Concrete data show Muslim-majority nations integrating modernization and pluralism

Evidence

“Contrary to what some assert, Islam is fully compatible with modernization,” is how former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers put it in a Foreign Affairs article challenging Samuel Huntington. His piece was entitled “The Fusion of Civilizations: The Case for Global Optimism.” Summers bolstered his thesis by highlighting globalization accomplishments in Muslimmajority nations like Malaysia, where women now outnumber men 65 percent to 35 percent in national colleges and universities. He also noted that Gulf States like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) now feature satellite campuses of major Western universities. Finally, he noted that the fifty-million-plus-member Nahdlatul Ulama—the largest religious organization in Indonesia (the most-populous Muslim country in the world)—has repeatedly condemned extremist groups like ISIS. All of these facts further chip away at Huntington’s archaic clash of civilizations theory. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 691

Categorization

• XREF: The Nahdlatul Ulama point ties to the global-synthesis thesis that US Islamophobia ignores transnational Muslim civil-society counters to extremism. — connects to: Muslim nations are not unique in struggling with democracy — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 292; Only about a quarter of Muslim-majority nations have democratic governments — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 291; Majorities in most Muslim-majority countries support women’s equal rights — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 315 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 691

Related

• Essentialist views framed Muslim-majority societies as static and the West as dynamic (similarity 0.87)
• Muslim nations are not unique in struggling with democracy (similarity 0.86)
• Majorities in most Muslim-majority countries support women’s equal rights (similarity 0.84)
• Only about a quarter of Muslim-majority nations have democratic governments (similarity 0.83)
• Religion is one factor among many, not the defining one, in Muslim-majority societies (similarity 0.83)
• Global Muslim practice is internally diverse across sects and regions. (similarity 0.83)
• Postwar Muslim-majority nations embraced secular nationalism, contra Orientalist claims (similarity 0.81)
• Islam’s geographic and demographic spread defies any single cultural or political essence (similarity 0.79)
• Muslim-majority populations grew nearly 50 percent between 1955 and 1970 (similarity 0.79)
• Muslim-majority student enrollment in the US grew five-fold between 1948 and 1965 (similarity 0.79)
• The global Muslim population of 1.8 billion is internally diverse and geographically dispersed (similarity 0.79)
• Islamization flowed from the cultural realm into social and political spheres. (similarity 0.79)
• Islam’s internal practice varies by region, branch, and historical era (similarity 0.78)
• Majorities in several Western countries hold negative views of Islam. (similarity 0.78)
• The monolithic Islamic mind is a projection, not a reality (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Postwar Muslim-majority nations embraced secular nationalism, contra Orientalist claims #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 310
• Global Muslim practice is internally diverse across sects and regions. #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 159
• Islam has varied regionally and adapted to historical transformations. #corroborates (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 160
• Capitalism and colonialism drove Muslim empires toward secularization #expands (0.50) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 298
• Muslim monarchs initiated Western-style modernization to defend against colonialism #expands (0.45) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 299