men in their society was based upon the legal structure of the Islamic faith. Secondary to this was the typical Arab viewpoint that males were to be the protectors of women from the public world of other males. At the time of the Crusades, many Arabs were taken aback by what they perceived to be the moral laxity demonstrated by European Christian males in regards to the sexual freedoms afforded to womenùthis deep seeded resentment continues to surface even to this day (Haddad & Lummis 122).
The "colonial exposure" of the Middle East to Western culture in the late nineteenth century as well as in other parts of the world where the Islamic religion had a reasonably dominant position placed additional pressure on the Muslim society for change such that it could better adapt to Western culture. A very large hurdle that needed to be overcome was bringing people up to the higher educational and economic standar
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