the Soviets in the 1970s. Islamist
movements began to criticize state control of Islam in their countries. In 1979 an
Islamic state was founded in Iran through revolution. The Islamic republic of Iran
competed with Saudi Arabia for influence in the Middle East. Before the Iranian
Revolution, offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood were radicalizing political Islam
in other parts of the Islamic world. One of the most important figures was the
Egyptian author and writer Sayyid Quṭb.
Islamist groups were the object of sustained worldwide media attention in the
1970s and 1980s. Nonviolent groups received significantly less attention than the
few groups that advocated the use of violence. This changed in the 1990s, when
authoritarian regimes began implementing policies of limited political
liberalization. In countries that did not practice electoral politics, movements of
opposition devised other means of protest and participation. In Saudi Arabia in
1992 a "Memorandum of Advice" was signed by more than 100 ulama and
Islamists. Contemporary Islamist movements are polarized between two main
trends.
In the 1980s and '90s, Western Muslims pondered how they could live and
practice their religion in a non-Muslim context. They pondered whether full
participation in Western culture and political life was possible. Many retained
important links with their countries of origin through travel and modern means of
communication. "Clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West was largely a
theoretical construct. Bin Laden viewed the world as divided in a war between
Muslims and "Crusaders and Zionists". Controversies such as the banning of the
veil in France became instantly global.