Islamic Political Alternative

Excerpt from Richard Bulliet's excellent book, Islam: the view from the edge, written in 1994:

"I maintain that, whether or not they ultimately live by the ideals they espouse, today's Islamic activists have inherited from their historical tradition a claim to authority quite different from that of the familiar Middle Eastern monarchs and dictators, a claim that holds substantial promise of restructuring the political, cultural, and moral atmosphere of the Middle East.

The authority I see them wielding is the ability to answer the questions raised by believers in a fashion that convinces the believers of their correctness.. Nationalistic answers that once seemed heady and progressive, buttressed by a purported superiority of cultural and intellectual values originally imported from the West, now fall flat before the whispered--or shouted--suspicion that they are actually symptoms of the malignancy of cultural Imperialism...

I believe the future of the Muslim world lies with the Islamic political alternative."