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Modernization and Muslim Culture

If there is nothing inherent in Islam to impede modernization, why has no Muslim country fully modernized?

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This is an interesting question, as Muslim countries follow traditional Islam tenets, which are often at odds with those of modernization and science.

This has led to many theories proposed to explain the modernization difference between different countries, including the Muslim countries. One theory is "a clash of civilizations." For example, the 2001 attack on the United States and the following Western attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq have led political scientists to believe in Samuel Huntington's theory of a "clash of civilizations." According to this theory, the world's civilizations (Western, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, Orthodox/Russian, Hindu, African, and Latin) will eventually align and engage in war on a civilization basis. Although experts predict that Islamic militancy would last three to four decades, they are unable to predict its final outcome. ( This will pave the way for modernization.

However, according to Kamar, Islamic countries are, in a sense, playing catch up to modernization in comparison to the Western world and other modern countries, who engaged in modernization earlier. In fact, he argues that ...