Introduction

The Islamic states are part of the so-called Third World that is dominated by the West. The Western dominance is of a multi-dimensional nature, not just military or political hegemony. Economic and intellectual forces are important components of the dominant power that the West wields. The dominant countries of the West have not only penetrated the Third World, particularly, the Islamic or Arab countries in economic and political terms but also in very significant cultural areas.

This hegemonic or dominant role is exercised by certain Western countries because of the ascendant position they occupy in the world market and the community of nation states buttressed by military and technological superiority. According to Robert Keohane, author of After Hegemony: "The theory of hegemony, as applied to the world political economy, defines hegemony as preponderance of material resources. Four sets of resources are especially important. Hegemonic powers must have control over raw materials, control over sources of capital, control over markets, and competitive advantages in the production of highly valued goods."

The global sweep of late capitalism has been seen by many cultural critics to be wedded to the view that modernity and Westernization are the best goals for all peoples, individually and corporately. So, Western views of the world and the West's hegemonic structures and processes are seen to work hand in hand, one supporting the other in a vast co-optative system embracing everything from production-consumption, pop culture, the exportation of human rights and democracy, to the maintenance of "friendly" political regimes and the preservation of the status quo in power relations between West and East and, more to the point: North and South. By "viable" is meant hegemonic more often than not.

The dominant Western systems were created to enforce the rules of an international economic order, the main purpose of which was to promote the interests of the domina nt powers. The international economic system is heavily tilted in favor of the industrialized West. This imposes severe restraints on the modernization and development processes in the developing countries. In economic terms, growth and modernization are key concerns of the so-called liberal philosophy. But it is more concerned with increasing the size of the cake than distributing it fairly and equitably.

Western policy, based on a single principle, i.e. self interest, is pursued brutally.

The Western policies towards the third world - that includes the Islamic world - are primarily determined by the analysis of economic and power interests, not by the evaluation of a religion. These policies are single- mindedly pursued by Western self-interest, at times brutally, with little regard for the lives of people there. It is a question of power politics, of control.

In his top secret Policy Planning Study 23, Mr. George Kennan, in 1948 outlined the US policy: "...we have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population....Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to matain this position of disparity .... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality...We should cease to talks about vengeance and ...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization." In its annual Human Development Report 1998, the UN says that gross inequalities between rich and poor countries are worsening, with 20 per cent of the global population accounting for 86 per cent of consumption. The 225 richest people in the world have a combined wealth of more than $1 trillion -- equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 per cent of the earth's population, some 2.5 billion. The three richest individuals in the world possess more than the total gross domestic products of the poorest 48 countries, the 15 richest people have more than the total GDP of sub-Saharan Africa and the 32 richest more than that of South Asia.

Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, almost three-fifths lack basic sanitation, one-third have no safe drinking water, one-quarter have inadequate housing, while one-fifth are under-nourished and the same portion have no access to modern health services. For $6 billion a year more, basic education could become universal. This is half what Europe and the United States spends on persumery. Satisfying everyone's basic food needs would cost $13 billion. In comparison European and Americans spend $17 billion a year on pet food.

The problem is the growing military power of many states in the so-called Third World, who could escape Western dominance. The problem is that a widening circle of states reserve the right to use their power as they fit. This is a dreadful nightmare for the West. The countries in question should, hence, behave in a manner that the Western countries 'see fit' and not as they themselves 'see fit.' Therefore, if any country's policies a re found contrary to the Western interest, it is dubbed as against the international law and world peace.

Western civilization - based on the Jewish-Christian ethos - is promoted as "the universal civilization"

The term civilization is usually used in the singular to mean modern Western civilization which since the eighteenth century has been in the West as the civilization; one that has set about to destroy and obliterate systematically all other civilizations including the Islamic. It is being done in the name of a world order which is completely based on the modern, Western ethos.

There is a tendency in the West to consider its own tradition alone as rational and scientific and denigrate other traditions as mere propaganda, religious obscurantism or superstition. Global cultural development is often measured by comparison with the Western culture. Consequently, modernity is not considered a characteristic of Islamic societies. Instead, it is seen as an integral part of a univer sal process of becoming civilized.

