As such, this intellectual leadership held a modern, urban worldview. Thus, the rise of contemporary political Islam is not the reemergence of a medieval clergy crusading against modernity but rather a modern urban phenomenon born of the crises created by capitalism. As Chris Harman puts it, "Islamism has arisen in societies traumatized by the impact of capitalism—first in the form of external conquest by imperialism and then, increasingly, by the transformation of internal social relations accompanying the rise of a local capitalist class and the formation of an independent state."

XREF: Challenges the popular framing of Islamism as backward-looking medievalism often seen in Western commentary.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 342