Word: islamicization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What comes to mind when an Islamic fundamentalist turns up in the news? Egyptian soldiers assassinating Anwar Sadat? A Palestinian suicide bomber blowing up an Israeli market? In an age when Islamic fundamentalism has become a cliche associated with gruesome acts of terrorism, one image that usually does not spring...
Abdul Koddus, 50, an Egyptian writer, is a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political group founded in 1928 that has been banned by the government. He prays five times a day, campaigns for an Islamic republic and pens frank public critiques of President Hosni Mubarak's regime...
Yet far from being a Koran-thumping, bomb-toting fanatic, Abdul Koddus is a self-described Islamic liberal, a teddy bear of a man who denounces terrorism and sings the praises of some features of Western democracy. He avoids the austere robes that are de rigueur for bearded hard-liners...
Abdul Koddus--reasonable-sounding, charming and passionate--represents a potent modern brand of Islamic activism. It is still activism. Like Islamic extremists, Abdul Koddus argues that centuries of imperialism have corrupted and weakened Islamic countries. He and other relative moderates believe despots should be removed, Israel abolished and society governed...
In Egypt the strategy of these relative moderates is for successive waves of activists to infiltrate key institutions--such as the legal and health-care professions, the education system, the media--until the secular system peels away and a truly Islamic order emerges. Among the increasing numbers of ordinary Muslims...