Can or should contemporary Islamist movements make us rethink Western conceptions of secular modernity?
On the whole, neither radical Islamist movements nor liberal Islam appear able to make people rethink Western conceptions of secular modernity. In part this is because many of their projects, in so far as they are modern, have taken over modern assumptions of politics. In part also it is because there is an enduring antipathy in the West towards Islam and ideas coming from the Islamic tradition. And of course the mere fact of the enormous disparity in power between apparently successful Western societies and evidently weak Muslim societies also plays a part. But I think that the phenomenon as a whole – that is the phenomenon of Islamism – as well as comparable religious movements elsewhere in the world ought to make us rethink the accepted narratives of triumphant secularism and liberal assumptions about what is politically and morally essential to modern life. The very existence of these phenomena should make us rethink our assumptions about what is necessary to modernity. There has b
