change and changing processes

The underlying issue which informs this study is that of change and changing processes in the interpretation of social issues in the Islamic sources, since I am looking at how attitudes to women and gender relations change in the cultural encounter between ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’. Changes on the ideological level are difficult to evaluate, as Sven-Eric Liedman explains in his book, I Skuggan av Framtiden (In the Shadow of the Future): ‘It is possible to calculate the course of the satellites around the world with tremendous exactitude, whereas no technical calculation can possibly decide whether Sweden is a more democratic country than Great Britain’ (Liedman 1997: 37 [translation mine]). Changes and changing processes in Muslims’ interpretation of social issues in the Islamic sources form the initial phase of the study, but it also anticipates further changes in the future. I outline below various models which I apply in order to better understand the mechanism of change from one cultural context to another.