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Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as arevivalist and reform movement ofMuslims who aim to return to thefounding scriptures of Islam.[1] The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such asIslamism, Islamic revivalism,Qutbism, Islamic activism, and has been criticized as pejorative.
Some of the beliefs attributed to Islamic fundamentalists are that the primary sources of Islam (theQuran,Hadith, andSunnah), should be interpreted in a literal and originalist way;[2] thatcorrupting non-Islamic influences should be eliminated from every part of Muslims' lives; and that the societies, economies, and governance ofMuslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of Islam, the system of Islam, and becomeIslamic states.[1][3]
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The term fundamentalism has been deemed misleading by those who suggest that all mainstream Muslims believe in the literal divine origin and perfection of theQuran and are therefore "fundamentalists",[4] and others who believe it is a term that is used by outsiders in order to describe perceived trends within Islam.[5] A professor of religious studies atGeorgetown University,John L. Esposito, criticized the usage of the term "Islamic Fundamentalism" due to its ambiguous nature; asserting that the linguistic deployment of the term has been heavily influenced through Western-centric lens of Christian presuppositions. According to him, the more appropriate terms would be "Islamic revivalism" and "Islamic activism", since the traditions ofTajdid (revival) andIslah (reform) are rooted within the Islamic religious history, from the early Islamic centuries to the contemporary times. During the 1990s, thepost-Soviet states used "Islamic fundamentalism" as a synonym for "Wahhabism".[6][7]
Some 20th century preachers and writers sometimes dubbed Islamic fundamentalist includeSayyid Qutb,Ibn Saud,Abul Ala Mawdudi,[8] andIsrar Ahmed.[9] TheWahhabi movement and itsfunding by Saudi Arabia is often described as being responsible for the popularity of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism.
Definitions vary as to what Islamic fundamentalism exactly is and how it differs fromIslamism (or political Islam) orIslamic revivalism.
...didn't hesitate to attend Hindu ceremonies.Khomeini never proposed givingIranian Christians andJews the status ofdhimmi (protected communities) as provided for in the sharia: theArmenians of Iran have remained Iranian citizens, are required to perform military service and pay the same taxes as Muslims, and have the right to vote (with separate electoral colleges). Similarly, the Afghan Jamaat, in its statutes, has declared it legal to employ non-Muslims as experts in the eyes of Islam.[3]
According to Roy distinctions between Fundamentalism and Islamism (or at least pre-1990 Islamism) are in the fields of:
Historian Ervand Abrahamian (who essentially devoted a book—Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic—to why AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution, was not a fundamentalist but a populist, and calls the term "Islamic fundamentalism" in general "not only confusing but also misleading and even downright wrong"), notes that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, supporters of AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini "finding no equivalent in Persian or Arabic" for fundamentalist, "have proudly coined a new word,bonyadegar, by translating literally the English term fundamental-ist."[20]
Differences betweenChristian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism include (according toBernard Lewis):[21]
"In western usage, these words [Revivalism and Fundamentalism] have a rather specific connotation; they suggest a certain type of religiosity- emotional indeed sentimental; not intellectual, perhaps even anti-intellectual; and in general apolitical and even anti-political. Fundamentalists are againstliberal theology and biblical criticism and in favor of a return to fundamentals-i.e. to the divine inerrant text of thescriptures. For the so call fundamentalists of Islam these are not and never have been the issues. Liberal theology has not hitherto made much headway in Islam, and the divinity and inerrancy of theQuran are still central dogmas of the faith ... Unlike their Christian namesakes, the Islamic fundamentalists do not set aside but on the contrary embrace much of the post-scriptural scholastic tradition of their faith, in both its theological and its legal aspects."
Islamic fundamentalism (at least amongSunni Muslims) traditionally tends to fall into "traditionalist" (Doctrinists) and "reformist" (Originalists) tendencies:
The term "Islamic fundamentalism" has been criticized byBernard Lewis,Khaled Abou El Fadl,Eli Berman, andJohn Esposito, among others. Many have proposed replacing it with another term, such as "puritanical", "Islamic revivalism" or "activism", and "radical Islam".
