Editorial

Abstract

An extensive corpus of literature on the phenomenon of the Islamic
movement as a reaction to modernization and modernity has appeared during
the past two decades. In this important category of research, Islamic
discourse and its sociopolitical impact may be explained in tenns of the
growing sense of alienation and exclusion generated by the changes of
modem times. As a result, a dichotomous model of analysis has been
widely employed in many of the recent approaches to Islam and Muslims,
a model that pits the "modem," "progressive," and "rational" against the
"traditional," "reactionary," and "emotional."
In contrast, only a few attempts have been made to understand contemporary
Islamic discourse(s) and movements as the quintessential products
of the modernization process in the Muslim world. The case for this
alternative, though complementary, approach can be formulated on the
basis of a sociocultural analysis of the views and backgrounds of modem
lslamists.
For more than thirteen centuries of its history, Islam was defined intellectually
and practically by the ulama class. This vital and pervasive social
force, although open and accessible to various sections of society, was not
without its own boundaries in the areas of culture, education, or piety.
Progressively, of course, and for reasons that cannot be dealt with here, the
ulama class was transformed into an established social institution and preserved
by families with long scholarly traditions and a complex network
of a particular kind of power.
Twentieth-century Islamists are, by and large, graduates of modem
(western?) schools who have received intensive training in modem disciplines
and methodologies. Their breeding milieu, in most cases, are modem
urban centers in the Muslim world and modem social classes. Thus
they have little to do with the ancient institution of the ulama. In fact, their
advent has marked an era of decline for the ulama class. Traditional Islam,
or that of the ulama, has been and will always be a strong tributary to contemporary
Islamic thought and its world vision. But the latter's idioms,
logic, symbols, structural relations, inner dynamics, and ultimate goals are
necessarily of modem geneaology.
In this issue of AJISS, A. I. Tayob presents a brilliant study on the
"Paradigm of Knowledge of the Modem Islamic Resurgence." Grounding
his analysis on Foucault's themes of power relations between disciplines, ...