Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

The future of Islam after 9/11

Mansoor Moaddel 
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, Eastern Michigan University,
712 Pray-Harrold, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, USA

Abstract

This article projects the possible future of Islam in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, and beyond, by
analyzing the historical background and extrapolating from survey data collected before and
after 11 September 2001. Islamic culture is actively produced, rather than being an inevitable
reflection of social arrangements, so it is important to understand how its intellectual leaders
and activists perceive and resolve the issues facing their faith. The key concepts are targets,
in relation to which ideas are produced, and societal visibility. If these targets are visible and
clear, then one may be able to reasonably estimate the kind of religious discourses most
likely to develop in the Islamic movement in the future. The future of Islam is most visible
in Iran, where there is a move toward reformism and rejection of political Islam. In Jordan,
there is a moderate visibility to predict that the country’s Islamic movement will continue its
tradition of moderation and conservatism. In Egypt, the future of Islam is least visible.
While extremism is on a decline, it is not clear the degree to which a leftist-conservative
alliance will dominate the country’s cultural landscape.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

There is no consensus among historians and Islamicists about the nature of the
Islamic belief system and the experience of historical Islam, on which one could
base a definitive judgment concerning Islam’s compatibility with modernity. None-
theless, the availability of both historical and value survey data allow us to analyze
the future of Islam in light of the horrific event of 9/11. The key factor that would
determine the level of societal visibility necessary for predicting the future develop-
ment of a culture is the nature and clarity of the ideological targets in relation to


Tel.: +1-734-487-0162.
E-mail address: mmoaddel@emich.edu (M. Moaddel).

0016-3287/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2004.02.012
962 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

which new cultural discourses are produced. Based on this premise, I shall try to
illuminate the nature of such targets that are confronted by Muslim activists in
Iran, Egypt, and Jordan.
Some scholars would equate the future of Islam with an assessment of the
prospect for economic development of Islamic countries, the numerical expansion
of Muslims in the world and changes in their religious practices, and the degree
to which Muslim religious institutions play a role in sociopolitical affairs. I
consider Islam as a system of thought whose development is contingent upon the
manner in which Muslim intellectual leaders resolve the significant issues facing
their faith. To speculate how Islam will develop in the future is to speculate how
these issues are resolved. And the resolution of these issues to a large extent
depends on the kind of obstacles Muslim activists face in their immediate socio-
political environment.
Although Islamic countries in the modern period have experienced such diverse
cultural movements as Islamic modernism, liberal-nationalism, Arab nationalism,
Monarchy-centered nationalism, and Islamic fundamentalism, the issues facing
these movements have remained remarkably invariant. Among them, five stand out:
(1) the status of rational-empirical analysis in Islamic law, (2) national identity, (3)
form of government, (4) relationship with the outside world, and (5) the status of
women. The future of Islam remains based on the manner in which Muslim intel-
lectual leaders resolve these issues.
In discussing the future of Islam in Iran, Egypt, and Jordan, I consider (1)
the historical experiences of the Islamic movement in the modern period, (2)
the degree of approximation of the current conditions with the conditions of
the past Islamic movement, and (3) the findings of comparative value surveys
that I and my colleagues carried out in Iran, Egypt, and Jordan. In a nutshell,
I argue that Islamic fundamentalism and religious extremism are in decline,
and there is considerable support for democracy and moderate politics in these
countries.

2. Islam and Western-centered conception of modernity: a self-fulfilling

prophecy

The enlightenment thinkers of the 19th century and the think-tanks connected to
European colonial administration claimed to have a clear idea about the future of
Islam. They believed in a universal law of human progress, which was then used as
a yardstick to assess the compatibility of other cultures, including Islamic, with
modernity and hence their potential for future development. One of the most soph-
isticated pioneers of this view was James Mill, whose History of British India effec-
tuated a major shift in the East India Company’s cultural policy from the
romanticism of Sir William Jones to a rationalist approach pioneered by him and
Lord Macaulay. Drawing from a ‘‘conjectural’’ history, Benthamite principles of
utility, and the general intellectual heritage of the enlightenment including Millar’s
test of civilization provided by the status of woman (Millar [6]), he concluded that
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 963

