Muslim Movements & the Rise of a New World Order

From 1928-1930, three Muslim movements emerged that would garner mass followings: the Muslim Brothers in Egypt; the Tijani Fayḍah in Senegal; and the Nation of Islam in the U.S. Each led large-scale social mobilization efforts and attempted participation in local politics. All three challenged the societies in which they functioned, as well as the twin pillars of the emerging postwar world order: secularization and political liberalism. These movements are often differentiated from one another through their respective classifications as Islamist and Arab, Sufi and African, and Black Nationalist and American. However, these designations can obscure more than they reveal. In a mid-century setting when alliances among global powers were being torn apart and reassembled toward variant grand visions of how the world ought to be arranged, I argue that these groups’ attempts to fashion assemblies and visions of their own can help us broaden our understandings of these movements and the mid-20th century.