Islam and Secularization

Islamic history is replete with cyclical eruptions of radical Islam. One example: the Muslim Brotherhood, is an Islamic organization that was founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt, as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. It was begun in reaction to attempts to reform Islam by the great reformers and modernizers of the early 20th century, beginning with Afghani and Abdu.

Each time an Islamic eruption took place, it resulted in violence, since the Westernized Muslims usually refused to step back and revert to be shackled by traditional Islam. The frequency of the recurrence of these waves of fundamentalism in our time is shown in the cases of ISIS, Hizbullah, Hamas, Al-Qa'ida, and Boko Haram. The international turmoil these groups have caused by their recourse to violence has occurred on all continents.

This violence has posited more bluntly than ever before the question whether Islam will finally reconcile to the idea of modernization and moderation, or if it will persist in its rebellious ways that are encouraged inter alia by prevailing Wokeism moods.

(About the Author)

Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of over 90 books and 100 articles.