the status of India—both Hindu and Muslim—was low on the scale of nations.
Mill condemned every aspect of Indian life as barbarous (Mill [5], cf. Forbes [2]).
Based on this perspective, the decline of Islam was ‘‘scientifically’’ forecasted.
People like Lord Macaulay believed that educational reforms and the natural oper-
ation of knowledge and reflection could effect changes in the religious outlooks
of Indians, without any effort to proselytize or interfere in their religious liberty.
Hunter predicted the decline of Islam among educated Muslims: ‘‘No young man,
whether Hindu or Muhammadan, passes through our Anglo-Indian schools with-
out learning to disbelieve the faith of his fathers. The luxuriant religions of Asia
shrived into dry sticks when brought into contact with the icy realities of Western
Science’’ (Hunter [4], cf. Ghosh [3]). Lord Cromer, British Consul general in Egypt,
had also the same view of Islam. For him, Islam as a social system was a complete
failure. This failure emanated from keeping women in a position of marked inferi-
ority, the rigidity of its law, its tolerance of slavery and intolerance of other reli-
gions. Cromer was convinced that the educated Egyptians were ‘‘demoslemised
Moslems and invertebrate Europeans.’’ This is because ‘‘in passing through the
European educational mill, the young Egyptian Moslem loses his Islamism, or, at
all events, he loses the best part of it’’ (Cromer [1]).
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the 20th century appears to have lent cre-
dence to the idea of Islam’s incongruity with Western style democracy and rational
rule making. The ideas and practices of such precursors of fundamentalism as
Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Motahhari from Iran, Hasan al-Banna and
Sayyid Qutb from Egypt, Abul Ala Maududi from Pakistan, Mustafa as-Siba’i
from Syria, Abbasi Madani, Shaikh Nahnah and Ali Belhaj from Algeria—all
appeared to have supported the 19th century critics of Islam. In rejecting Western
worldviews, these leaders insisted on unconditional fealty to Islam and questioned
the validity of any sources of learning that were outside Islamic cosmological doc-
trine. Hasan al-Bana, the leader and founder of the Society of the Muslim Brothers
(MB) in Egypt, best summarized the role of Islam in politics and society:
We believe the provision of Islam and its teachings are all inclusive, encompass-
ing the affairs of the people in this world and the hereafter. And those who
think that these teachings are concerned only with the spiritual or ritualistic
aspects are mistaken in this belief because Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation
(watan) and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and
sword. . . The Glorious Qur’an. . . considers [these things] to be the core of Islam
and its essence. (quoted in Mitchell [7])
Nevertheless, there is a reason to argue that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism
was partly a result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This discourse was produced in
reaction to the overly secularist bias of the 20th century intellectual leaders and
policy makers in Islamic countries, who had subscribed to the Europe-centered
19th century conception of rationalism and the idea of universal history. In their
efforts to build a modern state, these individuals followed a course of action that
created the conditions favorable to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Conscious
964 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

of their intellectual superiority, self-assured of the correctness of their secularist

views, and having a deep conviction regarding the constraining role of the orga-
nized Islamic establishment, they launched cultural assaults on the ulama and Isla-
mic institutions. The intellectual leaders in the first half of the century published
treatises, books, and articles attacking various aspects of the Islamic belief system
by pointing to the inadequacy of its political and social theories, to alleged
irrationality of the religious rituals, the outmoded methods of teaching and instruc-
tional materials used in the Islamic schools, and its unjustifiable support of the
existing social hierarchy and of the institution of male domination. Likewise, pol-
icy makers often zealously worked hard at limiting the sphere of activities of the
Islamic groups, taking away their educational and social functions, bringing under
the firm control of the government the economically resourceful institution of
awqaf (religious endowment), and self-righteously imposing a state-feminism from
above on their societies. All were done in the name of progress and the civiliza-
tional needs of their societies. Secularism—be it in the form of liberal-nationalism,
Arab nationalism and state socialism, and monarchy-centered nationalism—then
became the religion of the state. The secularization efforts in Algeria, Egypt, Iran,
and Syria are prime examples of this process. And the rise of Islamic fundamental-
ism was to a large extent a reaction to this narrow-conception of secularism and
limited understanding of the guiding principles of the modern state (cf. Moaddel [8]).

3. The rise of Islamic modernism

Clearly, fundamentalism was only one form of Islamic response to Western cul-
tural challenge in the modern period. Another form was that of Islamic modern-
ism, which adhered to sociopolitical views that were quite different, if not opposed
to, those professed by the fundamentalists. Started in India and Egypt in the
second half of the 19th century, Islamic modernism was a remarkable intellectual
development. It was reflected in the work of a group of like-minded Muslim scho-
lars, featuring a critical re-examination of the classical conceptions and methods
of jurisprudence and a formulation of a new approach to Islamic theology and
Quranic exegesis. This movement, which was nothing short of an outright rebellion
against the Islamic orthodoxy, displayed astonishing compatibility with the ideas
of the 19th century enlightenment.
The central theological problems that engaged these thinkers revolved around
the questions of the validity of the knowledge derived from the sources external to
Islam and the methodological adequacy of the four traditional sources of jurispru-
dence: the Quran, the dicta attributed to the Prophet (hadith), the consensus of the
theologians (ijma), and juristic reasoning by analogy (qiyas). They resolved to rein-
terpret the first two sources and to transform the last two in order to formulate a
reformist project in light of the prevailing standards of scientific rationality and
modern social theory. Such prominent intellectuals and theologians as Sayyid
Jamal ud-Din al-Afghani, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Chiragh Ali, Muhammad
Abduh, Amir Ali, Shibli Nu’mani, and their associates and disciples, presented
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 965

Islamic theology in a manner consistent with modern rationalist ideas and deistic
religion. These theologians were impressed by the achievements of the West, ran-
ging from scientific and technological progress, Newtonian conception of the uni-
verse, Spencer’s sociology, and Darwinian evolutionism to Western lifestyles. They
all argued that Islam, as a world religion, was thoroughly capable of adapting itself
to the changing conditions of every age, the hallmark of the perfect Muslim com-
munity being law and reason.

