ABSTRACT
Once every decade over the last three decades, I have been compelled (often by editors) to reflect on the future of Islam in the modern world. On one such an occasion in the summer of 1985, I responded to a semi-official prediction emanating from Washington DC to the effect that the Islamist tide which had started with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s was beginning to ebb. This analysis was based on a reading of a series of electoral results in which Islamist parties suffered reverses or made poor showing in Pakistan, Kuwait, Egypt and Sudan. My response to this prediction emphasized two points. To start with, the elections in question were not an accurate indicator of the popular standing of these groups, given that they could not have been deemed free and fair by any stretch of the imagination. Second, the point about the possible decline in Islamist fortunes may be justifiable, but my own prediction was that we would witness a decline in moderate Islamist trends in favour of more hard-line and antiWestern movements, precisely due to the perception that the West was cosying up to the oppressive regimes in the region. I concluded:
It is pro-western ‘moderate’ Islam which has taken a knock, in Egypt, Sudan, Kuwait, Pakistan and so on. We are witnessing the upsurge of the anti-western radical Islam. It is perhaps too late for the West to do anything about it, except to sit tight and brace oneself for the tidal wave that will soon hit the ship.
