78 Islam and Modernity
mid-1970s. From that time, and spurred by the Iranian Revolution, Islamic
politics became the dominant genre and idiom in the region. Let us consider
these politics in the light of the concepts of politics developed in the foregoing.
The diversity of modern Islamic politics
There is a tendency in public and media discourses in the West and elsewhere
to assume Islamic politics to be unitary, all subsumed under the label of ‘fun-
damentalism’. If any distinctions are to be made, then these are only between
‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’. These labels hide a wide diversity of ideas and
movements. First, we should note that, for the majority of Muslims in the world,
Islam is not about politics, but about faith and observance. Politics may come
into it when religious identity comes to defi ne social groups or forces in confl ict,
much like ‘Catholics’ and ‘Protestants’ in Northern Ireland. What we see in the
‘Islamic revival’ of the late twentieth century is the rise of political movements
drawing on Islam for identities and ideologies. This ideologisation of Islam is
not new, but has been a feature of politics since the inception of modernity in
the nineteenth century. For most of the twentieth century, however, with the
secularisation of society and politics, Islamic politics as such constituted one
element, often minor, among other, mostly secular, ideologies. The following
section traces that history.
For the present, we should note that current Islamic movements and ide-
ologies are diverse. We may see Islam as an idiom in terms of which many
social groups and political interests express their aspirations and frustrations,
and ruling elites claim legitimacy. We may distinguish a number of types of
orientations in the Islamic politics of recent decades.
We may discern three broad and overlapping types of Islamic political ori-
entations across the countries in the region. First, there is conservative or Salafi
Islam (salaf means ‘ancestors’, so for its adherents it is the correct religion of the
fi rst Muslims), the orientation dominant in the Saudi establishment, but with a
strong presence throughout the Muslim world. Its main emphasis is on author-
ity, hierarchy, property, meticulous observance of rituals and correct conduct,
including segregation of the sexes and the covering-up of women, and other
strictures of family morality and propriety. Its general thrust with respect to
rights is repressive, with a strong tendency to censorship of opinions and expres-
sions. This orientation is political in that it seeks to infl uence government and
policy towards the application and enforcement of religious law and morality,
and towards regulation and censorship of the media, and of art and cultural
products. This orientation is typical of the ‘pious bourgeoisie’ of businessmen,
professionals and many clerics. There are some interesting parallels between
this orientation and that of the Christian Evangelical right in the USA, which
is also concerned to pressure the government into the enforcement of religious