E. BARKOVSKAYA Candidate of Historical Sciences In the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, the voices of those representatives of scientific and social thought in a number of countries of the Muslim East who resolutely embarked on the path of ideological confrontation with Islamist groups began to sound louder and louder. And not only because Islamism is seen as a direct threat to the stability, modernization and democratization of these States, as well as their constructive participation in international cooperation. Of particular concern is the fact that in a number of countries, with the active participation of Islamists advocating the creation of an "Islamic state" based on Sharia law, "one of the forms of totalitarianism characterized by the suppression of individual and collective freedoms, the stifling of the incentive to literary and artistic creativity, the prohibition of discussions, and the curtailment of mental activity"has been implemented.1 Representatives of the intellectual elite, who declared the need for a radical renewal of the lives of their compatriots, became direct successors of the Muslim reformers of the XIX - XX centuries. OPPOSITION TO ISLAMISTS Recognized leaders of ideological opposition to Islamists were representatives of university professors: Fazlur Rahman (Pakistan), Fouad Zakaria (Egypt), Mohamed Sharfi (Tunisia), Abdullahi Ahmed al-Naim (Sudan). Fazlur Rahman is a graduate of Punjab University and received his PhD from Oxford. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies under the Government of Pakistan and a member of the Council for Islamic Ideology under the same Government. Then he emigrated to the United States, where he was a professor at the University of Chicago. Prominent Egyptian philosopher and educator Fouad Zakaria also had experience working abroad. For a long time, he was the head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Kuwait and became truly world-famous for his ... Читать далее