Contemporary Islam

The twentieth century has been one of the most dynamic, explosive, and innovative in Islamic history. Within a span of a few centuries Muslim societies have passed from subjugation to European imperialism to national independence, from remnants of medieval empires to modern nation-states, from a transnational but somewhat regionally fixed community to a global community not only of Muslim-majority communities in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia but also of significant Muslim-minority communities in Europe and the United States.

While there are more than one billion Muslims worldwide, different countries and regions demonstrate unique religio-cultural identity as contemporary Islam experiences a revival. Islam is the second largest religion in the world behind Christianity, but both are monotheistic religions. While religio-cultural identity of Muslims varies in the Arab region, Iran (Persia), and Turkey, this rich diversity of Islamic practice does not differ with respect to the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims practice and accept as prescribed by the Quran. The five pillars of Islam are what unites all Muslims and makes the religion distinct from other religions. These five pillars of Islam are as follows:

an was formerly known as Persia until the mid-1930s. Even when it comes to religion Iranians differ from the Muslim tradition in the Arab world. The Iranians are Shiites. Unlike the Sunni Arabs who view the first four Caliphs as the legal successors of Muhammad, the Iranian Shiites argue that Muhammad's son-in-law Ali was Muhammad's legal successor. The election of Mohammad Khatami in 1997 demonstrates the conflict between traditionalism and modernism with respect to religious beliefs in Iran. In his address at Tehran University on the one year anniversary of his election, Khatami (2002) spoke the following words: "The destiny of the religion's social prestige today and tomorrow will depend on our interpretation of the religion in a manner which would not contradict freedom, whenever in history a religion has faced freedom, it has been the religion which has sustained damage...When we speak of freedom we mean the freedom of opposition. It is no freedom if only the people who agree with those in power and with their ways and means are free" (1). In her book The Iranians, Sandra Mackey (1996) argues that "Iran is a mosaic of tribal and linguistic configurations whose existence has provided tremendous difficulty historically fo