There are three main streams within the reformist Islamic thought: firstly, neo-Hanbali tradition, characterized by literal interpretation and adherence to the traditional legal sources. Their distant referents are the situations of external threat to the socio-ethical integrity of Islam, and their ultimate goal is the establishment of a supranational Caliphate. Secondly, the pan-Islamism in its exhausted version –ruling in the Turkish Empire, seeking to unify people of different languages–, or its populist one, the so called mahdism of late nineteenth century. Finally, the modernist neo-Mu’tazili stream, rationalist and multi-faceted. Three different tendencies which must be distinguished within the reformist tradition and that will be fused –confused– both in the contemporary Islamology and in the program of action of current Islamic fundamentalism.
Islamic Reformism, traditions, neo-Hanbali, pan-Islamism, modernism neo-Mu’tazili, Caliphate, Salafism.