“Fundamentalism” is a short-hand word for born again Christians
Protestant which evokes literal truth of the Bible. This word was coined by
media pundits to represent the movement launched by United States
Protestants in the early twentieth century.
As a matter of fact, there exists no such parallel in Arabic to
represent. Muslims fanatically devoted to the same issue of seeking literal
truth of Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet. Since translation had
to be done, this word after being patched up with Islam, which started
representing as Islamic Fundamentalism.
Ironically, this word fundamentalism, now a days, represents those
zealous preachers of Islam who believe in savage punishments and long
leggety fanatics, who believe that whatever the faults and vices, currently,
present in their societies are brought from the alien shores of west. They
vow to purge their societies from the cultural invasion of the west, in
addition, most of them even think their leaders as western stooges. In
order to clear this self supposed mess, they are ready to utilize all methods
of repressions or even bombing the market places, killing their so-called
enemies, hijacking aeroplanes, kidnapping the foreigners taking hostages
where ever possible.
WHAT REALLY IS FUNDAMENTALISM FROM A FUNDAMENTALIST PERCEPTION.
To them, the men of God put the decline down to the degeneration
of their faith, and to the pollution that blows in from the outside world. They say, that the word of God has been corrupted over centuries by the
p-serving rulers, and that is how the things started going wrong. Now
they call for the recreation of the Islamic societies on the pattern followed
in the seventh century according to the Sunnah of the Prophet and
his four immediate successors.
What they really want is a recourse to the Holy Book and Sunnah of
the Prophet (SAW) for the solution of all the worldly problems and
salvation there after. In simple words it reflects justice, fair play and
rights (even to the minorities), in addition, they prefer spiritual well being
r that of material well being, hence in order to do so, they are ready to
wage “Jihad” against any society or nation.
OPPOSING IDEAS WITHIN THE ISLAMIC WORLD.
The theory is not well received, even in the Islamic world. Broadly
speaking, there appears three kinds of Muslims.
1. Fundamentalists.
2. Moderates.
3. Secular.
Apart from Fundamentalists (as explained above) moderates believe
that they need to bring their religion with an up-to-date way of life. They
do not believe in militancy and violent methods. They wish to achieve
spiritual and material well being at parity but not one at the cost of other.
Whereas seculars are of the view, that religion is nothing but ones
personal level of faith. The relationship between man and God is highly
personal. A man cannot be forced to follow the thirteen hundred years old
rules and regulations, they believe that time has changed and as a result,
values have also changed, calling for a revision in the religion doctrines.
VIEW POINT HELD BY NON-MUSLIMS.
As far as ordinary non-muslim, especially westerns, their deepest
instincts are to shrink from much an ideology. To them, it is an out right
fanaticism and is gradually shaping out into a major threat.
Sammuel P. Huntimagtos, in his article “Clash of Civilization”
argued that “Islam has bloody border”, he further stressed that after the
fall of communism Islam is the only threat which could play havoc with
the western societies. He added that the west need to counter it with strict
measures. Before going into the details of the current state of fundamentalism
and finding out whether it is desirable loathable or adjustable,
briefly scan the causes of the growth of fundamentalism.
FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FUNDAMENTALISM.FOR THE GROWTH OF
We cannot, altogether, create a business like cycle to depict the rise
and fall of fundamentalism in the history of this century but we find that
certain trails are ascertainable.
FAILURE OF POLITICAL STRUCTURE.
It is nonetheless, true that fundamentalism grows and proliferates in
the troubled environment. It is always a product of inherent vices present
in the political administration. Several examples can be quoted in this
respect. Iran in the era of Raza Shah Pehalvi, presented a weakening
political structure standing on its feet with the crutches of America and
other Western European support.
Another immediate example can be quoted in respect of our own
country. Fundamentalism in Pakistan took concrete shape in the era of re
dictatorship. What is important to note that in both of the circumstances fu
there existed a lack of the freedom of expression. The opposing political an
theories were crushed savagely, leaving only the door of religion. General E
Zia in order to legitimize his illegitimate rule stood on the vulnerable is
crutches of religion.
