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back to "Essays" index Fundamentalism is a term that originated in American Christianity about 90 years ago. American Christian fundamentalism sprung from sets of theological writings centered out of Princeton Theological Seminary. A reaction to theological liberalism and scientific modernity, the movement took its name from its attempts to identify the fundamentals of Christianity, meaning the faith claims and affirmations without which Christianity would lose its essential identity. However, Muslims generally object that "fundamentalist" is an inappropriate term when speaking of Islamic movements. According to Mr. Macksood Aftab, managing editor of The Islamic Herald, to apply the term "fundamentalist" to Muslims is "neither fair nor valid":
Mr. Aftab also points out that there are numerous Islamic revival/renewal movements, and only a small minority are violent. Nonetheless, all of these movements would strike Americans as fundamentalist. Western Christianity argues over the place and authority of Scripture in modern life, but this issue simply never arises in the Islamic world. The Quran is authoritative, period, even in the most "liberal" Islamic state. Several years ago, a Muslim professor of Islamic studies at The George Washington University said at a seminar I attended that the Christian tradition of scriptural interpretation is not really part of Islamic tradition. Many, maybe most, Muslims, including many of the most urbane and educated, simply deny that the Koran is subject to exegesis at all: it says what it says, end of discussion. Also, this professor pointed out that the Koran is Scripture only in Arabic. Any translation into another language results in something that is not the Koran. However, a prominent Islam web site, submission.org, has a page that it says is an "authorized English translation" of the Koran. I use "fundamentalism" in speaking of our foes. Fundamentalism is not a characteristic of only one particular religion. The word really describes a particular type of world view springing from sets of axioms that are claimed to be beyond refutation or argument. Whether Christian or Muslim or other religion, fundamentalism is --
However, the sharp differences between the world views (explained below) of the West and of Islamic states are real, and are a significant source of tension. Muslims' world views are much more openly dominated by the Islam religion than Christian's world views are dominated the Bible. I do not agree with those who have said that this campaign is not a religious campaign. In Islam, religion pervades every aspect of daily life much more comprehensively than in the West. Perhaps, though, the struggle is really "meta-religious" rather than openly religious. The world view clash operates at a foundational level well below usualy awareness. We westerners may really believe that the campaign is simply military or political or even judicial, but in Islam, all of these arenas are subordinated to religious doctrine; indeed they really are part of the warp and woof of Islam itself. Islam does not distinguish, even in theory, between religion and state as the West does. With few exceptions, Muslims have no "handle" on which to hang the claim that there is no religious component of western response to the terrorist acts of Sept. 11. The Importance of World Views World Views are the sets of deeply embedded cultural characteristics that form the way we understand the universe and how we perceive reality itself. Our "world view," is the filter of how we understand how and why things are (the "is" of the world), and how and why they should be (the "ought.") A culture's world view operates far, far below the conscious level of its citizens, but it forms the foundation of a culture's structures of common life and community. Threats or challenges to world views evoke very strong, emotionally-based resistance from individuals. When persons are able to vocalize the feelings of threat of their people, they easily gain a following. (Example: In Germany after the Weimar Republic, Adolf Hitler vocalized quite fluently what the majority of Germans were feeling.) Not every member of a culture shares in all a culture's world view, of course. But challenges to the truth of someone's basic understanding of how things are, or how they ought to be, evoke very strong, emotional reactions. The more divinely authorized persons think their world view is, the stronger the reaction they give, and the greater a threat the challenger is perceived to be. What Motivates the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and their Allies? The primary motivation of the Taliban, bin Laden and al Qaeda springs from their extreme religious fundamentalism. This has been pointed out by numerous Arab/Muslim commentators for years. They see western culture as such an extreme threat that they are willing to commit suicide to turn it back. I am not speaking of what we think of when we talk about "western culture." We cite things like trashy movies, racy clothing, vacuous television, fascination with celebrity, addiction to leisure and entertainment, materialism, consumerism, political corruption, and other various ills of our society. While such things are religiously repulsive to al Qaeda's strain of Islamic fundamentalism, they are not their chief objection. The threat that the West (the USA being the foremost western nation) presents to the Taliban and their religious ilk is the West's world view, scientific epistemology. They perceive our scientific-technological world view as an overwhelming threat not merely to their way of life, but as an actual affront to Allah, and indeed, reality itself. Their world view is, briefly and simplistically this: there is no new knowledge about Reality to be discovered after the life of Mohammed and outside the text of the Koran. In this view, the universe is a closed book. However, western "ways of knowing" make claims of new truths almost daily -- fundamental truths about the true nature of reality. The universe is, in western thought, still an open book, still being written. (However, Al Qaeda is quite comfortable with using the tools and implements resulting from scientific epistemology, such as, sadly, airliners and telecommunications and banking systems. Their religious resistance is not to these things, but to a western mind set that really seeks to ensure that its own fundamental belief system is consistent with modern scientific knowledge. In most of the West, the categories of the sciences are today regarded as ultimate, rather than those of religion.) Western scientific epistemology makes two major claims: (1) science reveals the Real and science discovers genuine truths rather than mere opinions; (2) scientific knowledge of reality is exhaustive, not inherently limited, is holistic and sees reality as reality