Lewis, a leading historian of Islam, believes that although "the use of this term is established and must be accepted":
It remains unfortunate and can be misleading. "Fundamentalist" is a Christian term. It seems to have come into use in the early years of the last century, and it denotes certainProtestant churches and organizations, more particularly, those that maintain the literal divine origin andinerrancy of the Bible. In this, they oppose the liberal and modernist theologians, who tend to have a more critical, historical view of Scripture. Among Muslim theologians, there is as yet no such liberal or modernist approach to the Qur'an, and all Muslims, in their attitude to the text of the Qur'an, are in principle at least fundamentalists. Where the so-called Muslim fundamentalists differ from other Muslims and indeed from Christian fundamentalists is in their scholasticism and their legalism. They base themselves not only on the Qur'an, but also on the Traditions of the Prophet, and on the corpus of transmitted theological and legal learning.[24]
John Esposito has attacked the term for its association "with politicalactivism,extremism,fanaticism,terrorism, andanti-Americanism", saying "I prefer to speak of Islamic revivalism and Islamic activism."[25]
Khaled Abou El Fadl of UCLA, a critic of those who are called Islamic fundamentalists, also finds fault with the term because:
[M]any liberal, progressive, or moderate Muslims would describe themselves as usulis, or fundamentalist, without thinking that this carries a negative connotation. In the Islamic context, it makes much more sense to describe the fanatical reductionism and narrow-minded literalism of some groups as puritanical (a term that in the West invokes a particular historical experience)[26]
Eli Berman argues that "radical Islam" is a better term for many post-1920s movements starting with theMuslim Brotherhood, because these movements are seen as practicing "unprecedentedextremism", thus, they do not qualify as movements which are returning to the practice of historic fundamentals.[27]
In contrast, American author Anthony J. Dennis accepts the widespread usage and relevance of the term and calls Islamic fundamentalism "more than a religion today, it is a worldwide movement." He notes the intertwining of social, religious and political goals found within the movement and states that Islamic fundamentalism "deserves to be seriously studied and debated from a secular perspective as a revolutionary ideology."[28]
Syrian philosopherSadiq Jalal al-Azm and Egyptian philosopherHassan Hanafi have defended the use of the phrase. Surveying the doctrines of the new Islamic movements, Al-Azm found them to consist of "an immediate return to Islamic 'basics' and 'fundamentals'. ... It seems to me quite reasonable that calling these Islamic movements 'Fundamentalist' (and in the strong sense of the term) is adequate, accurate, and correct."[29] Hassan Hanafi reached the same conclusion: "It is difficult to find a more appropriate term than the one recently used in the West, 'fundamentalism,' to cover the meaning of what we name Islamic awakening or revival."[30]
In 1988, theUniversity of Chicago, backed by theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, launchedThe Fundamentalism Project, devoted to researching fundamentalism in the worlds major religions,Christianity,Islam,Judaism,Hinduism,Buddhism andConfucianism. It defined fundamentalism as "approach, or set of strategies, by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive identity as a people or group ... by a selective retrieval of doctrines, beliefs, and practices from a sacred past."[31] A 2013 study by Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin für Sozialforschung finds that Islamic fundamentalism iswidespread among European Muslims with the majority saying religious rules are more important than civil laws and three quarters rejecting religious pluralism within Islam.[32] A recent study shows that some European Muslims perceive Western governments as inherently hostile towards Islam as a source of identity. This perception, however, declined significantly after the emergence of ISIS, especially among young and educated European Muslims.[33]
The modern Islamic fundamentalist movements have their origins in the late 19th century.[34] According to the Arab poetAdunis, theIslamic World experienced an influx of European ideas, values and thoughts during the late nineteenth century. The thinkers in the Muslim world reacted to modernity in three major ways.Secularists likeMirza Aqa Khan Kermani,Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, etc. considered Islam to be responsible for the backwardness of Muslims; gradually abandoning religion and adopted Western ideas. Meanwhile, Modernists likeMuhammad Abduh inEgypt advocated reforms to reconcile with modernity; while emphasizing adherence to basic Islamic ideals. A third current; widely known as Islamic fundamentalism, pioneered byRashid Rida across theArab world andAbul A'ala Mawdudi (1903–1979 CE) inSouth Asia, asserted thatIslam is relevant for all times and must reign supreme. They idealised the era ofMuhammad and hiscompanions, and sought to revive its "purity" andearly Islamic power. For them, the economic, political and military problems of the Islamic World are due to Muslim negligence in strictly adhering to the tenets ofsharia.[35]
