Now there are two options: some feel that the failure stems from abandonment of the earlier traditions, leaving behind the authentic Islamic culture. The two main versions that have stemmed from this feeling are Wahabi Fundamentalism which is disseminated by the Saudis, and the Iranian-Shiite Fundamentalism. The other option, which adherents to the modern hold, says that the failure stems from the Muslims having adopted the shell of western culture and not its deep content, and therefore it is necessary to introduce western values in their full depth. In all of the Muslim world there are people who think that way, but the dictatorships make it difficult for them to express their opinions openly.
Bernard Lewis, in his excellent book, The Arabs in History, states the problem succinctly(p. 139):
The acceptance of the Greek heritage by Islam gave rise to a struggle between the scientific rationalist tendency of
the new learning on the one hand, and the atomistic and intuituve quality of Islamic thought on the other. During the
period of struggle Muslims of both schools created a rich and varied culture, much of which is of permanent
importance in the history of mankind. The struggle ended in the victory of the more purely Islamic point of view.
Islam, a religiously conditioned society, rejected values that challenged its fundamental postulates, while accepting
their results, and even developing them by experiment and observation. Ismailism - the revolution marquee of
Islam - might have ushered in a full acceptance of Hellenistic values, heralding a humanist renaissance of the
Western type, overcoming the resistance of the Quaran by the device of esoteric interpretation, of the Shari'a by
the unbounded discretion of the infallible Imam. But the forces supporting the Ismaili revolution were not strong
enough, and it failed in the very moment of its greatest success.