With resurgent interest in the Muslim world and in particular political Islam, this collection of original essays by major Muslim thinkers from the Middle East and South Asia demonstrates the ongoing and contentious debate between modernizers seeking to adapt Western ways and fundamentalists who rejected them. From Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Sayyid Ahmad Khan in the 19th century to Sayyid Qutb and Ayatollah Khomeini in the 20th, the essays provide an opportunity to examine a diversity of Muslim thinkers' thoughts on important topics like jurisprudence, politics, relations with the West, and women, in their own words.