9781422281093

I NTRODUCTION

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will deliver a successful and indigenous modernization. Islam is also an economic actor. Shari’a instructs the practices of what is known as Islamic finance, a sector of the international financial system that oversees two trillion dollars worth of assets. For decades now, Islamist organizations have palliated the defi- ciencies of regional states in the provision of social services, from education to healthcare, counseling, emergency relief, and assis- tance to find employment. It is the reach of Islamist grassroots net- works that has insured the recent electoral success of Islamic par- ties. Where the Arab Spring brought liberalization and democrati- zation, Islam was given more space in society, not less. It should be clear to all by now that modernity, and post- modernity, is not absolute convergence toward a single model— call it the Western, secular, democratic model. Islam is not a lega- cy from a backward past that refuses to die, it is also a claim to shape the future in a new way. Post-communist China is making a similar claim, and there may be others to come, although today none is as forcefully and sometimes as brutally articulated as Islam’s. That only would justify the urgency to learn about Islam, deconstruct simplistic stereotypes and educate oneself to the diver- sity of the world.