ABSTRACT
The real challenge that the Muslim society has had to face and is still facing is at the level of social institutions and social ethics as such. The impact of modernity on the Islamic world has been felt in a vast number of ways. In the twentieth century, socialism attracted attention both as an alternative to Islam and as a way to construct an entirely new society. Islam is the civilizational basis of the Muslim world in politics, in society, and in life. Muslims disagree with the motivation, the tactics and world view of those who use violence in the name of Islam. The oppositional stance of both Christian fundamentalists and Muslim Islamist groups is significant; they both "do battle" with Western Modernism. It is hazardous to make generalized judgments about an entity as manifold as modern Islam from Indonesia to Morocco, in times so turbulent; whatever is said must be suitably modest and tentative.
