خلاصة:
This paper examines the potential challenge of Islam to the newworld order. Since the early 1980s, Islam has been one of themost important concepts to be studied by policy makers, schol-ars, and the media. Most coverage has been dramatic and mis-leading, portraying Islam and Muslims as a threat to the newinternational order and its stability.‘ Considering this portrayal,several related aspects are discussed here, such as the recent lit-erature about Islam, the nature of the internationalization of polit-ical Islam, the western perception of Islam and Islamists, therecent changes in political discourse about Islamic revivalism,and finally, the conjunction of this Islamic discourse and westernglobal views and interests. The aim of this paper is threefold: toaddress the theoretical shortcomings in most of the contemporaryliterature written on political Islam, to revise negative westernimages of Islam, and to introduce an alternative and integratedapproach for understanding the nature of the recent Islamicrevivalism and its effects on the global society and order.
ملخص الجهاز:
The Internationalization of the Political Islamic Threat to the New World Order: A Revised Image Abdullah Y.
”‘° Therefore, the OIC and similar intergovernmental Islamic organizations do not play a significant role in intemationalizing Islam in a political sense, particularly in its association with the concept of the new world order.
” This hostile image and misrepresentation of Islam in western societies, associated with the rising political power of Islamists in their own societies, revived fears similar to those engendered by the threat of communism to the free world.
Raphael Israeli’s book, Fundamentalist Islam and Israel, is a good demonstration of mixing the Islamist — Israeli conflict with the myth of an Islamic threat to the new world order.
The reason for considering Islam a threat to world order is to justify whatever actions and policies the West may prefer, including use of force and providing political support to local dictators in the region in order to maintain stability to the advantage of western interests.
Is it Fukuyama’s “the end of history,” John Mearsheirner’s “revitalization of ethnic wars in Europe after the collapse of the balance of power,” Paul Kennedy’s “imperial overreach and its consequences,” Richard Gardner’s “reinvigoration of the role of the United Nations and the application of international law,” Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civiliza- tions,” or Joseph Nye’s “unchallenged hegemony of the United States”?5° Similarly, it is very important to diagnose and conceptualize the sources of threat to the world order and to suggest proper indicators to measure these threats, thus having an effect on issues related to worldwide instability and unrest.