The variety of modern Islam: intellectual expressions and political roles

From the time that the Christian capitalist West began to encroach economically, culturally and politico-strategically on the Muslim world (especially from the late eighteenth century), Muslims have not ceased to debate the cultural and political role that Islam should play in confronting, or in adapting to, the challenge of the West. Two issues have been particularly pressing: one concerns Western concepts (and values) such as secularism, modernisation, and development; the other concerns the Western concept (and institution) of the territorial, bureaucratic State.