While at the top of society the response to colonialism was a move toward modernization and secularization, others turned to the fundamentals of Islam—the Koran, the lives of the Prophet and his followers, the example of the early Islamic community—for solutions and models of Islamic reform. These revivalists saw European colonialism and imperialism—particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when European powers started to make significant incursions into Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—as vital threats to Muslim political and religious identity. The leaders of this revivalist turn tended to be religiously minded middle-class individuals who sought to limit the ulama's control and authority over Islamic texts and who insisted on the right of individual interpretation (ijtihad) of the Koran and the Sunna.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of anti-colonial reform movements across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. DEFINE: Introduces ijtihad as individual interpretation of Islamic texts, contrasted with ulama authority.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 304