4. Conditions of Islamic movements: modernism versus fundamentalism

Although these two religious movements emerged under sociopolitical and cul-
tural contexts that differed in many respects—the nature of class relations, the
form of the state, level of economic development, and world political and cultural
context—two factors appeared to have formed the proximate conditions of these
two discourses. One was the variation in the discursive context from pluralistic to
monolithic, and the other was the variation in the state’s direct intervention in cul-
ture from minimal (i.e., ideologically neutral state) to extensive (i.e., ideological
state). Islamic modernism, most notably in India and Egypt, emerged under the
conditions of a pluralistic intellectual market and a minimal state intervention in
culture. This was true despite the existence of major differences in social structure
between India and Egypt. India was religiously non-unified, culturally hetero-
geneous, highly populated, and had a complex system of social stratification and a
differentiated system of colonial administration. Egypt, in contrast, was religiously
unified, culturally homogeneous, much less populated, and had a simpler system of
social stratification and a uniform system of political administration. Yet Muslim
intellectual leaders being involved in a similar intellectual market arrived at Islamic
modernist projects that were considerably alike. The weakness of Islamic modern-
ism in Iran was associated with the absence of a major social transformation and
discursive pluralism. The contrast between Iran and Egypt is particularly instruc-
tive given the similarities between the two countries in terms of social structure and
religious experience in the early 19th century. In short, dissimilar social structures
and historical experience sharing similar proximate conditions produced similar
ideologies—e.g., India and Egypt, and countries sharing comparable social struc-
ture but dissimilar proximate conditions failed to create similar ideologies—e.g.,
Egypt and Iran (Moaddel [9]).
Islamic fundamentalism, on the other hand, emerged under the conditions of
secular ideological and intrusive state, where a monolithic discourse was imposed
on society from above. In fact, the countries that experienced a fairly strong Islamic
fundamentalist movement—Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and Syria—shared similar polit-
ical and cultural features. Although these countries had considerable differences in
history, culture, political structures, and the type of international alignment their
regimes were involved in, they astonishingly shared a comparable set of proximate
conditions that promoted the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. All these regimes
were intrusive, implemented a series of secular reforms, heavily intervened in the
966 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

economy, and had extensive bureaucratic organizations. At the same time, all were
authoritarian, and political power was personalized and identified with the ruler.
These regimes were also secular ideological. A secular outlook was crafted to vari-
ous forms of radical Arab nationalism and socialism in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria,
and to a monarchy-centered nationalist discourse in Iran. Their intervention in
religious affairs politicized religion, creating favorable conditions for the formu-
lation of the Islamic fundamentalist discourse (Moaddel [8]).

5. Alternative futures of Islamic movements: the cases of Iran, Egypt,

and Jordan

One way to forecast the future of Islam in Iran, Egypt, and Jordan is thus to
assess the degree of similarities between the current situations of these countries and
the conditions of either Islamic modernism or fundamentalism. What is the nature
of the intellectual market in these societies? To what extent the ruling regimes have
maintained their ideological nature? To what extent do they intervene in culture?
What is the nature of the structure of power—pluralistic or monolithic? What is the
degree of societal visibility to forecast cultural trends in Iran, Egypt, and Jordan?
In Iran, there is relatively a high level of visibility to forecast the future of cul-
ture in the country. Under the Islamic Republic, despite the absolutism of the spiri-
tual leader, the structure of power has become pluralistic. The rise of the reformist
movement in recent years further enhanced political and cultural pluralism in the
country. Because pluralism entailed questioning the all-encompassing clerical auth-
ority, an aspect of the future trend in Islam is a fragmentation of this authority
and the rise of religious pluralism. If this trend is allowed to continue and is
accompanied by the development of culture—the advance in the social sciences and
the humanities, in particular—there is a high-likelihood that a more inclusive, tol-
erant, and transcendental Shi’i discourse will emerge in Iran, reflecting the emerg-
ence of some sort of secularized religion. This trend, however, could be arrested by
the conservatives’ intransigence, which might strengthen the position of the royalist
forces, or by outside intervention.
In Egypt, visibility is relatively low. The structure of power in Egypt has
remained monolithic and authoritarian. There are no significant power contenders
within the polity. Yet, there seems to be a fairly strong democratic undercurrent in
Egyptian society. Given that Islamic extremist groups have recently renounced ter-
rorism and political violence, one may reasonably expect a moderate and anti-
Western Islamic movement to emerge in the country, seriously challenging the
authoritarianism of the current regime.
Finally, in Jordan, there is a moderate level of visibility. On the one hand, the
Jordanian Islamic movement has been predominantly moderate, having a peaceful
relationship with the Hashemites. On the other hand, the democratization process
launched in 1989 by late King Hussein had a secularizing impact on the MBs.
Given the sensitivity of Jordanian politics toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
the fate of the peace process would be consequential for the discourse and political
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 967

orientations of the MBs. The higher the prospect for peace between Israelis and
Palestinians, the more stable political conditions in Jordan, the stronger the trend
toward democratic politics, and higher the tendency toward the secularization of
the religious movement.