really is. Scientific epistemology has for many decades adhered to a structure of understanding that knowledge about the world beyond the self was limited to what could be known through sense-perception of material things. The materialism of the western world view is its central feature. Thus, scientific epistemology has no natural place for God in it. (Napoleon complained to the Marquis de Laplace that he had found no mention of God in Laplace's work, Celestial Mechanics. Laplace responded, "Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis." In Islam, Allah could never be relegated to an "hypothesis." Only the Christian west has done it. As Muslim author Harun Yahya put it, "According to this belief of science, all religious information is considered as unreal, and questionable.") These are issues that even the West, the birthplace of the scientific method, has grappled with only with great difficulty. Even today, firmly-grounded theories of science such as evolution and astrophysics are denied by Christian fundamentalists who insist on a literal reading of the creation stories of Genesis. That this kind of cognitive dissonance would be amplified in other cultures is not surprising. According to philosopher of science Langdon Gilkey, in almost every culture where science has come to be practiced, religious fundamentalism has arisen afterward. (I need also point out that a culture's myths, legends and its understanding of its own history also strongly contribute to its world view. However, the content of those things in the Western world view is not the source of hostility by violent Islamic fundamentalists at the West.) A Clash of Cultures Although it is doubtful that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, et. al., would express these issues in this way, they feel deeply threatened by scientific epistemology. It is from outside their culture. The spread of Western influence has presented the Western world view to them "fully grown." However, we westerners tend not to recall that we gave birth to this foundational way of understanding Reality with many labor pains. We raised this world view from infancy over a period of almost 400 years. It seems almost as natural to us as breathing, so we can hardly grasp the culture shock with which it hits some other societies. This shock effect is not at all limited to Islamic fundamentalists. In an article, "The Religion of Modern Science: Roots of modern God-free Thinking," published in the western-based Islamic Journal, Muslim author Harun Yahya wrote of Western scientific absolutists who
Violent Islamic Fundamentalists (VIFs) correctly understand that because of the supremacy of the sciences in western thought, western culture has become caught in a cycle of ever-increasing changes. Western societies contend with an exponentially increasing pace of cultural changes. However, the pace and kinds of changes that we adapt to (with greater or lesser difficulty, to be sure) are exactly the changes that VIFs correctly believe would destroy the divinely-commanded, basic structures of their society. In their view, certain concretized social structures are absolutely essential, springing from and required by the command of Allah, as revealed in the Koran. Without those structures, a society is wholly corrupted and reality itself is threatened. We see them as hopeless religious fanatics; they see us as irredeemably godless and degenerate. Not Primarily a Political Struggle Thus, this struggle is not principally a clash between political systems. It is a clash of incompatible world views and irreconcilable ways of understanding the nature of reality itself. In an interview with the BBC, former American special envoy to the Mid-East peace process Peter Ross said that radical Islamic fundamentalists do not hate America because of its support of Israel, which would be a political issue. "They hate who we are," he said, "they see us a threat to their religion." America was not attacked on Sept. 11 because we support Israel. Quite the opposite, VIFs oppose Israel because it is western. Al Qaeda's hostility to western culture is the foundation of their hostility to Israel. The West is their principal enemy, not specifically Israel. If America utterly renounced Israel, broke all diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, and took up the Palestinian cause, bin Laden and al Qaeda would still attack us. After the end of World War II, the leaders of the Allies discovered that in 1925 Hitler had laid out his plans in detail in his book, Mein Kampf. Hitler's plans, including his hatred of the Jews and his desire to exterminate them, as well as his plan to invade the east and destroy the populations there, had literally been an open book for 14 years before the war. The aims of Osama bin Laden and his allies are also an open book. They have made their objectives explicitly clear, over and over, in their interviews, their writings and their clerics' announcements: they want to kill as many Americans as possible and destroy as many structures as possible that are most valued by Americans. That is their goal - it is their only goal. Their murderous violence is not a means to another end. Destruction is itself their end. They have said so themselves. Intelligence services and diplomats of moderate Arab states have made it clear that if and when al Qaeda obtains atomic weapons, they absolutely will use them to kill Americans. There is no concession that the United States can offer to pacify them. There is no foreign policy change we can make that will satisfy them. Those things are not the things that have caused them to raise the sword. It is quite literally impossible for the West to placate them, because we cannot culturally internalize their fundamental way of understanding reality. We cannot turn back the clock on hundreds of years of western progressive civilization.
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I started this blog as a hobby. I am in my late forties and have lived on four continents. I spent several years in Washington, D.C., serving in an executive department of the federal government. I served as a combat-branch military officer for many years. I hold a BA and a Master degree. I am married with children. I write and speak for a living. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and I do not insist that anyone agree with me. My favorite hobby is target shotgun shooting, which explains the "shooting sports" links on the main page. You are welcome to email me. I will read your email, but I cannot promise I will be able to answer soon, or even answer at all, for that matter. (This blog is strictly spare time for me.) I'll assume it's okay to use all or part of your email in my blog unless you tell me otherwise. I will not sell or give away your email address to anyone.
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