ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and 1960s many social scientists argued that secularization was an inevitable concomitant of modernization. Increasing economic and political development would disseminate secular values, hence the role and impact of religion in society and in politics would subside to negligible levels. The 1970s and 1980s, however, witnessed developments diametrically opposed to those predicted by the modernization theories. Around the world, and particularly in Muslim countries, the power of religion did not diminish but increased substantially instead. Indeed, it can be argued that Westernization and secularization served as a catalyst for the revitalization of religious political movements, mobilizing large numbers of people in support of fundamentalist causes. Thus the contemporary emergence of fundamentalism challenges the central assumptions of the modernization literature and poses important questions for investigation.
