Globalisation and Political Islam: the Challenges of Modernity

In this article we argue that Islam as a political ideology is not a new phenomenon, but the result of a long, complex historical process. It was a response to the expansion of Europe and the decline of the great Islamic empires in the 19th century, on the one hand, and failed modernization in the post-colonial societies in vast parts of the Islamic world, on the other. Attempts at an endogenous modernization of society, economies, politics and culture from above to counter marginalization and peripheralization in the world economy have taken place intermittently from the mid-19th century, first of all in the Islamic empires and, after the break-up of these empires into smaller states and regions and after decolonization, in the secular-authoritarian states in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.