Islam and Globalization

Research Paper # 63729

Hot Topics
Religion and Theology > Islam
Sociology

A look at some of the issues concerning democratization within the Islamic tradition.

3,147 words () | 12 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper contends that Islam itself is not against globalization, capitalism, the west, or the enfranchisement of women, contrary to what many journalists in the Western press proclaim. It argues that instead, Islam was spread by globalization in earlier eras, including by Arab traders who ventured into Southeast Asia beginning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

From the Paper:

"There were also important institutional adaptations. When Libya was created as an independent state in 1951-1952, it was established as a monarchy, and the head of the Sanusiyyah, a great Sufi brotherhood, became the king of a new "nationstate." In Sudan, two of the largest older Muslim associations, the Khatmiyyah Tariqah and the Ansar (followers of the Mahdi), organized themselves into mass political parties. They were able to compete effectively in the elections of the parliamentary system that was created when Sudan became independent in 1956. In many other areas, similar reforms and adaptations of existing Islamically identified structures took place. The character of the role of Islam in politics was that of adapting existing structures and concepts to new conditions."