ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some examples of the successful integration of Islam into a political system of multiple, limited and independent Islamic states. It shows how, in the process, the gradually increasing participation of former opposition groups into national politics contributes to the entrenchment of the multiple state systems in the Middle East, an unmistakable indication of the direction of the future. Everyone from Nasser and Sadat to Hafiz al-Assad and Saddam Hussein has commissioned Islamic legitimation for his policies. But the new trends among the Islamic activists discussed are of a different variety. Interestingly, the tendency toward Islamic ratification of national consciousness is in evidence even in Iran. And interestingly, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan, Hasan al-Turabi, is emerging as a leading figure is Islamic political thought, especially among members of the Muslim Brotherhood in other states.
