A Movement with Purpose

As I slowly began to browse though my quick google search of “Islamic Movements,” I ran into a giant blend of different ideas, theories, and aspects behind what people really think an Islamic movement is. Sure, it can be generally defined by a standard dictionary definition, but what are these movements really about? A fearful western culture tells us it’s about “those dang Moslems” trying to take over the world and whom have a keen desire of killing all infidels, where as other liberal (and more religiously accepting) people feel as if the Islamic faith is oppressive and unjust, and that most of these movements are people finally pushing for an established democracy. Personally, I feel as if there are, in fact, people who begin movements in the Islamic world for both the reasons listed above, but those are far from the only reasons in which movements throughout the Islamic world have arisen. Any sort of movement, whether it be religiously, politically, or reformatively motivated, will include people of many different backgrounds fighting for their own reasons. People can always paint opinions, perceptions, and ideologies in any which way they please, but I’m sure there should be some uniform motive behind any action taken by Islamic groups, whether they be fundamentalists, modernists, or non-faith oriented groups. I think it’s important to remember throughout the research process that to really understand why these movements are occurring, we need to step back and think as if we were in the shoes of a true party member of the group in question. But until then, there’s always a nice politician to give the media a “nicely worded” explination about these ongoing reformative movements throughout the Islamic world.

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