Muslim Renaissance: Challenges in the Twenty-first Century

The last three decades have brought profound changes to how we look at the fundamental notions that define the modern world, such as culture, ideology, religion, reform, and progress. A drastic shift from a bipolar world defined by the rivalry between the liberal West and the communist bloc in the 1980s, to a globalization intent upon breaking both market and cultural barriers in the 1990s, to a new form of polarization driven by religious and cultural exclusivism at the turn of the twenty-first century. Not only has communism succumbed and disappeared as a credible sociopolitical force, but liberalism itself is in retreat even in the United States, the most liberal society of all, giving way to a new tide of conservatism.
Evidently, the tide of conservatism seeking to replace both progressive and revolutionary movements does not bring new hopes of a better future; rather, it seems to be bent on reclaiming old postures of self-righteousness and ethnicity that fueled hatred, international hostility, and wars. Secularist ideologies are giving rise to religious ideologies, as can be seen clearly in almost every culture, whether in the United States, India, or Turkey.