The trajectory of Islamic fundamentalism was marked by four phases. The first phase of proto-fundamentalism emerged during the late 19th century in wake of backlash against the Western colonial onslaught. Its main representatives were theulema ofAhl-i Hadith movement inSouth Asia and religious revivalists of theArabSalafiyya and variousanti-colonial trends. The anti-colonial religious activists consisted of two factions: thereformists who kept to scriptural religious discourse, andmodernists who campaigned to adopt Western ideals and institutions. The religious endeavours of the Syrian-EgyptianSalafi scholarRashid Rida (1865–1935 CE) marks the transition from proto-fundamentalism to the second phase of Islamic fundamentalism.[36] Rida became the first majortheologian to comprehensively elucidate the foundational principles of anIslamic state in its modern iteration, and these doctrines would be readily adopted by later Islamic fundamentalists.[37] TheWahhabi movement, an Arabian fundamentalist movement that began in the 18th century, had also gained traction and spread during the 19th and 20th centuries.[38]
After theFirst World War, Rashid Rida would be highly influenced by the Hanbali puritanical and revivalist doctrines of the 13th centuryHanbalite theologianIbn Taymiyya and the Wahhabi movement; and began to ardently campaign against Western influence and modernist ideas.[39] The ideas of Rashid Rida, who is widely regarded as the spiritual father of theSalafiyya movement, marks the rise of Islamic fundamentalist movements. He advocated fundamentalist causes through the early Islamic journalAl-Manar that operated for about thirty-five years and popularised his political theory of Islamic state after theFirst World War; as an alternative model against rising currents ofsecularism andnationalism.[40] Influenced by Rida's ideals that campaigned for the establishment of an Islamic state in the aftermath of theabolition of the Ottoman Caliphate, popular Islamist movements such as theMuslim Brotherhood andJamaat-e Islami carried the banner of fundamentalism during theinterwar period. The Brothers incorporated theSalafiyya message into a comprehensive political programme, while the Jamaʿat envisioned an all-out battle against Western influence and culture. The combination of religion and politics offered by these movements established contemporary Islamic fundamentalism.[41]
The emergence of the next phase occurred in the context of thede-colonialisation era following theSecond World War, during which Islamic fundamentalists were persecuted by authoritarian regimes and became radicalized. The radical new teachings were epitomized in the treatises ofEgyptianIslamist scholarSayyid Qutb, which elucidated notions such as the return of theJahiliyya (pre-Islamic barbarity). Influenced by Qutb, a number of vanguard groups sprang up which turned to violence and terror in their struggle against "apostate" regimes. InIran, a radicalShiʿa combination ofKhomeini's doctrine ofwilayat-i faqih (guardianship of the jurist) andʿAli Shariʿati's modernist social reinterpretations of theQur’an would form the ideological basis of the 1979Iranian revolution.[41]
During theCold War followingWorld War II, someNATO governments, particularly those of the United States and the United Kingdom, launched covert and overt campaigns to encourage and strengthen fundamentalist groups in the Middle East and southern Asia. These groups were seen as a hedge against potential expansion by the Soviet Union, and as a means to prevent the growth of nationalistic movements that were not necessarily favorable toward the interests of the Western nations.[42] By the 1970s, the Islamists had become important allies in supporting governments, such as Egypt, which were friendly to U.S. interests. By the late 1970s, however, some fundamentalist groups had become militaristic leading to threats and changes to existing regimes. Theoverthrow of the Shah in Iran and rise of theAyatollah Khomeini was one of the most significant signs of this shift.[43] Subsequently, fundamentalist forces inAlgeria caused acivil war, caused a near-civil war in Egypt, and caused the downfall of theSoviet occupation in Afghanistan.[44]
In the contemporary era, the term "fundamentalism" is usually applied to denote thesemilitant Islamist vanguards; although historians likeItzchak Weismann argue that it is more accurate to describe them as its radical offshoots.Osama b. Ladin andAl-Qaʾida belong to a fourth phase of Islamic fundamentalism, known asSalafi-jihadism, a movement that strives to move the battle against "infidelity" on an international scale; since the turn of the twenty-first century.[41]
Muslim critics of Islamic fundamentalism often draw a parallel between the modern fundamentalist movement and the 7th centuryKhawarij sect. From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach toTakfir, whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of death.[45][46][47]
Islamic fundamentalists, or at least "reformist" fundamentalists, believe that Islam is based on the Qur'an,Hadith andSunnah and "criticize the tradition, the commentaries, popular religious practices (maraboutism, the cult of saints), deviations, and superstitions. They aim to return to the founding texts."[22] Examples of individuals who adhere to this tendency are the 18th-century Shah Waliullah in India andMuhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula.[22] This view is commonly associated withSalafism today.
