254 No god but God
based only on Islamic traditions and values. The principal lesson to be
learned from the failure of Europe’s “civilizing mission” is that
democracy, if it is to be viable and enduring, can never be imported. It
must be nurtured from within, founded upon familiar ideologies, and
presented in a language that is both comprehensible and appealing to
the indigenous population.
Iran’s previous revolutions in 1905 and 1953 were hijacked by for-
eigners whose interests were served by suppressing democracy in the
region. The revolution of 1979 was hijacked by the country’s own
clerical establishment, who used their moral authority to gain absolute
power. This counterrevolution, however, despite the brutally intransi-
gent response it has thus far received from Iran’s clerical oligarchy,
must not be quelled. That is because the fight for Islamic democracy
in Iran is merely one front in a worldwide battle taking place in the
Muslim world—a jihad, if you will—to strip the Traditionalist Ulama
of their monopoly over the meaning and message of Islam and pave
the way for the realization of the long-awaited and hard-fought
Islamic Reformation.
This is an internal struggle taking place not in the deserts of the
Arabian Peninsula, where the Islamic message was first introduced to
the world, but in the developing capitals of the Muslim world—
Tehran, Cairo, Damascus, and Jakarta—and in the cosmopolitan capi-
tals of Europe and the United States—New York, London, Paris, and
Berlin—where that message is being redefined by scores of first- and
second-generation Muslim immigrants. By merging the Islamic val-
ues of their ancestors with the democratic ideals of their new homes,
these Muslims have formed what Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born intel-
lectual and grandson of Hasan al-Banna, has termed the “mobilizing
force” for the Islamic Reformation.
Like the reformations of the past, this will be a terrifying event,
one that has already begun to engulf the world. However, out of the
ashes of cataclysm, a new chapter in the story of Islam will emerge.
And while it remains to be seen who will write that chapter, even now
across the Muslim world a new revelation is at hand which, after cen-
turies of stony sleep, has finally awoken and is slouching toward Me-
dina to be born.