These modernizing reforms gradually displaced Islam as the basis of Muslim society and put secularism in its place. Additionally, a new Western-educated, secular middle class came into being and assumed positions of importance in government, education, and law, which then eroded the ulama's traditional basis for power. It is only in this context that we can understand the "return to Islam" or the various Islamic revivalist movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to which we will return shortly.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 298