Thus what primarily move the politics into the fabric of religion
were these despotic attitudes of the rulers. These new men were religious
laymen and politicians who hitched themselves for opportunist reasons to
the Islamic wagon. Many dictatorial leaders in various parts of the world
for example Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Libya allowed no secular opposition
in order to prolong their own rule, hesitated, though not for long, to
persecute the men who challenged them from the mosque while hesitancy
prevailed Islamic militancy was the safest route to dissent, and by the time
these rulers realized that situation was getting out of control, it was
already too late, later persecution of these religious dissenters made heros-
of-salvation out of them. More and more support began together against
these tin pots dictators. This had not only made them dependent on the foreign support but
had made them highly unpopular in a substantial segment of their society
which provided
I more vigor to the movements led by fundamentalists.
POLITICAL ELITES.
Secondly, in the various parts of the Islamic worlds, political elites
have also used religion in crisis situation. Whenever there appeared a
1 or cultural vacuum which could have proved fatal for their own
rule, these rulers started preaching “Islam in order” to avert the danger of
political despondency. This political use of Islam has further aggravated
the situation. Militancy in a way is also like a woman, whom if given an
inch would desire a mile. Thus few enactions of Islamic laws had
heightened their desire to subvert the current structure, over nightly, into
an Islamic state, without caring for the circumstances and consequences
afterwards.
SECULARISM.
Thirdly, the growing secularism which is viewed as cultural and
religious evasion planned against Islam by most of the moderates and
fundamentalists. The western political thoughts in the shape of Democracy
and capitalism has always been looked down upon in the Islamic world..
Even to a moderate Muslim, the western way of life, though not loathable
is undesirable to a many extent. To some it seems like corrupting the
political cultural and religious structure of the Islamic world. Since the fall
of Ottoman empire west has always been viewed as enemy of the
mankind, leading the world towards virtual disaster.
ILLITERACY.
Another prominent factor which contribute a lot towards this
extremism is mass illiteracy present in the Muslim world. Here illiteracy
does not represent a static attitude towards secular knowledge or acquiring
more westernized style of living and thinking. But here illiteracy
represents non-comprehensibility of the average Muslim to skew out the
dogmatic tune of Islam, which means a lot more than what an average
Muslim understands and in most cases unable to differentiate between
what is good for him, even if it comes from the west, and bad.
COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM.
And lastly the “Collapse of Communism” the fall of the so called
evil empire and the end of cold war has erupted an altogether new phenomenon in the international affairs. The policy makers of the world
has grown accustomed to an adversary, which now they see in the shape
of growing Islamic fundamentalism. It is to assert that role played by the
international media is also biased, one knows that only equality results in
opening up of deadlocks and hearty talks, such phenomena always results
in militant attitude of the oppressed.
CURRENT STATE OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM.
There is hardly any place left in the Islamic world which has not
witnessed any religious repercussions. Some historical instances atz
enlisted below.
1. “HAMAS” the fundamentalist group for the liberation of
Palestine refused co-existence with the Israel. Currently the
fragile peace process has brought a new way of hope for a
concrete peace settlement in the Middle East, but the
2. “HAMAS” group has refused to accept it and is currently
creating troubles to jeopardize the peace process.
The “Muslim Brotherhood” party in Syria, which has been
brutally suppressed since 1980 is widely believed to be
working under ground.
3. “Hezb-ullah” and “Amal” in Lebanon two major
fundamentalist group generally thoughts as mercenaries
trained by Iran.
4. Underground Shia group in Iraq. It is a bloating idea that
during “Operation Desert Storm” United States Policy was to
remove Saddam Hussain from the rulership of Iraq but later
these policy makers found out that this would give rise to
fundamentalism in Iraq which would be worse than unseating
the present Baghdad government.
5. The warring fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan are fighting
brutally among themselves to capture Kabul and fill out the
power vacuum created by the evacuation of Soviet Union.
6. The fall of Soviet Union has not only created troubled
environment in Afghanistan but has also brought instability in
the Central Asian Republics. After the fall of Soviet Union, the most prominent aspect present is
for example, Islamic renaissance party in Uzbekistan is gradually gning,
the Central Asian Republics is the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism,
currency,
“Muslim Brotherhood” party in Egypt, though founded in 1982, is
ye to take openly active part in the political arena of their country,
fought
it in alliance with two secular parties in 1987 elections and genet
substantial seats and votes,
Unstructured Islamic groups in Libya are the greatest internal and
external threat. Libya has been declared as promoter of Islamic
fundamentalism alongwith exporter of terrorism.
Renaissance party in Tunisia has widely been suppressed after the
alleged surfacing of a plan of Islamic revolution in 1991.