5.1. The future of Islam in Iran: revolution and secularization of religion

After the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic
Republic, the clerical rulers imposed a puritanical set of religious rules on society,
considerably limiting individual liberty, particularly in the area of gender relations.
Through a large-scale repression of the opposition groups, they were able to estab-
lish a theocracy at the center of which was the institution of the governance of the
jurisprudence. The ruling clerics attempted to transform Shi’ism into a monolithic
religion controlled and guided by the office of the spiritual leader. They brought
the entire educational institution under their control to promote the ethic and mor-
ality of revolutionary Shi’ism. The mixing of the sexes was prohibited, and the uni-
versities and governmental offices were reorganized to ensure gender segregation.
An Islamic dress code was imposed. Men were discouraged to wear ties, and
women were not allowed to be seen in public without the veil or a headscarf. Nor
were they permitted to wear bright color dresses in public (appropriate color being
brown, black, blue, and gray). The moral police rigorously enforced the observance
of the government’s codes of conduct. Portraits of the spiritual leader were substi-
tuted for those of the Shah, and Islamic revolutionary slogans came to replace the
propagandistic statements of the pre-revolutionary regime in public places. The
mass media turned into the organ of the official news and often misinformation.
Nevertheless, the administrative structure and ideology of the Islamic Republic
were moderated by a host of historical and cultural factors. The Islamic Republic
was a result of a popular revolution. The conflict between public demand for
inclusion and political representation and the religious leaders’ desire to establish a
theocracy produced contradictory institutional structures in the Islamic Republic.
Although considerably skewed in favor of the spiritual leader, the institutional
forces within the Islamic Republic were arranged in a fashion that prevented the
concentration and centralization of power. These included, for example, the offices
of the spiritual leader and the Constitutional Guardians versus the office of the
president and the parliament, the revolutionary guards versus the army, and the
religious overseers in various governmental offices versus the secular members of
the civil service. The Islamic Republic, despite being an ideological regime, dis-
played an amalgam of religion and secularism. On the one hand, the office of the
spiritual leader derived its sovereignty from the Shari’a, on the other hand, the
presidency and the parliament from the electorates. Furthermore, there was also a
contradictory conflict between the monolithic religious structure imposed from
above by the ulama followers of Ayatollah Khomeini after the revolution and the
pluralistic tradition of historical Shi’ism. The spiritual leader in Iran is not neces-
sarily the most learned Ayatollah in the country, and the most learned Ayatollah
968 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

in Shi’ism may not be interested in political involvement.1 The leaders of the

Islamic Republic have thus far failed to force all the ulama to bow to the authority
of the spiritual leader. Finally, the demand of the public, particularly women and
university students, for political power and economic benefits, generated another
favorable context that undermined the concentration of power.
Such an institutional and ideological pluralism may explain the rise of the cur-
rent Islamic reformist movement. The leaders of this movement have thus far been
successful in winning presidential elections in 1997 and 2001, municipal elections in
March 1998, parliamentary elections in February 2000, and the run-off parliamen-
tary elections in May 2000. This pluralism also explains the ideological reorien-
tation of a significant group of Muslim scholars in a reformist direction. Some of
the key figures leading the reformist movement were among the architects of the
Islamic Republic: Abdul Karim Sorush, who is now defending Islamic democracy,
was the principal theoretician of the Cultural Revolution that dismantled the insti-
tutions of secular education in the country in the early 1980s. Some of the reform-
ist newspapers were run by the activists who were involved in the anti-West
demonstrations and the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran. Some of the grand
Ayatollahs who were among the signatories of the institution of the governance of
the jurisprudence are now part of the opposition, demanding political reforms.
What is even more astonishing is that all these reformist groups are defending their
democratic position in terms of their reading of Islam; the traditional Western-
inspired liberal democratic discourse still plays a minor role in legitimizing the
demands for personal freedom and the rule of law.2
The results of the comparative value surveys in Egypt (3000 respondents), Iran
(2500 respondents), and Jordan (1200 respondents) corroborate the above assess-
ment regarding Iranians’ new cultural reorientation. To be sure, religion plays a
crucial role in the lives of the great majority of the respondents in all three coun-
tries. Virtually everyone said that they belong to some religion: among Egyptians
94% said they were Muslims and 5.6% said they were Christians. The figures for
Jordan were 95% and 5%, and for Iran 97% and 1%, respectively. At least 94% of
all respondents said they believed in all of the following: God, life after death, the
existence of a soul, heaven and hell. Fully 97% of Egyptians said that religion was
very important in their lives—as did 96% of Jordanians and 79% of Iranians. The
level of importance accorded to religion correlates with the level of concerns the
respondents expressed about the meaning and purpose of life (i.e., spiritual needs).