According to this scheme, the West is progressive, rational, enlightened and secular. Islam is backward, fanatical, irrational and fundamentalist. What is interesting is that it is not Islam and Christianity that are contrasted, or the West and the East, but Islam and the West, a religion and a geographical area. Furthermore, it is clearly very important for the West to feel superior and to see Western culture as the 'best' and 'most progressive.'

The view which the Christian and the post-Christian West had of themselves in the past, as being endowed with a universal mission of redemption, is in many respects the same. Whereas it was earlier deemed necessary to 'win the world for Christ,' now 'modernization' - that is, adherence to the model of the West - is exported and preached with almost evangelical fervor as a sure means of redemption.

The West concentrates on Islam as a religion which is made out to be responsible for countless political, cultural and social phenomena in Islamic countries. And it is clearly Islam as a religion that generates such fear in Western culture, a fear of religion
that the West thought it had banished from its enlightened societies. To quote Reinhard Schulze: The West appears to re-enact, indeed to prove its own enlightenment and its own independence from the power of religion by comparison with the Orient. This is surely also because doubts have arisen about the victory of the world over religion, or of reason over irrationality in the West itself. [R. Schulze, lecture in Cologne, September 1991]

The Islamic resurgence is complex and multifarious

The Islamic resurgence is a broad based, complex, multi-faceted phenomenon which has embraced Muslim societies from the Sudan to Sumatra. It is a manifold, multifarious occurrence that is religious, socio-economic and political in character. It is impossible for any single framework to capture it or provide a meaningful comprehension. The phenomenon of Islamic resur g ence has been variously described as the 'fundamentalism,' 'renewal,' 'revival' or 'repoliticisation' of Islam, Islamic 'radicalism' and as 'militant Islam.'

The way to understand the Islamic revival as a modern phenomenon must be through an understanding of the modern milieu in existing Muslim societies -- their economies, politics and cultures in the broad senses of the term. The modern political religious movements are the outcome of the distorted process of secularization to which Islamic societies were exposed, of the economic crisis that capped their encounters with the Western-dominated economic system, and of the crisis of identity engendered by the cultural encounter with the so-called modernism.

The point to be made here is that both the external factors, the Western domination of global economic and political system, and the internal factors, Islamic revival etc. have produced this phenomenon.

Islamic resurgence in the modern Muslim world is a socio-religious and political move ment that represents social interests, perhaps those of the 'alienated petty bourgeois mass and its proletarian extension.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the Muslims feel that because of the strategic location of the Middle and Near East, they have been under siege for nearly two centuries. When faced with such a continuing and often over- whelming force, they have taken recourse to what is easily and immediately available. Because adherence to the Islamic Shariah brought so much glory to seventh century Islam, a number of Muslims feel that their present plight can be explained largely because of their failure to practice and follow certain clear and rigid principles and institutions of the Quran and the Sunna.

However, one can discern several types of responses on the part of Muslims to what they term Western dominance and imperialism. It has given rise to a variety of voices and expressions, that have been unrelenting in pursuing their major goal, which is to alter or supplant (some p of) the existing culture and society either through legal peaceful means or revolutionary methods.

In every Muslim society in which Islam is followed by a substantial proportion of the population different political or ideological manifestations of Islam will be discernible. Three broad types of Islamic orientation may be identified: radical, conservative and moderate or secular. A moderate wishes to preserve Islamic culture and norms, but without taking this to the political arena. He believes in reforming the Islamic society on modern lines and argues that religion should not to invoked in political, legal and economic matters which should be conducted in the context of the present-day world. Islamic revival or fundamentalism in its radical aspect seeks to interpret Islam as a reform movement and is opposed to modernistic interpretations of Islamic teachings which are attempted by modernist and liberal-minded Muslims. A conservative interprets Islam in legalistic-ritualistic terms, that helped the ruling elites to use Islam as a political instrument.