Sivan contends that Western modernity...

Sivan contends that Western modernity, [^9] in its economic and intellectual dimensions, presents a special challenge to Muslims: "Western investment means the integration of the Islamic world into the system of the multinationals, which is totally alien to Muslim concepts of interests, insurance, taxation, and so on." [^10] Then he reaches the following major conclusion without providing enough historical evidence and introduction: "Islam thus comes out badly bruised from the encounter with modernity." [^11] To my mind, the author fails to provide an adequate historical analysis that takes into account the problematic nature of colonization in the Muslim world and its different manifestations, military, economic, cultural, political, religious, and conceptual.

📌[^12] Sivan does not consider colonization to be problematic at all; rather, he considers the Muslim rejection of modernity to be the crux of the matter: "The picture that emerges is not one which scholars studying Islamic society would tend to refute. Modernity has indeed made important gains, especially in recent decades. Islam, although more resilient than other traditional cultures, has seen its position greatly eroded." [^13] Notes: [^6].

See the author's recent article on Sayyid Qutb, Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi`, "Discourse, Power, and Ideology in Modern Islamic Revivalism," The Muslim World, Vol. LXXXI (3-4), July-October 1991, pp. 283-298. [^7]. Many scholars follow this approach in the course of their investigation of Islamic resurgence.

See the following: Issa Boullata, Trends and Issues in Modern Arab Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990); Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), and Abdallah Labdaoui, Les nouveaus intellectuals arabes (Paris: L'Harmattan,1993). [^8]. Sivan, p. 3. [^9].

On modernity, consult the following: Marshall Berman, All That Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), and Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). [^10]. Sivan, p.10. [^11]. Ibid., p.14. [^12]. Khurshid Ahmad, a contemporary Islamic thinker, insists that colonialism has been the most single important factor in the metamorphosis of modern Muslim societies. See Ibrahim M.

✦ ✦ ✦