One Islam, M any Muslim W orlds : S pirituality, I dentity, and R esistance A cross Islamic L ands By Raymond William Baker Call Number: BP 161.3 B344 2015 Review from the journal Foreign Affairs Publisher's Description: By all measures, the late twentieth century was a time of dramatic decline for the Islamic world, the Ummah , particularly its Arab heartland. Sober Muslim voices regularly describe their current state as the worst in the 1,400-year history of Islam. Yet, precisely at this time of unprecedented material vulnerability, Islam has emerged as a civilizational force strong enough to challenge the imposition of Western, particularly American, homogenizing power on Muslim peoples. This is the central paradox of Islam today: at a time of such unprecedented weakness in one sense, how has the Islamic Awakening, a broad and diverse movement of contemporary Islamic renewal, emerged as such a resilient and powerful transnational force and what imp...