1
According to one report, among the clerics who make up the ‘‘Forty Sources of Emulation’’—an
elite group whose members hold a rank roughly equivalent to that of a bishop in the Roman Catholic
Church—only a handful support the government. Mirroring Iranian society as a whole, pro-reform
clerics hold very little political power. That lies with a minority of hard-line conservative clerics who
control most of the important levers of the state. See Nazila Fathi, ‘‘Political Fervor of Iranian Clerics
Begins to Ebb,’’ New York Times (Friday January 17, 2003).
2
See, for example, Abdul Karim Soroush and Mohsin Kadivar, Monaziri darbar-ye Pluralism-i Dini
(A Debate on Religion Pluralism, Tehran: Salam Newspaper, 1378/1999); Mohsin Kadivar, Nazariyyeh
Doulat dar Fiqh-i Shi’eh (Theory of the State in Shi’i Jurisprudence, Tehran: Nay, 1376/1977).
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 969

In comparative terms, however, Iranians appear to be less religious, more

nationalistic, and less concerned with Western cultural invasion. The percentage of
the respondents who reported that they often (as opposed to sometime, rarely, or
never) thought about the meaning and purpose of life is 51 for Egypt, 60 for Jor-
dan, and 43 for Iran. In these three countries, religion appears to be a more impor-
tant basis of identity than nationality—i.e., 79% of Egyptians, 70% of
Jordanians, and 61% of Iranians described themselves Muslims above all. Iranians,
however, were more nationalistic than either Egyptians or Jordanians. While 34%
of respondents in Iran described themselves as above all Iranians, the comparable
figures for Egypt and Jordan dropped to 10% and 14%, respectively.
The contrast between Iran, on the one hand, and Egypt and Jordan, on the
other, is even more pronounced in terms of the respondents’ participation in
religious services: 22% of Egyptians, 28% of Jordanians, and 12% of Iranians indi-
cated that they attended religious services more than once a week. (For those
attending once a week or more, these figures were 42% for Egyptians, 44% for
Jordanians, 26% for Iranians.
Two additional indicators also reflected this pattern. One is the respondents’ atti-
tudes toward the adequacy of the response of religious authorities to the country’s
problems. In Egypt, 70% of the public indicated that religious authorities
adequately responded to social problems. This figure for Jordan is 60%, but for
Iran is dropped to only 47%. The other indicator is the variations in attitudes
toward Western culture: 64% of Egyptians, 85% of Jordanians, and 55% of Iranians
considered cultural invasion by the West to be among very important problems
facing their country.
To summarize, the experience of having lived for more than two decades under
an Islamic fundamentalist regime had made Iranians less religious and less con-
cerned with Western cultural invasion instead of more so. Nevertheless, it is clear
that the publics of all three societies continue to attach great importance to religion.
Across the three societies, a high percentage of the respondents (87% for Egyptians,
84% for Jordanians, and 71% for Iranians) indicated that religious faith was an
important trait for children to learn—ranking it higher than such other traits as
independence, hard work, responsibility, imagination, tolerance, frugality, determi-
nation and perseverance, non-selfishness, and obedience. The only trait that sur-
passed religious faith (for Iran and Jordan) among important traits for children to
learn was good manners (78% of Egyptians, 95% of Jordanians, 89% of Iranians).

5.2. September 11 and the change in Egyptian worldviews

Predicting the future of Islam in Egypt may be more difficult than it is in Iran.
In the sociopolitical context of Iran, there is a high visibility for predicting the
future of Islam because it is very clear as who is in control of power and cultural
expressions. The revolution removed the Shah and gradually the West as the target
of ideological attack. Effective power is monopolized by the spiritual leader and
a small group of like-minded conservatives in the Council of Constitutional
970 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

Guardians. Naturally, these people are blamed for Iran’s problems, and their ideol-
ogy is the target of oppositional discourse. The clarity of their constraining socio-
political views has left little difficulty for the intellectual leaders to know why they
are against them, giving coherence to their outlook, and thus extended the visibility
of the outcomes of the current ideological debates and religious disputations into
the future. The views of the religious conservatives are known, their popularity is
put to test and found wanting, and a great majority of Iranians demanded reforms
in the existing regime. Thus, it is reasonable to consider the future trend in the
country’s Islamic movement to be a religious outlook in opposition to the funda-
mentalism of the ruling regime.
In Egypt, on the other hand, things are quite different. While Egypt encounters
some of the same issues facing Iran—the relationship between religion and politics,
form of government, the status of women, and the relationship with the Western
world—the obstacles facing its Islamic movement are not as clearly defined as they
are in Iran. Although the regime is authoritarian and exclusionary, it is no longer
an ideological state as it was during the heyday of Arab nationalism in the 50s and
60s. Nor is it as pro-West and secular as the Pahlavi regime was to threaten diverse
religious groups, contributing to the rise of a united Islamic opposition. While the
orthodox religious establishment is tied to the state, the regime has faced the oppo-
sition of both moderate MBs and radical religious groups such as Islamic jihad and
Gama’a al-Islamiyya. It is not clear how the religious activities of these groups will
affect the future development of Islam in Egypt.
The terrorist attack on the American soil and the fact that some of the terrorists
were Egyptians appeared to have impacted the worldviews of Egyptian public.
Two national value surveys, one carried out just before 9/11 and the other about
six months later show considerable changes in Egyptians’ attitude toward Western
culture, democracy, women, religion, and the way their country is run. Before-and-
after comparison of the survey data showed that after 9/11 Egyptians became
more concerned about Western cultural invasion and more anti-Jews as they were
before 9/11. At the same time, their attitudes changed in favor of democracy and
gender equality after 9/11. Finally, after 9/11 a smaller percentage of Egyptians
were satisfied with religious authorities, considered the implementation of the
shari’ah as the characteristics of a good government, or believed that their country
was operating for the benefits of all the people.

