ABSTRACT
This chapter describes Islamists in the Arab world, the history of their emergence, and the agendas they bring, in order to make clear the relationship of Islamization to democratization. The Islamist movement is a complex and diffuse social and political movement with some radical branches, consciously developing a substantive critique of the existing power structure. The "Islamic movement," broadly speaking, includes all individuals and groups seeking to change their societies by deriving their ideology from Islam. Contemporary Islamic groups in the Arab world owe much to the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1927 by Hasan al-Banna. The crisis theory assumes that Islamic resurgence is a temporary phenomenon arising in response to material needs which have been rationalized in religious-superstitious terms. Mainstream Islamists increasingly accept the democratic process and the idea of democracy in general because they see it as more compatible with Islamic principles than any other form of government around.
