The Main Cultural And Change: Islamic Ideology Research

As to the studies of Islamic ideology, the theme of"Islamic barbarians"has been the main characteristics of the Western studies. Our researches began in the late 1980s, emphasizing the expressions and aspirations of the Islamic politicalization or the politic Islamization in the Revival Movement. However, In the process of its emergence, development and changing, the Islamic ideology had evolved into the region's host culture, whose dominant position is not exclusively the result of identification of its believers, and more importantly being ideologized, in which the host culture simultaneously offers the Islamic ideology the main sources. The interaction between the two on the one hand makes the region has heavy Islamic features, and on the other makes a variety of contradictions and struggles arise in the banner of the Islamic aspirations at present. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the connection between the formation of the host culture and its ideologization, the connotation and the denotation of the Islamic ideology with the Middle East as a study of case, for the purpose of making tentative theory for addressing the complicated relationship between the development and the tradition.In the studies of Islam, Chinese and foreign scholars have collected a wealth of second-hand or first-hand documents of high reference value, which are derived from the Arabic historical documents. Based on the compiling of these documents, we would dig out evidences in line with the development of Islamic history through synchronic and diachronic analysis. Secondly, for the emergence of any problem or phenomena would be the response to the specific social reality, and the emergence time of the Islamic ideology happened to be the period of social upheaval. Thus, the religious sociological research methods by Durkheim and Max Weber are of high scientific value. The former's"Group Consciousness"and the latter's"Weber's Proposition"proposed in the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism give this paper theoretical support. Finally, in order to make the study of Islamic ideology empirical, in the argumentation we added to our analysis relevant datum, such as the indices of Islamic social changes, economic changes, demographic changes, the figure of minority population, the degree of the Islamic cultural identification and so on. In the argumentation, due to the concept——ideology used in this paper is umbrellalike, uncertain and complex, the elaboration is based on its formation and development, as well as its connotation and denotation so as to obviate vagueness and broadness. First of all, we will find out the historical law of ideologization of religious ideas in the comparative study of the interaction between the host culture and its ideologization in the world's three major religions'history; secondly interpret the mechanism of the formation, development, organization system of the Islamic ideology; thirdly, analyze and summarize the contents of Islamist ideology, adaptive changes as well; and finally, based on the appearances and the functions of Islamic ideology in the contemporary social change, the process of globalization, the nation-state conflict, and extremism, considering the challenges the Islamic countries facing, we further the elaboration on connection between the host culture and its ideologization.In conclusion, the Islamic ideology as a religious complex whole arises in the historical development of the host culture. It is derived from the essential contents of Islamic religious thought, and combined with a variety of modern orientations. As the result of challenges, it emerges in the period full of unsolvable social contradictions. It not only has the hue of conservatism, the function of defending tradition, but also has the vague and subjective expression of interfering in the reality, and addressing the social problems as well. It is the integrated pattern of traditional culture and the adaptability of the time. As a kind of religious concept, Islamic ideology has its unique cultural characteristics and features of adaptability. The former refers to the cultural nature of Islamist ideology, a concrete manifestation of religious universalism, and the latter mainly refers to its orientations fitting the time in challenges and transformation since the 18th and 19th century,that is its initiative and adaptive compromise. Through the practices of education, law, religious organization and institutions, and Islamic non-governmental organizations'proceeding, Islam goes deeply into the Muslim people's political, economic, cultural and social life, that is the process of socialization, in which the religious cultural elements have been strengthened and propagated to the degree that they are integrated as the host culture, which functions as the strong regional or national cultural background. With the achievement of its leading status, its social identity of effective mobilization is also obtained. Then whenever the social changes and challenges arise, it turns out to be the source or the matrix of Islamic ideology. The relationship between the Islamic host culture and the ideology is dynamic and evolutive, whose emergence and development consequently has a close tie with the social progress, and reflects the relationship between the tradition and the progress, and between the history and the reality as well. In the evolution, Islamic thought gradually incubates the collective identity and paradigm of life in the political and the social process. This undercurrent by the host culture induces the origin of the national spiritual cultural comfort. When the country and the nation suffers from the invasion or transition, it will emerge from the"potential"to the"overt"form as an ideology to deal with the crisis, working as a kind of overt and convenient tool and aspiration. The problems existing in the social development of the present Middle Eastern countries result from ignoring the tradition when the muslin countries are in face of challenges. They made a number of premature theories, which not only failed to solve practical problems, and further aggravated the conflict between the tradition and the development.