Islamic groups in Morocco current resurgence in Thailand and
various other eastern countries has mobilized world opinions regarding
Islam as the most primitive and savage religion of the world. Among
contributory factors was the statement of King Fahd in 1992 that western
style of democracy was not suitable for Saudi Arabia.
WESTERN POLICY.
Though western countries along with United States of America
became conscious of the growing might of Islamic. World in respect of
religion But “Fundamentalism” is a Christian short hand which evokes
against Protestant who believe and seek the literal truth of the Bible. There
exist no such parallel word in the Arabic language, as the traits of these
zealously religious were same, the media had applied it as Islamic
fundamentalism.
These Islamic Fundamentalist wants to reach back to the literal word
of God, as Christian did in their times, cutting out roughly 100 years of
middlemen, Whereas Islamist wish to recede back around 1400 years.
Fundamentalism emerged in 1979 when Islamic revolution occurred
in Iran with the ascendancy of Khomeni, but they were so engrossed in the
cold war that they decided to treat it leniently but not unchecked. Part of
the cold war strategy was to check Islam as far as possible without losing
the sight of growing communism. The “Kirkpartic doctrine” devised by
the Secretary of State in the Regan administration considered authoritarian regimes as less incompatible with the interest of the United States, it was
precisely the reason why the so called tin pots dictators of Middle East and
Asia received moral and economic support, it was not only to combat
Communist forces present in that area but also to curb the growing might
of Islamic fundamentalism. One such example was Iraqian regime, which
after the fall of Soviet Union witnessed a remarkable switch in the
American Policy.
THE POST COLD WAR ERA,
The post-cold-war-era is witnessing a confusing state of affairs
regarding its policy towards fundamentalism. The failure of US sponsored
New World Order has created a perplexing state of affairs. Though in
contemporary circumstances Islam is considered as potential threat, being
the only example of an idea which claims universal relevance after burying
the communist remnants of Soviet Union, yet the NATO countries are yet
to devise a policy which would promote democracy and market oriented
constitutionalism without encouraging Islamic forces. Running sacred is
silly, as considered by most of the Westerns but on the other hand
crushing life out of the movement is unlikely to work, even secularist of
all (but born Muslim) cannot refuse the Universality rife.
IS IT DESIRABLE OR NOT..
It is clear enough to say that this militant fundamentalism is not
desirable in the least. It is nonetheless true that time has changed and from
moderate view point, material and religious ascendancy should not be
achieved at the cost of other in this highly competitive and would be
“Global Village, fanaticism of any kind, least of all motivated by religion,
is incompatible but in doing so we should get astray from the path divinely
Conclusion:-
The use of old cold war vocabulary with the talk of crusade and
jihad by the Islamist from the western view point is highly fallible. It is
particularly wrong to present current Islamic revivalism as global ideology
which needed to be tackled the way cold war was handled. The west in
particular reference to the United States (the super power) should have
learnt a hard lesson by now, from her experience in the Vietnam. It was a
wrong war, at the wrong place for a wrong ideal at a wrong time. Going
after each and every person who cried foul play and fixing a bullet in his
skull is unlikely to work. US did the same in order to combat communism
temporary circumstances. The latest it did was to topple the results of
Algerians elections in the year in 1991 where FIS won the major amount
of seats. It is true that if Islamist have been allowed their victory it
certainly would have been a risk, they would have overturned the
democratic process they despised and of what they boasted but within a
there might have been a lot of constraint. Secondly this does not
wipe out the problem but instead gives a new vigor, which resulted in a
Moody civil war to which there seems no end in the near future.
system
The concept of democracy cannot be flourished with the curtailment
of freedom. This was one of the major pitfalls which resulted in the fall of
Soviet Union and perhaps one of the causes of its economic collapse. The
current theme of things depicts the same. Despotism is desirable to none
even to the one who is most illiterate. The cold war trap of keeping nasty
dictators clad in funny uniforms is not a desirable course in the post-cold
war era to combat religious militancy. This is the same kind of militancy
which was present in the Europe before the advent of 19th century when
monarch ruled there constantly pushed by the extremism of Church to
follow a particular course of life. Religious persecution were dominant
theme which is one of the major cause of American, Australian and New
Zealand’s Colonizations.
How did Europe and America came out of this deary trap. Though
educating the people of the benefits of democracy and give imparting
knowledge and creating literacy among the people.
This is exactly the course required by the Islamic world but with one
yexception i.e. not at the cost of their religion as a whole.