Similar points are being made by writers from within the Islamic world (Han fi in Esposito & Voll cited by Bendle 2002, p. 220). Turkish sociologist Nilufer Gole points out that Western understandings about the meaning of religious practices need to be situated within the subjectivities of those who engage in them. She argues, for example, that the contemporary movement among Islamic women of appropriating the veil needs to be understood not as a return to tradition but as a form of selfemancipatory construction of subjectivity and engagement with the public sphere (in McDonald 2002, p. 235). These debates represent an important development for sociological theory and herald a new dialogue both within the discipline and between Western and Muslim societies. EXPLANATIONS OF THE APPEAL OF FUNDAMENTALISM According to Lechner (1990), fundamentalism is a product of modernity. Although, on the face of it, it seems to be antagonistic to modernity, it is deeply rooted in it. His analysis of American fundamentalism