Islamic Awakening and Globalization: the Repercussion or Answer

The occurrence of the third industrial revolution called digital revolution in the field of communication in the last decade of twentieth century led to a development which is called globalization. There is no consensus among the researchers regarding the definition, nature and consequences of this development. Nevertheless the globalization has different consequences in political, social and cultural areas which among them are the diminishing importance of borders and governments instead the nations have become nearer to each other. One of the important developments in the global age is the formation of social movements in the past one year in Islamic countries, right form the Persian Gulf region extending till North Africa. Most of these movements have a coalition nature and one of the dominant discourses in them is religious discourse and emphasis on revival of Islamic identity. The strong presence of religious discourse in social movements of Islamic countries led to this point that many researchers consider these movements as Islamic awakening. The formation of Islamic awakening movements in globalization era raised an important question whether the return of Islamic nations to religion for defining their identity is the consequence of globalization or it is an answer to challenges posed by global culture to religious identity of Muslim nations? A thought in the pace of developments and events shows that the answer to both questions is positive, in the sense that the recent Islamic awakening on the one side is the repercussion of globalization and on the other hand it is an answer to the challenges posed to the spiritual identity of the Muslim nations from global culture. The purpose of writing the present paper is giving answer to above questions and verifying the given hypothesis with a descriptive-analytical method by using library material and documents.