Muse (and to some extent Amar),

You're right. I mean political/social islam. I think I used "Islam" because that is how Iqbal spoke. Read through the essay that I've linked to. He thinks of Islam as a comprehensive system in which political and social are tightly integrated with personal and spiritual (even though there is one part in the essay where he says that a separation of such spheres is consistent with Islam as well).

Your overall concern is noted. There is no such thing as reforming Islam, with a capital I.

Mhpine,

If you read the essay by Iqbal I've linked to, he discusses the flexibility of Hanafi Islam. Yet he also praises the spirit of localization that early Wahhabism introduced. In other words, even though Iqbal was a liberal, he could appreciate that puritanism, to some extent, had the effect of opening the faith up for a multiplicity of religious interpretations (after all, puritanism is usually a reaction to whatever is normative).

I do concur with you that oil wealth has had a lot of role to play in the definition of Islam over this century. Saudi Islam certainly has been exported, but I think we'd be wrong to think that the Saudi Government has been trying to take over the world for the sake of expansion. It really hasn't. SA has no territorial ambitions. It doesn't exactly go into neighboring countries. In fact, its military is so ridiculous that it relies on American troops for protection (we have made a nice ring in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and now Iraq) around the Kingdom. My sense is that SA is a sort of American colony. We are not like the old colonizers in that we try to take over the local society. Rather, we rely on the Saudis to prepare the world for us. I have to say that until the Bin Laden blow-back, the freaks that SA has been exporting for decades upon decades, always helped advance American interests -- as well as the localized dictators who pledged allegiance to the US.

Anyway, we can talk a lot about the geo-political incest between the US & Saudi Arabia (and to some extent all the dictators), but for now I just wanted to try and make the case that despite the fact that I am extremely demanding towards Islamic reform, I have not been able to escape the reality that America/American-Backed-Tools always f*ck up reform.

DK,

Could you clarify what you mean by the traditional/fundamentalist dichotomy. I have some sense, but I rather you flesh it out.

I have to think more about your second question.

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