Some thoughts on Sunni Islam in the last Century or so

I wrote this originally as a comment but I think it's the kind of thing people in this subreddit might be interested as it's own discussion post. Not directly related to the conflict but people talk about Islam in a general sense quite often on this sub so I thought it might be of some interest.

I want to start by acknowledging where I come from. I am an ex-Muslim though not of the usual variety, my leaving of Islam has more to do with becoming a scientist and basically coming to the conclusion that the existence of God was highly unlikely. I grew up in what would be considered a modernist Muslim family, that was part of a small community of such families where I grew up. We were generally of the Quranist variety we mostly rejected the Hadiths and instead relied on interpreting the Quran to form the basis of our moral code, importantly we also did not rely on the centuries old Islamic legalism. My father is a professor of Middle Eastern studies and much of my thoughts on this are based on my discussions with him.

This is largely my interpretation of Islam and the continuing problem it has faced for the last century.

The collapse of the Ottoman empire basically created a crisis in Islam. As it became clear the modern world and classical Sunni Islam had become incompatible.

From there two possible pathways presented themselves before the Muslim world.

The Salafi Revivalist movement represented by the works of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Hassan al-Banna (the founder of The Muslim Brotherhood), That sought to create an all-encompassing fundamentalist Ideological form of Islam. They responded to modernity by fully rejecting it, embracing an imagined Islamic past in much the same way that Christian Restorationists became obsessed with the "primitive church".

or

The modernist movement represented in the works of Muhammad Abduh and Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi which rejected the idea that Islam need be bound by the interpretation of centuries dead medieval scholars and the always questionable Hadiths. While embracing the notion that new advances in rationality would allow for new interpretation of Islam.

For reason that has much to do with middle east power politics, the ascendancy of the gulf monarchies and the to some extent cold war expediency the former won out. Salafi revivalism spread across the world.

I maintain hope that the latter will one day triumph