Islamic Resurgence and Western Reaction By Mohammad Akram Chaudhary Michael D. Berdine

Abstract

Islam is an ideology and a world religion with more than one
billion adherents spread around the globe (Kettani 1986). I Muslims
are a majority in more than forty-five countries from Africa to
Southeast Asia. Their populations continue to grow, as do the Muslim
populations in the former Soviet Union, China, India, Europe, and
the United States. Islam seeks the evolution of a social structure based
on the concept of the unity of mankind and comprised of individuals
who are ·living moral and spiritual lives. It seeks to build a transnational
society in which such narrow loyalties as color, race, and so
on are negated, in which complete submission to the will of Allah is
displayed, and in which Muhammad is the model to follow in daily
affairs and is recognized as the chief interpreter of revelation.
Denny (1993, 345) introduces Islam as "a vigorous, complex
amalgam of peoples, movements, and goals, and not the monolithic,
centrally coordinated, hostile enterprise that outsiders sometimes
assume it to be." Muslim society is further characterized as having the
capacity to resolve any changes, new situations or problems facing
the ummah through the application of ijtihad. In the ever-changing
sociocultural and socioeconomic conditions, it is ijtihad that prevents
fossilization and precludes the development of stereotypes within
Islam. With ijtihad, Islam has the inherent capacity to address and
respond to change while still following the teachings of the Qur'an
and the Prophet. Thus the term "fundamentalism," with its nonMuslim
origin in early twentieth century Protestant Christianity, has
no place in, and is therefore irrelevant to, the Islamic schema. This is
not only because of the specifically Christian heritage and nature of
the term, but also because of the derogatory and negative undertones
that have been attached to it. The term "Islamic fundamentalism" is,
in fact, an oxymoron, for one cannot be a Muslim if one does not
adhere to the fundamentals of Islam. Denny (ibid., 345-46) writes: ...