ABSTRACT
Some of the most spectacular transformations in the last decades, in the wake of economic globalisation, have been within Islam. This chapter starts by mapping out the main characteristics of Islam in the Nation-State regime and their institutionalisation in a period of time that stretches from the colonial regimes to the first decades of independence. What appears clearly from this portrait is that secularity (the distinction between politics and religion) and secularisation are only a part of wider processes of nationalisation and statisation of religion, by which Islamist movements were made to adopt either political or apolitical forms. What put an end to these formations in Muslim-majority countries was the application of neoliberal measures regarding their national economies and the media, as well as the rapid rise of consumerism, from the new urban middle classes to the lower ones. What follows then is an analysis of several trends within Islam, starting with the transformations of Islamist movements in their move away from political Islam, the emergence of new capitalism-friendly movements such as the Gülen movement, and the morphing of Jihadism into its present, lifestyle-formatted manifestations.
