Why is Islamism so appealing? “Rather than a reaction against the modernization of Muslim societies,” notes a French scholar, “Islamism is a product of it.” As anothert author put it: “Islamism is not a medieval program but one that responds to the stress and strains of the twentieth century.”
Islamism is not a reaction against poverty. Quite the contrary: its leaders are often quite modern people, and Islamism appeals mainly to modern people. Daniel Pipes noted in 1998 that many Islamist leaders in Turkey and Jordan were engineers.
http://hnn.us/articles/1671.html