Political Islam’s appeal rests on the failure of imported Western models.

Evidence

If all the different imported methods that Muslims have used or copied or imitated have failed, there is obviously considerable persuasive force in the argument that these are the ways of foreigners and unbelievers. They have brought nothing but harm, so the only sensible thing for Muslims is to return to the tired and trusted ways of their ancestors, to be authentically themselves. It is a plausible, indeed a persuasive argument, except of course that one can never re-create the past; one can only imagine a past and try to create it, which is not at all the same thing. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1633

Categorization

• XREF: The observation that one can only imagine and then re-create a past connects to the invented traditions literature (Hobsbawm) and to how nationalist movements invent golden ages.
• ADDENDUM: The imagined-past point parallels grafting-as-narrative-metaphor thinking in ‘Grafting & Growth’ about how communities build on roots that must be partly invented.