Along with adherents of otherfundamentalist movements,[48] Islamic fundamentalists hold the view that the problems of the world stem fromsecular influences.
Some scholars of Islam, such asBassam Tibi, believe that, contrary to their own message, Islamic fundamentalists are not actually traditionalists. He refers tofatwahs which have been issued by fundamentalists such as the fatwa which states that "every Muslim who pleads for the suspension of the shari'a is an apostate and can be killed. The killing of those apostates cannot be prosecuted under Islamic law because this killing is justified" as going beyond, and unsupported by, the Qur'an. Tibi asserts, "The command to slay reasoning Muslims is un-Islamic, an invention of Islamic fundamentalists".[49][50]
Islamic fundamentalism's push forsharia and anIslamic state has come into conflict with conceptions of thesecular,democratic state, such as the internationally supportedUniversal Declaration of Human Rights. Anthony J. Dennis notes that "Western and Islamic visions of the state, the individual and society are not only divergent, they are often totally at odds."[51] Among human rights[52] fundamentalist Muslims oppose are:
The1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran is seen as a success of Islamic fundamentalism.[63][64][65]Saudi Arabia is also largely governed by fundamentalist principles (seeWahhabi movement)[66] butJohannes J.G. Jansen disagrees, arguing that it is more akin to a traditional Muslim state, where a power separation exists between "princes" (umarā) and "scholars" (ulama).[67] In contrast, Jansen argues thatKhomeini came to power by advocating the formation of a system of Islamic government where the highest level of authority is in the hands of theulamā (seeWilayat al Faqih).[68]
Some states and movements that are perceived or claimed to be Islamic fundamentalists have been criticized for theirhuman rights record by international organizations. The acceptance ofinternational law on human rights has been somewhat limited even in Muslim countries that are not seen as fundamentalist.Ann Elizabeth Mayer writes that states with a predominantly Muslim population, even when they adopt laws along European lines, are influenced by Islamic rules and precepts ofsharia, which cause conflict with international law on human rights. According to Mayer, features found in conflict include severe deficiencies in criminal procedure, harsh criminal penalties causing great suffering, discrimination against women and non-Muslims, and prohibition against abandoning the Islamic religion. In 1990, under Saudi leadership, theOrganisation of Islamic Cooperation, a group representing all Muslim majority nations, adopted theCairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which substantially diverges from the 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Cairo declaration lacks provisions for democratic principles, protection for religious freedom, freedom of association and freedom of the press, as well as equality in rights and equal protection under the law. Further it stipulates that "all the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamicshari'a".[69]
The Cairo declaration followed years of limited acceptance of the Universal declaration by predominantly Muslim states. As an example, in 1984, Iran's UN representative, Said Raja'i Khorasani, said the following amid allegations of human rights violations, "[Iran] recognized no authority ... apart from Islamic law.... Conventions, declarations and resolutions or decisions of international organizations, which were contrary to Islam, had no validity in the Islamic Republic of Iran.... The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which represented secular understanding of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, could not be implemented by Muslims and did not accord with the system of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran; this country would therefore not hesitate to violate its provisions."[69] These departures, both theoretical and practical, have resulted in a multitude of practices and cases criticized by international human rights groups. Seehuman rights in Iran,human rights in Saudi Arabia, andTaliban treatment of women for specific examples.
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