Islamic modernity: a mass of ugly self-contradictions
Above: the heart of Mecca—history and tradition despoiled by Wahhabi vandalism
The Crisis of Islamic Civilization By Ali A Allawi (Yale, £18.99)
The contemporary religious revival is a complex business. In the same period that Muslim societies, in their weakness, seem to have re-embraced Islam, America, in its strength, has re-embraced Christianity. Western Europe remains avowedly secular.
Despite the contradictions within the west, mainstream Orientalism holds that all cultures are developing towards the universal—or, more specifically, globalised—model of secular modernity and the market. According to this view, the Muslim world experiences backwardness to the extent that it resists secularisation. The…
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