328 chapter eight
of an extensive body of literature on Islamic economic and the estab-
lishment of Islamic banks.
Until the early years of the new millennium, if a single event was
to be singled out as a political landmark of the twentieth century
Islam, this would be the liberation of the Islamic world from Western
foreign occupation. By the mid twentieth century Western forces
were seen, first, as less involved in the domestic politics of the occu-
pied land and, later as more willing than before to accommodate
the wishes of national struggles for independence. This paved the
way for the emergence of what has become to be known as Islamic
resurgence or revivalism.
The liberation of the Islamic world was not entirely free from an
aftermath. Nor did it lead directly to the resurgence of Islam as a
re-born socio-political force. True, the Indian subcontinent was divided
by religion into the two states, but the division was more of a polit-
ical necessity, than an Islamic prerequisite. It took Islam two more
decades or so to emerge after a long battle with another rival: sec-
ularization. There was already a gap between what secularisation
has achieved and what Islamists promised Islam could achieve. In
the absence of practical alternatives such as Islamic banks, economic
policies or educational programmes, and with the growing national-
ist movements which were mainly local, Islamic socio-economic and
political ideas were wrestling hard with other forces to present solu-
tions and suggest practical ideas. It was only after a few political set-
backs, which engulfed Middle Eastern Islam in particular, that
secularization started to lose ground and Islamic movements were
beginning to gain support. The premise was that secularization did
not work because it lacked the depth and motivation that Islam could
provide. The most notable example of these setbacks was the Arab-
Islamic defeat and the Israeli triumph in what has become known
as the six-day war. To Muslims the shock was very great: in six
days, the whole Egyptian Sinai, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the
Jordanian West-Bank including Jerusalem, were lost to the Israelis—
a dramatic humiliation to the Arab Muslims. There was a deep feel-
ing among Muslims that the humiliation of the six-day war was a
result of not observing the faith of Islam in full. With despair, once
more, the shock seemed to have awakened the religious feeling of
all and at all levels. The huge support among the masses at all lev-
els for religious teachings marked the beginning of the emergence
of what has become known as Islamic revivalism.