ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION

Modernity refers to the end result of the process of modernization. It is the condition that a society attains after having gone through specific patterns of social and economic change which began in Western Europe in the eighteenth century and which has been spreading throughout the rest of the world. The process of modernization refers to the introduction of modern scientific knowledge to increasing aspects of human life, first of all in Western civilization, then to non-Western societies, by different means and groups, with the final aim of achieving a better life as defined by the society concerned (Alatas, S.H. 1972, p. 22). The traits of modernization include the rationalization of economic and political life, rapid urbanization, industrialization, differentiation in the social structure, and greater popular involvement in public affairs. If we understand these traits as constituting the modern condition, then modernism would refer to the ideology, attitude or mentality that subordinates the traditional to the modern.