5.2.1. Attitude toward the West and the Jews and religious tolerance
The increased negative attitudes toward the West and the Jews are among the
dramatic changes in Egyptian worldviews after September 11. The percentage of
the respondents who considered Western cultural invasion to be a very important
problem increased from 63 before September 11 to 71 after. A more dramatic
increase is in negative attitude toward the Jews as the percentage of the public who
did not like to have Jews as neighbors increased from 84.9% to 99.8%. It should be
noted that 9/11 was followed by the intensification of Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
and some of these changes may reflect Egyptian sympathy with Palestinians and
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 971

anger at the West for what they believed to be its unconditional support of the
Jewish state, and that these indicators may not reflect the rise of anti-West extrem-
ism and religious intolerance.

5.2.2. Attitude toward religious authorities

After 9/11, fewer Egyptians felt that religious authorities adequately responded
to moral problems, spiritual needs, family problems, and social problems, even
though the majority of the respondents still believed that they adequately respon-
ded to these needs. The largest and the smallest drop in Egyptian favorable assess-
ment of the adequacy of the response of the religious authorities were in the areas
of social problems (24%) and spiritual needs (12%), respectively, which might sig-
nify a decline in people’s confidence in religion to play an active role in resolving
concrete issues while on spiritual issues their confidence was still high. Fig. 1 shows
this attitudinal decline visually as bar graphs.

5.2.3. Attitude toward women

After 9/11, Egyptian worldviews also changed in a direction favorable toward
women. Those who strongly agreed with ‘‘men are better political leaders than
women’’ declined from 49% before 9/11 to 34% after, and those who strongly dis-
agreed with ‘‘university education is more important for boys than for girls’’
increased from 37% to 48%.

Fig. 1. Religious authorities adequately responded to.

972 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

Fig. 2. The effectiveness of democratic political system.

5.2.4. Attitude toward democracy

Similarly, Egyptians’ favorable attitude toward democracy increased signifi-
cantly, as shown graphically in Fig. 2. A higher percentage of the respondents indi-
cated that it was very bad to have a strong leader who did not bother with
parliament and elections and very good to have a democratic system, strongly dis-
agreed with in democracy the economy ran badly and democracies were indecisive
and were not good at maintaining order, and strongly agreed with democracy was
better than any other system.

5.2.5. Confidence in major social institutions

Two sets of indicators may capture the degree of system support among
Egyptians. One is on confidence in major social institutions, and other is on the
perception about who runs the country. Before and after 9/11, Egyptians did not
appear to have much confidence in the (local) government and such related institu-
tions as the press, TV, political parties, and parliament. Fig. 3 shows that after
9/11, the respondents’ level of confidence significantly increased only in the Press
and TV, while their confidence in other institutions remains by and large the same.

Fig. 3. Percentage expressing a great deal of confidence in major social institutions.

 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 973

5.2.6. Who controls the country

Based on the above indicators, one may conclude that there was a slight increase
in system support among Egyptians, but considering a more direct measure of
Egyptian perception of how the country is run, one may reach at a different con-
clusion. Before 9/11, 69% of the respondents indicated their country is run for a
few big interests, already a high percentage, after 9/11 this figure jumped to 77%.
The changes in Egyptian worldviews remained significant even after controlling
statistically for age, gender, marital status, education, and subjective class identifi-
cation, but they were more pronounced among people with university education.
Based on these changes, I cautiously predict that Egypt is going to experience a
fairly strong pro-democracy and somewhat secularist movement in the near future.
This movement would certainly be oppositional and likely to display critical atti-
tudes toward the West. At the same time, religious movements in the country may
distance themselves from religious extremism of the past several decades. This shift
is highly plausible given the renouncement of violence by leaders of Gama’a al-
Islamiyya in recent years.3

5.3. Jordan’s controlled democratization and the secularization

of religious movement

In contrast to Egypt, there is a higher level of societal visibility to predict the

future of Islam in Jordan. This visibility is largely related to an historically stable
and peaceful relationship the MBs enjoyed with the Hashemite Kingdom. This
relationship contrasts sharply with the experience of religious activists in other
Middle Eastern countries like Algeria, Egypt, pre-revolutionary Iran, and Syria. In
these countries, while the state and the Islamic opposition often engaged in a
sequence of violent confrontations against each other, the Jordanian Islamic move-
ment (with the exception of some minor trends) has been not only predominantly
peaceful and non-violent but also defended the state vis-à-vis the challenges of rad-
ical ideologies. This remained the case even though the Kingdom of Jordan dis-
played such features as hereditary monarchy, ties to the West, rentierism and an
economy vulnerable to fluctuations in the world market, patrimonialism, and
authoritarianism, which were all singled out as factors underpinning the conflict
between religion and the state in other Middle Eastern countries. Underpinning
Jordanian exceptionalism were a host of such historical factors as the state’s
authoritarian pluralism, favorable orientation toward the traditional social
classes—landowners and merchants—and the challenge of Arab nationalism to the
Hashemites and the MBs alike that sealed the alliance.

