A Study and Critique of Two Rival Paradigms in Explaining Islamism in the Middle East (Since the 1970s onwards)

There are two major paradigms for explaining the rise of Islamism since the 1970s including the responsive paradigm and the civilizational clash paradigm. Due to lack of a comprehensive, logical and realistic outlook on Islam, mere reliance on the conducts of extremist Islamists (not the moderates and reformists) and authoritarianism governing the political and governmental sphere, absolutely negative glance at Islam and the Muslim World arising from a Western orientation, inattention to the historical domestic and foreign roots causing this phenomenon, the civilizational clash paradigm lacks the empirical verification needed for general acceptance. In contrast, the responsive paradigm has received further acceptance because it paid attention to the historical domestic and foreign roots influencing the phenomenon since the 1960s onwards. The author believes that although the responsive paradigm is more acceptable, in order to become the dominant paradigm, some necessities seem indispensable: lack of mere historical reductionism, attention to significant theoretical arguments concerning the consistency between Islam and democracy consistent with the cultural, value and religious grounds in the Muslim countries and attention to further historical verification. In this writing, the hypothesis will be tested with reference to the theoretical arguments, historical evidence and empirical studies.