"Some of the people who say that democracy has no place in Islam, what they really express is a sense that the word 'democracy' as presented in international discourse appears to be wholly owned by the West,The word itself has, for some, a connotation of cultural imperialism."(Louay Safi)
The wide range of Islamic movements -- in social make-up, structure, and program -- have left many observers baffled. Since the Iranian revolution there has been a sharpened distinction between two approaches which might be called, respectively, fundamentalism and Islamism. Islamism can embrace both "progressive" 'ulema and those urban intellectuals who believe Islamic tenets are compatible with such modern values as freedom and democracy. The Islamist view stands in sharp contrast to those held by fundamentalist, traditionalist 'ulema who have had a historical monopoly over the right to interpret Islam and its tenets.
Throughout the Muslim world in the twentieth century, many groups that......
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