ISLAM THE BASICS

FUNDAMENTALISM AND ISLAM
 
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The Quran
 
   We have made of you a middle nation. -- (II:143)
 
Karen Armstrong, Muhammad - A Biography Of The Prophet
 
  The West must bear some measure of responsibility for the
  development of the new radical form of Islam, which in some
  hideous sense comes close to our ancient fantasies. Today many
  people in the Islamic world reject the West as ungodly, unjust,
  and decadent . . .
 
  The new radical Islam is not simply inspired by hatred of the
  West, however. Nor is it in any sense a homogeneous movement.
  Radical Muslims are primarily concerned to put their own house in
  order and to address the cultural dislocation that many have
  experienced in the modern period. It is impossible to generalize
  about this more extreme form of the religion. It not only differs
  from country to country, but from town to town and village to
  village . . . Michael Gilsenan has argued that the differences
  are so great from one district to another that the term 'Islam' or
  'fundamentalism' is simply not useful in defining the current
  attempt to articulate the experience of people in the Middle East
  during the post-colonial period.
 
  We constantly produce new stereotypes to express our apparently
  ingrained hatred of 'Islam'. -- p. 42 to 43
 
  Another theme of the new fundamentalism has been an attempt to get
  Islamic history back on the right track and to make the umma
  [Muslim community] effective and strong once again. The Iranian
  revolution was not just an atavistic return to the past, but an
  attempt to impose decent values in Iran again. -- p. 265
 
Akbar S. Ahmed, Living Islam
 
  Western commentators often use -- or misuse -- terms taken from
  Christianity and apply them to Islam. One of the most commonly
  used is fundamentalism. As we know it, in its original application
  it means someone who believes in the fundamentals of religion,
  that is the Bible and the scriptures. In that sense every Muslim
  is a fundamentalist believing in the Quran and the Prophet.
  However, the manner that it is used in the media, to mean a
  fanatic or extremist, it does not illuminate either Muslim thought
  or Muslim society. In the Christian context it is a useful
  concept. In the Muslim context it simply confuses because by
  definition every Muslim believes in the fundamentals of Islam. But
  even Muslims differ in their ideas about how, and to what extent,
  to apply Islamic ideas to the modern world. -- p. 18 to 19
 
  Mainstream Sunni Islam is possibly the most broad-based, tolerant
  form and certainly the one with the largest number of followers --
  almost ninety percent of Muslims are Sunnis. However, the Wahabi
  school within the Sunnis believes in a strictly literal
  interpretation of the Quran. It dominates Saudi Arabia, which has
  a small population of about ten million but huge influence because
  of its oil revenues and as guardian of the holy cities of Makkah
  and Madinah. This school would interpret everything in the Quran
  literally: thus the chopping off of hands, death for adultery, and
  so on. -- p. 208
 
Paul Merritt Bassett, Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia
 
  Fundamentalism is a term popularly used to describe strict
  adherence to Christian doctrines based on a literal interpretation
  of the Bible. This usage derives from a late-19th- and
  early-20th-century transdenominational Protestant movement that
  opposed the accommodation of Christian doctrine to modern
  scientific theory and philosophy. With some differences among
  themselves, fundamentalists insist on belief in the inerrancy of
  the Bible, the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus Christ, the
  vicarious and atoning character of his death, his bodily
  resurrection, and his second coming as the irreducible minimum of
  authentic Christianity. This minimum was reflected in such early
  declarations as the 14-point creed of the Niagara Bible Conference
  of 1878 and the 5-point statement of the Presbyterian General
  Assembly of 1910.
 
  The name fundamentalist was coined in 1920 to designate those
  "doing battle royal for the Fundamentals." Also figuring in the
  name was The Fundamentals, a 12-volume collection of essays
  written in the period 1910-15 by 64 British and American scholars
  and preachers. . .
 
  . . . In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, however, fundamentalism again
  became an influential force in the United States. Promoted by
  popular television evangelists (see RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING) and
  represented by such groups as the MORAL MAJORITY, the new
  politically oriented "religious right" opposes the influence of
  liberalism and secularism in American life. The term
  fundamentalist has also been used to describe members of militant
  Islamic groups.
 
Leon T. Hadar,
  The Green Peril: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
 
  University professor, and former bureau chief for the Jerusalem
  Post, describes the creation of the myth of Islamic fundamentalism
  by the US foreign policy establisment.