3
A 19-page interview with the jailed leaders of the country’s largest armed militant group, al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya by Makram Mohamed Ahmed, the editor-in-chief of Al-Mussawar, revealed that the group
has renounced violence and terrorism. It even condemned the terrorism of Osama Bin Laden and his
group on September 11 by indicating that the destruction of the World Trade Center and the killings of
innocent civilians were contrary to the teaching of the Islam. See al-Mussawar. No 4055 (2002), pp. 15–16.
974 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

Alliance with a pro-Western government, however, did not change the MB’s
religious fundamentalist and socially conservative outlooks. After the democratiza-
tion process launched by late King Hussein in 1989 and the Brothers’ impressive
success in the parliamentary elections, limitations of their outlooks became appar-
ent. The MB’s attempts to overcome these limits opened up the prospects for posi-
tive change in the country’s Islamic movement. Because participation in the
elections required registration as a political party and the disclosure of the sources
of financial support, the MB, in coalition with other Islamic groups, formed the
Islamic Action Front Party (IAFP) in 1992. In addition, the IAFP was to reconcile
the tension between Brothers’ belief in the sovereignty of the shari’a and the secu-
lar framework established by the state. At the same time, the very presence of the
IAFP, solely preoccupied with political matters, and the MB, as a religious insti-
tution, was an implicit admission of the separation of political and religious leader-
ship—each having its own autonomous modus operandi.
Furthermore, participation in electoral politics in the 1989–1993 period rationa-
lized the Brothers’ political expressions and shifted the framing of their discourse
less in terms of the teaching of the shari’ah and more in reference to the needs and
desires of the electorates. The Brothers’ success in the electoral competitions of
1989 had the seeds of failure in the following elections. Electoral competitions were
based on the degree to which one’s discourse can convince enough people to defeat
one’s rival at the polls. Even in the patriarchal and tribal context of Jordan, where
tribal loyalty tended to override other considerations in affecting the individual’s
political choice, having a practical agenda that would meaningfully address the
problems of water scarcity, unemployment, poverty, and other national and
regional issues were important in affecting the people’s choice. The Brothers were
not ready for pragmatic political bickering.4 Some of the issues they raised in the
parliament were considered petty, insignificant, and unrealistic. One of their repre-
sentatives became the subject of ridicule by his rivals when he suggested that
fathers’ should not be allowed to attend their daughters’ functions in school
because the mixing of the sexes was prohibited in Islam, or that the government
should implement measures to stop the distribution, sale, and consumption of
alcoholic beverages. It was in the attempt to overcome these criticisms that subtle
changes emerged in the MB’s political discourse toward stressing less on such gen-
eralities as Islam was the solution and more on the economic needs and the welfare
of the Jordanian people. The appeal to the needs of the public and organizational
differentiation were the key features of the change that signified a move toward
secularization.
Because a sizable portion of the Jordanian population considered themselves
Palestinians, this process, however, was conditioned by Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

4
One report critical of the MB made this point quite clear. Accordingly, ‘‘Jordan’s experience since
the 1989 election, which brought many fundamentalist deputies into parliament, showed that once inside
a legislature, the fundamentalists quickly demonstrate their incompetence at handling economic pro-
blems, the vacuity of their slogan ‘Islam is the solution’ and the petty nature of many of their demands’’
See, ‘‘Jordan’s Muslim disarmed,’’ The Times, November 10, 1993, p. 18.
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 975

In the 90s, when the peace process appeared to have some future, Jordan remained
politically stable and this stability contributed to a flourishing tourism industry.
These in turn contributed to the leveling of social tension and the further develop-
ment of democratic politics. As a result, the societal visibility to predict the future
of Islam in the direction of secular discourse was fairly high. The breakdown of the
peace process and the intensification of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict introduced
an element of uncertainty in Jordanian politics. As long as the tension between the
belligerent parties remained high, there is a considerable pressure on the Islamic
movement to take a more radical orientation, which would arrest the trend toward
secularization and rationalization of religious dogma. This phenomenon probably
explains why a higher percentage of Jordanians than Egyptians or Iranians con-
sidered cultural invasion by the West to be a very serious problem facing their
society. On the other hand, if a prospect for peace appears on the political horizon,
the process of the secularization of the religious movement in Jordan would gain a
new momentum.

