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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL / AFTER SEPT. 11
Teaching Guide for "Fundamentalism(s)" Essays
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I. Introduction to "Fundamentalism(s)"
Teachers may want to have the students read this
introduction before they read the selected essays on
"Fundamentalism(s)" to provide a basic understanding of
the concepts included therein.
. . . an adequate understanding of fundamentalism requires
us to acknowledge its potential in every movement or cause
. . . . We are all of us, to some degree and in some
senses, fundamentalists.
B. Lionel Caplan, Studies in Religious Fundamentalism
Because of its popular use in the U.S. media since September
11, fundamentalism is often associated with Islamic
movements and organizations that carry out acts of violence,
particularly against U.S. interests and citizens around the
world. However, the term fundamentalism has multiple
meanings and uses, which cut across religions and ways of
thinking. As discussed below, fundamentalism is not
any more representative of the Islamic religion than it is
representative of other religions, such as Christianity,
Judaism, Hinduism or Buddhism. Likewise, as Wang Gungwu (see
selected essays
for this subject area) points out, a person who is not
religious (i.e., a secularist) can also be a fundamentalist.
Interestingly, the term fundamentalism was first used in the
early 20th century to refer to an American Protestant
movement that asserted the literal truth of the Bible (not
only against unbelievers but also against "sophisticated"
theological interpretation) at a time when Darwinian
evolution, secularism, and liberal theology were emerging.
The centerpiece of this movement was a twelve-volume
publication printed between 1910 and 1915 entitled The
Fundamentals. More recently, fundamentalism has referred
to a network of well-organized American political
organizations (e.g., the Moral Majority and the Christian
Coalition) that has exerted a strong conservative influence
on the Republican Party.
The term fundamentalism can be applied more generally,
however. Fundamentalism is a movement that asserts the
primacy of religious values in social and political life and
calls for a return to a "fundamental" or pure form of
religion. During the past two decades, fundamentalism has
come to be used to refer specifically to revivalist
conservative religious orthodoxy in any religion. For
example, the term fundamentalism has been used to
describe the resurgence of Hindu religiosity and communalism
that came to be linked to anti-Muslim violence and a
political program in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the Islamic world, the term fundamentalism has been used
to describe clerical and populist reaction against the
modernizing, secular, and nationalist movements of the period
following colonialism in Northern Africa and Asia. Whereas
reformist leaders since the 1950s have argued that their
countries could best recover from Western domination by
imitating Western institutions, the fundamentalists have
tended to pursue community organization and have called for
the imposition of Shar'ia (i.e., Islamic Law), as well
as a return to traditional social organization. Following
Israel's defeat of the Arab coalition in 1967 and the
failures of social and economic development in many Islamic
countries, Islamic fundamentalism grew dramatically in the
1970s and 1980s — overthrowing the Westernizing monarchy
in Iran in 1979, defeating the Soviet-imposed government of
Afghanistan in the 1980s, and seriously threatening the
secular governments of Egypt and Algeria.
It is important to note that many commentators reject the
term Islamic fundamentalism as suggestive of false
analogies to Christian fundamentalism. "Islamism" or
"Islamicism" are among the suggested alternatives. Islamism
or Islamicism, however, should not be misunderstood as
representing the community of people around the world who are
followers of Islam. Today, Muslims number 1 billion, and live
on all continents, in every society, and can be found among
almost every ethnicity and class. While these Muslims share
common beliefs in the Prophet Mohammed and other central
tenants of the faith, there are various formulations of this
world religion. Some scholars of Islam, like Robert Hefner
(see selected
essays for this subject area), observe that there is not
one Islam which presents itself in opposition to the West.
Rather, there are many Islams -- often competing against one
another -- of which the fundamentalist, or Islamist, variety
is a small subset.
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