ars and authors, driving many into exile. In Pakistan, a military regime sought
to justify its seizure of power by a pious public stance and an embrace of
unprecedented Islamist influence on education and society.
found that most of its population had little enthusiasm for fundamentalist Islam.
Islamist revival movements gained followers across the Muslim world, but failed
to secure political power except in Iran and Sudan. In Algeria, where in 1991
Islamists seemed almost certain to win power through the ballot box, the mili-
tary preempted their victory, triggering a brutal civil war that continues today.
Opponents of today's rulers have few, if any, ways to participate in the existing
political system. They are thus a ready audience for calls to Muslims to purify
their society, reject unwelcome modernization, and adhere strictly to the Sharia.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, an unprecedented flood of wealth led the then
largely unmodernized oil states to attempt to shortcut decades of development.
They funded huge infrastructure projects, vastly expanded education, and cre-
ated subsidized social welfare programs. These programs established a wide-
spread feeling of entitlement without a corresponding sense of social
obligations. By the late 1980s, diminishing oil revenues, the economic drain
from many unprofitable development projects, and population growth made
these entitlement programs unsustainable.The resulting cutbacks created enor-
mous resentment among recipients who had come to see government largesse
as their right.This resentment was further stoked by public understanding of
how much oil income had gone straight into the pockets of the rulers, their
friends, and their helpers.
toward balanced modernization. The established commercial, financial, and
industrial sectors in these states, supported by an entrepreneurial spirit and
widespread understanding of free enterprise, augured well. But unprofitable
heavy industry, state monopolies, and opaque bureaucracies slowly stifled
growth. More importantly, these state-centered regimes placed their highest
priority on preserving the elite's grip on national wealth. Unwilling to foster
dynamic economies that could create jobs attractive to educated young men,
the countries became economically stagnant and reliant on the safety valve of
worker emigration either to the Arab oil states or to the West. Furthermore,
the repression and isolation of women in many Muslim countries have not only
seriously limited individual opportunity but also crippled overall economic
productivity.