6. Conclusion: the future of Islam in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, and beyond

The future of Islam is shaped by the kind of obstacles Muslim intellectual lea-
ders and activists perceived as hindering their religious objectives. The national
context of the Islamic movement is the major determinant of the form and content
of these obstacles, and the variations in this context are associated with the varia-
tions in the nature of these obstacles. Islam will thus face different futures in differ-
ent Islamic countries. In Iran, the conservative clerical rulers have imposed a
monolithic religious discourse on society, while at the same time maintaining a
monopoly of legitimate religious expressions. This monolithic discourse not only
contradicted the pluralistic religious experiences of historical Shi’ism but also
blocked the efforts of Muslim reformist thinkers to bridge Islam and Western mod-
ernity. At the same time, the worldviews of the conservative religious authorities
have become the target of ideological attack by diverse Muslim intellectuals. In
fact, the clarity of their worldviews combined with the downward spiral of their
authority created a high level of societal visibility to predict the future of Islam in
the country. It is the development of alternative religious discourses in oppositional
relations to these worldviews that may lead one to expect the future of Islam in
Iran to move away from religious extremism and clerical arbitrariness, and toward
moderation and modernity, having a more formal connection with political and
societal affairs.
In Egypt, on the other hand, there is a lower visibility for predicting the future
of Islam. Contrary to Iran, the target of ideological attack and the real obstacle to
cultural development are not one and the same in Egypt. While a high percentage
of Egyptians are concerned with Western cultural invasion, it is in fact the authori-
tarian government that is responsible for hindering the country’s political and
cultural development. After 9/11, their concerns with Western cultural invasion
and dissatisfaction with the way their country is run may constitute a favorable
context for the rise of an anti-Western oppositional movement. This movement,
976 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977

however, tends to be moderate with favorable orientations toward democracy and

gender equality.
The realization of this new attitude, however, may be hindered by what may be
termed as the situation of collective unawareness. In Iran, a series of relatively
open electoral competitions made Iranians aware of the true feelings of one
another regarding the existing regime. They have a reasonable estimate of the pro-
portion of the people who supported the reformists and those who supported the
conservatives. In Egypt, on the other hand, the public is unaware of its political
and religious preferences. That lack of common awareness may naturally under-
mine the development of collective action based on public desires.
In Jordan, the MBs having favorable experience with the Hashemite regime is
situated in a political and cultural condition that is more stable than that of their
counterparts in Egypt. The Jordanian MB had a working relationship with the rul-
ing elite, freely participated in parliamentary elections, and thus became quite
aware of the percentage of the public who inclined to vote for its candidates.
Naturally, if the democratization process remained unabated, which would be con-
tingent on the resumption of the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis,
there is a high likelihood that the secularization of the Islamic movement to con-
tinue. There are clear signs that the leaderships of the MB have realized that a less
religious extremist, a more moderate and transcendental discourse would be a bet-
ter way of increasing their number of seats in parliament.
The experience of Iran, Egypt, and Jordan and the horrific terrorist event of 11
September 2001 may signify one important shift in the conditions of Islamic move-
ments—Western democracies can no longer afford to tolerate extremism in the
Islamic world as they did in the past decades. The US-led war on terrorism aimed
at destroying the organizational and financial infrastructure of terror and pressur-
ing the ruling regimes in Islamic countries to crackdown on extremist groups nat-
urally tends to eliminate political extremism and violence as a viable option for
politically minded Muslim activists. If the war on terror is accompanied by pres-
sures on the authoritarian regime to relax political control and promote pluralistic
politics, one may reasonably expect the rise of a moderate Islamic movement.
There are several historical instances in Islamic countries, which signified cul-
tural change following the outbreak of violence. Two of such examples are worth
mentioning. One is the mutiny of 1857–1859 in India, and the other is the crisis of
1860 in Syria. In one, religious extremism was used to justify violence against the
British and in the other, violence was perpetrated against religious minorities,
Christian and Jews in particular. Although the interplay of several historical fac-
tors brought about these events, the archaic form of struggle, the violence, and big-
otry displayed in both instances awakened the people’s minds to the horrors of
their moral stagnation and stimulated a fresh critical look by the intellectual lea-
ders at their own society—its principle of social organization, treatment of women,
and attitude toward outsiders. Following the defeat of the mutiny in India, a fairly
strong Islamic modernist movement emerged in the country. Likewise, the extrem-
ism of 1860 in Syria did not recur for more than a 100 years later.
 M. Moaddel / Futures 36 (2004) 961–977 977

Highbrow culture producers in Islamic countries may be facing similar ques-

tions. Observing the extensive destruction of life and property caused by their
‘‘Muslim’’ brothers, learning more details about the attitudes of al-Qaeda and the
Taliban toward freedom and women in Afghanistan, considering the miserable fail-
ure of the Islamic Republic of Iran to create a social order significantly more
responsive to the needs of Iranians than the one it overthrew, would naturally
make them think about the role and function of religion in society, principles of
politics, the status of women, and the relationship with the West. Whether these
intellectuals would be able to reformulate a moderate and transcendental discourse
that effectively addresses the issues facing their society is for the future to tell.
Given the current political conditions, fundamentalism and religious extremism are
beyond tolerance. This fact, in all likelihood, would enter into the mind of every
reflective Muslim intellectual.

Acknowledgements

This paper is one of the outcomes of the projects supported by four grants from
the National Science Foundation (SBR 92-13209, SBR 96-01439, SES-009 7282,
SES-0139908), and a grant from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP-080-
965). The editorial comments of the anonymous reviewer and William Bainbridge
are also gratefully acknowledged.

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