Why did the Islamic World become much more conservative between the 1960s and 1980s?

Answer 1

If you were to look at the Arab World in the 1960s, you had a high degree of secularism. Most Egyptian women were uncovered, you had literary works that were critical of Islamic practices, you had countenanced discussions of minority rights, etc. You could actually believe that Conservatism was going to disappear. However, a vast number of changes occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, which led ultimately in a rise of Conservatism and increasing belligerence and fundamentalism. The change in the 1970s happened over the entire decade, such that the Islamic World of 1965 and the Islamic World of 1985 were quite different and the latter was much more conservative. Some particularly poignant events in my view were:

1) Saudi Investment -- Saudi Arabia helped to build mosques across the Islamic World and places in the West, helping to further disseminate a more fundamentalist understanding of Islam. By the 1970s, the Saudis had raised (internationally) the first crop of children who were, on average, more conservative than their parents.

2) Israel 1967-1973 - The Secular Arab States demonstrated that they could not remove Israel, which led many citizens to lose faith in the viability of these states to represent their will. When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel in 1979, this really infuriated the Egyptian population (and that of the Arab World in general). When Islamists assassinated him in 1980, it helped gain them popular legitimacy.

3) Turkey 1969 - The creation of the Millî Görüş movement which sought to move Turkey away from Secularism and towards Islamism, eventually lead by Erbakan in the 1990s.

4) Iraq 1975 - While Saddam did not officially come to power until 1979, he was the primary actor in Iraqi politics as President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was ill for much of his presidency. While the Ba'ath party was historically non-religious, Saddam was more religious than his predecessors and helped to stoke sectarian tensions, especially against groups that he considered to be Non-Muslims (such as the Kurds or Marsh Arabs, even though many of them were Muslims) using Islamic rhetoric. (This is why the Kurdish genocide in the early 1980s is called the Anfal Campaign, after the 8th Sura of the Qur'an which talks about taking the booty of Non-Muslims.)

5) Lebanon 1975 - The Lebanese Civil War strengthened the sectarian feelings of the various parties in Lebanon, which were divided along religious lines. As identities shifted from being common Lebanese citizens to Maronites, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze, Alawites, Melkites, or Orthodox Christians and the clerical leaders gained power in turn.

6) Pakistan 1978 - Zia ul-Haq, who had a strongly Islamizing political leadership became the President of Pakistan. It was under him that equal rights for women in Pakistan was rescinded in order to allow for the "Islamic" laws of Zinaa and Hudud. Blasphemy Laws were promulgated and Imams were given more power and more license to act on local levels.

7) Iran 1979 - The capture by Islamists of the Iranian Revolution (even though that revolution was actually caused by Communists and Feminists more than the Islamists). This capture set the tone for a new Islamist state and a modern Islamist State.

8) Afghanistan 1979 - When the Soviet Union co-opted the Afghanistan government, the only strong Afghan resistance were the religious Mujaheddin who came to embody the strength of the Afghan people in resisting the Communists. Investments by the US in these Mujaheddin allowed them to grow further and become dominant in regional politics.