Piety and authenticity

• The Islamic revival of the later decades of the twentieth century featured the call for the application of the sharīʿa as its central plank. Two general features of this advocacy should be noted at first:

• The context of the call for the application of the sharīʿa is the nearly two centuries of reform and secularisation of modernity and the formation of the modern nation-state. ‘Fundamentalism’ is a phenomenon of modernity and secularisation: it is the drive to Islamise modernity and to roll back secularity. In so far as the Islamic movements are successful in entering mainstream politics and legislation they end up in various compromises with the conditions of modern society.

There is no consensus as to what constitutes ‘applying the sharīʿa’. Whenever an Islamic government or authority claims to be applying divine law (such as Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia), some group or party challenges this claim and asserts a rival model of what constitutes the sharīʿa. The sharīʿa, then, is always the subject of ideological contests. The fragmentation of religious authority and the multiplicity of sources of fatwā (ruling), including internet sites, amplify these contests.