Learning, media and revival (1970s-today)

Part oneA return to faith

In the first decades of independence, many Muslim governments promoted nationalism, socialism or Western-style secularism, and religion was often pushed to the margins of public life. By the 1970s, many people felt that these ideas had failed. The defeat of 1967, the gap between rich and poor, and the corruption of many governments led millions to look again to Islam.

The revival took many forms. Mosques filled. More women chose to wear the hijab. Young people studied the Quran and the Sunnah, joined study circles and charitable groups, and debated how Islam should guide their lives and societies. Muslim banks and finance houses were founded to work without interest. Some movements entered politics, and in Iran the revolution of 1979 brought an Islamic republic to power. The revival also had its extremes, and small violent groups claimed to speak for Islam, causing great harm, most of it to Muslims themselves. The great majority of the revival was peaceful and personal: people trying to pray, learn and live as Muslims.

From the Quran

ٱقْرَأْ بِٱسْمِ رَبِّكَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ ۝١ خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ ۝٢ ٱقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ ٱلْأَكْرَمُ ۝٣ ٱلَّذِى عَلَّمَ بِٱلْقَلَمِ ۝٤ عَلَّمَ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ ۝٥

¹Read, ˹O Prophet,˺ in the Name of your Lord Who created— ²created humans from a clinging clot. ³Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous, ⁴Who taught by the pen— ⁵taught humanity what they knew not.

Part twoNew places of learning

The old centres of learning carried on. Al-Azhar in Cairo, more than a thousand years old, still drew students from every continent. New universities were founded beside them. The Islamic University of Madinah, founded in 1961, offered free study to students from around the world. International Islamic universities were set up in Malaysia, Pakistan and elsewhere, teaching both Islamic and modern subjects. Traditional madrasas, from the Deobandi schools of South Asia to the pesantren of Indonesia and the mahdaras of Mauritania, continued and grew.

More women than ever before studied the faith. In many countries women became teachers of the Quran, hadith and law, carrying on a tradition of women scholars that goes back to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ.

Part threeFrom cassettes to the internet

New technology spread knowledge faster than ever. Cheap printing filled bookshops with copies of the Quran, hadith collections and translations. In the 1970s and 1980s cassette tapes carried sermons and recitations from Cairo and Makkah into homes and taxis from Morocco to Indonesia. In the 1990s satellite television brought Islamic channels and Arabic news, such as Al Jazeera, founded in Qatar in 1996, into millions of homes.

Then came the internet. Today a student can hear a lecture from Madinah in London, read a classical book online in Jakarta, or memorise the Quran with a teacher on another continent. Apps carry prayer times, the qibla and the whole Quran with translation in dozens of languages. The new media also brought challenges, from false information to voices without real knowledge. Learning from qualified teachers has become more important, not less.

Today a student in London can learn from a teacher in Madinah without leaving home.

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The mapWhere it happened

• Cairo
• Makkah
• Madinah
• Istanbul
• Qom
• Deoband
• Islamabad
• Kuala Lumpur
• Nouakchott
• Doha

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter