[Islam-Online- Politics]

It is possible to discern certain trends and characteristics in the evolution of Islamic movements from which we can extrapolate a few inferences about future developments. First, though, some definitions are in order. I have taken "Islamic movements" here to mean those with a political agenda, those movements sometimes called "Islamist" or "political Islam" and, by their enemies, "fundamentalist." As a matter of convenient shorthand, I will be referring to those Islamic movements with a political agenda as "Islamist." This is not a particularly satisfactory term, but it is far better than "fundamentalist," a word borrowed from the Christian vocabulary.
There is an irony in attempting to discuss the future of Islamist movements. I, like many other observers of these movements, have tried for years to convince policy makers and the media in the West that we must not stereotype these movements as a global, monolithic structure. Just as the countries in which they have emerged are quite different from each other, and the societies differ profoundly at times, so too these movements differ from one another in precise goals and in their view of their role in the existing system. The responses of the existing regimes also differ enormously, from accommodation to outright hostility. To ignore these distinctions is to encourage the Western tendency to see "Islamic fundamentalism" as a monolithic, united phenomenon which is often perceived as a threat to the West. Each of these movements is different, and its prospects for success differ according to the nature of the state and society in which it exists. Its goals - and its implications for the West - may differ enormously from another such movement in a very different society.
Having said and written many times that we must not characterize these movements as a monolithic phenomenon, I am now asked to venture into discussing the future of Islamist movements as a whole. Therein lies the irony, for a short presentation such as this one leaves little time for the distinctions required by the diversity of these movements.
It is important to recognize that, throughout Islamic history, there have been frequent movements to reform, renew, and purify both religious practice and society, including the political sphere. These groups have sometimes effected enormous political consequences: the muwahhidun or Almohads of North Africa and Spain were such a movement, as were the original Wahhabis. These Islamic reform movements were not, of course, identical to the groups with which we are familiar today; but they had much in common: a belief that existing political regimes lacked Islamic legitimacy, that Islam itself had become stale and weak through inadequate observance or outright apostasy, and a desire to revitalize both the faith and society.
Twentieth century Islamist movements draw from these same feelings and also from some changed circumstances. Initially, modern Islamist groups, particularly the two pioneers, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Jama'at-I-Islami in India/Pakistan, also grew up in response to the presence of European colonialism. With the end of the colonial era, they have continued to offer alternatives to the pervasive social mores of the West. That does not necessarily mean they are opposed to the West politically or economically. (Westerners who denounce Islamic revival as "medievalist" often are puzzled by the importance of modern technology in the spreading of its ideas: from audio cassettes in the Iranian revolution to computer diskettes today. To most Islamists, however, it is not the West's technology that is deplorable, only its social mores).
Although the Brotherhood and the Jama'at grew up in the 1930s and the 1940s, they had to compete with other ideologies, particularly the new nationalisms, in their countries of origin. Islamist groups and political parties have been in existence for decades, as other ideologies - socialism, various types of nationalism, including "Arab nationalism" - have faded or failed.
For Westerners, and particularly Americans, political Islam did not really demand a place in their consciousness until the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Though Ruhollah Khomeini's ideological and religious beliefs had much in common with other Islamist movements, the distinctively Shi'ite elements of Khomeini's thought mean that the Iranian experience will never translate precisely in a Sunni context despite a Western tendency to see every Islamist movement as seeking to create "another Iran." In the Sunni world, Mawdudi, Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb have far more influence than Khomeini.
There is also a clear distinction to be made between Islamist groups seeking to engage and reform the secular state and those who consider the secular state unredeemable. This is sometimes linked with the doctrine, attributed usually to Sayyid Qutb's later years, of seeing the secular state as jahili and thus non-Muslim and the proper target for jihad. The movements embracing this idea of the secular state as deserving destruction and secularists as not fellow Muslims tend to be much more violent and unwilling to compromise than those who seek state and societal transformation through political participation.
As Islamist movements have evolved, their goals, tactics and roles have changed. The role of the underground organization and the use of violence is one area where varied approaches have evolved in response to specific events. Sometimes, when efforts to work within the system are thwarted by the incumbent regime, more radical responses result. The apparent shift of influence from Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to the more radical and extreme Islamic Armed Group (GIA) is a case in point.
There is also a diversity of leadership in Islamist movements, ranging from traditional 'ulama to educated persons with religious training but without traditional credentials as religious scholars (Hasan al-Banna was a schoolteacher) to young revolutionaries with little formal religious training. This too makes a difference in the tactics applied and the willingness, or lack thereof, to work within the system. The nature of the supporters also matters. In Egypt, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood still draws much support from the professional classes, educated middle-class people, and has much influence in the doctors', lawyers', engineers' and journalists' syndicates, though that is being eroded by government action. On the other hand, the radical, violent al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and Jihad groups draw their support from more socially dispossessed groups.

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