Whereas a sharp distinction has often been drawn between Islamic “reformism” and “fundamentalism,” in this chapter I seek to emphasize the continuity of motivations and objectives (if not strategies) on the part of Muslim thinkers and activists, starting with Banna, Sayyid Qutb, the chief ideologue of his movement in the two decades following Banna’s assassination (1949), the South-Asian scholar/activist al-Mawdudi, two Palestinian leaders of Hamas, as well as current writers who might be labeled “progressives” or “liberals,” moving as they do toward a post- modern epistemology. As I look at their exegesis of Q. 2:30, it appears that they all share a renewed sense of human dignity that increasingly prizes the values of human rights and democracy.