The fall of the Berlin Wall represented the end of bi-polar politics. The capitalist West under US leadership is the only dominant world power but the diasporic dimensions of politics in the West have become a major issue of domestic politics. Since much of these developments emerge out of US dominance it may be appropriate to think of globalisation as another form of Americanisation. While this is legitimate it may serve very little purpose for contesting globalisation and turning it into an opportunity for Muslim communities. If you are reading this on the Salaam.co.uk you are already in the web of globalisation.
Muslim communities have to therefore turn the process to their own advantage.
Attachment to Islam offers a means of affiliation to transcendence and the eternal amidst the exceedingly rapid and often disorienting change of globalisation. New Muslim identities have for long been in the making in migrant communities and with increasing globalisation newer identities will emerge as more boundaries breakdown. Cosmopolitan Muslim subjects who value Islam yet move in and out of locations and between settled communities could be the new breed of Muslim. In our medieval past there were a handful of such individuals, such as Ibn Battuta and al-Biruni, for instance, who were forever on the move soaking up foreign cultures. Perhaps we will see the return of the nomadic Muslim subject, forever on the move, if not as often physically or out of necessity then because of the new conditions enabled by globalisation.