Fundamentalism: A very Short Introduction
Oxford University press. Oxford. 2007
In the USA fundamentalists are mainly anti-evolution. They believe that the sufferings in society are the outcome of evolution. For some of them, such as Henry Morris, evolution is the root of atheism, communism, Nazism, anarchism, behaviourism, racism, economic imperialism, militarism, anarchism, and all manner of anti-Christian systems of belief (p. 13).
Even this concept has been used in finance and economics. For example, George Soros and Joseph Stiglitz, who was a Nobel Prize winner, criticized IMF and World Bank for their “market fundamentalist” policies (p. 21).
Ruthven regards Fundamentalism as a response to globalization or more specifically to the crises that believers are facing.
To look at differences as a way of defining fundamentalism, the author has quoted some Islamic figures, such as Rahman al-Jabarati (1754-1822), Sayyed Qutb and Abu Ala Maududi, to highlight their concerns about different ways of modern life in the western cultures. For al-Jabarati, the equality of men and women, along with not using veils were surprising aspects of life among the French (p. 25). For Qutb the modern society was a “large Brothel” (p. 26). For Maududi, Islam is the only way of life for the entire humanity (p. 33).
Ruthven explains how Islamisation from below is different from Islamisation from above. The Islamists have been very much involved in Islamisation from below including charities, women’s halqas and cultural activities. Fundamentalist groups look at problems seen in modern societies and try to justify their views for utopian societies. But “in globalized culture where religions are in daily contact with their competitors, denial of pluralism is a recipe for conflict” (p. 32).
According to the author, modern literary criticism has not been used in Islamic countries and those who used literary criticism, like Nasr Abu Zaid, were sent to exile or had to use pseudonyms like Ibn Warraq. Criticism of Islam, has even become very dangerous after the Rushdie issue. However, Western scholars have used literary criticism to analyse the Quran, for example, John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, and Gerald Hawting (p. 41).
To escape from modern pressures, hard fundamentalists regard God’s words as timeless and eternal but human beings can’t understand them or undrestand them mistakenly. The Quran is seen as the direct words of God but it creates difficulties, as some literary critics, such as Richard Bell and Montgomery Watt, have noticed because in many parts of Quran God is referred to third person and God swears to himself (p. 50).Those who try to interpret the Quran in a way that confirms modern scientific achievements, in reality, accept modernity. Islamists are mainly from cities and emerge from schools and universities rather than from madrasas.
Following Karen Armstrong, Ruthven explains that the two sources of knowledge were kept apart in pre-modern times, myth and logos, the respective preserves of timeless and devotion have collapsed under the influence of modern religious ideologues, many of whom have been trained in the “hard” or applied sciences. So they look at religious texts as plans for action (p. 52). Ruthven argues that fundamentalists have many things in common with secularism or materialism, so he prefers to describe them as “factualist or historicist” rather than as “literalist”.
Drawing on Giddens, Ruthven explains that modernity is not very much about faith in science “but rather in trust in such anonymous abstract systems as the banking system or depersonalised interactions between engineers, mechanics, pilots, and air traffic controllers that keep passenger jet fly” (p. 53). It is about trust in abstract systems which provides the reliability of day to day living but by its very nature cannot supply either mutuality or intimacy. In Islam, also loyalism is more often directed towards institutions.
The author explains the popularity of Sufism or Buddhism which is related to the reflexivity of modern societies. These, similar to new religious movements and New Age cults, seem to run counter to the authoritarian character of Fundamentalism but in reality they have some more similarities than what is first observed. They both provide sources of authority in a globalised world where actual power is dispersed and impersonal. Both can provide psychological reassurance in a world in which areas of relative security interlock with radical doubt and with alarming scenarios of risk (p. 54).
Ruthven argues that Qutb, who had influence in Bin Laden’s way of thinking, urged his followers to approach the Quran as a “manual for action”, as distinct from a source of moral or spiritual guidance; and to act upon it immediately “as a soldier on the battlefield reads his daily bulletin so that he knows what is to be done” (p. 56). Ruthven believes that the difference between eschatology predicted on supernatural intervention and one founded in human action may be slighter than one might think.
For fundamentalists, action involves the seizure of the divine will, and as defender of God the militant fundamentalists claim the right to act on God’s behalf. “By collapsing myth into history, by taking action on God’s behalf, the fundamentalist paradoxically affirms the supremacy of the human will”. The author quotes Nietzche’s famous parable that:
a madman runs into the marketplace crying ‘I seek God! I seek God!’- when the bystanders ask him where he imagines God has gone, the madman glares at them furiously: ‘Where has God gone?…. I mean to tell you. We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! (p. 58).
Indeed, by confusing God with their own will-to-power, the fundamentalists may be killing God.
Fundamentalism and women
Control of sex and females is a key issue among fundamentalists. So the hostility to women and equality between males and females are some common concerns among fundamentalists.
This hostility can be seen in the Hindu tradition of Sati in which women are burned with their dead husbands in a part of India. Despite the practice being banned by Lord Bentinck in 1829 it still exists and even happened in 4th October 1987. Similar to early American fundamentalists arguing against “animalism” and the glorification of flesh (p. 64), Qutb spoke against what he saw as desire for naked flesh in the large brothel (p. 26).
The fundamentalists, both among the Iranian or Taliban in Afghanistan, have argued in similar way. Fedayan Islam in Iran had said “flames of passion rise from the naked bodies of immoral women and burn humanity to ashes” (p. 65).
Maulvi Jalilullah Maulvizada, from Taliban, stated in 1997 that he regarded the UN education and freedom programme for women, as a message which would lead to adultery, domination of infidels, and likeness of men and women which are against the requirements of Quran (p. 70).
Considering women as source of fitna (stife) or corruption is something not only in Islam, it is also seen in Hinduism. Arjuna tells the God Krishna in the Baghavad Gita thus:
In overwhelming chaos, Krishna,
Women of the family are corrupt,
And when women are corrupted,
Disorder is born in Society (p. 72).
However, Ruthven believes that fundamentalism is a dynamic movement in contemporary social landscape. Though conservative, they are far from being stagnant, with the improving positions in economics and education, more women are entering the public arena and leaving traditional private sphere of life so this may strengthen their confidence. It may be a transitional moment for them in compromising with traditions.
Fundamentalism and nationalism
This is another issue that Ruthven has examined with great interest in this book. Are nationalism and fundamentalism two rival ideologies? Are they two antagonistic phenomena? In the USA, faith in the nation has been seen appropriate in a symbolic sense by fundamentalists, as televangelist Pat Robertson has been a defender of this faith. Islamists have similar arguments to defend Islam by preaching and fighting. Islamists attribute the decline of Islam to loss of faith by Muslims, particularly rulers who have not been committed to Islamic law.
They argue for a return to an Islamic path to reverse political decline and “corrupt” post colonial order. In this way they are not challenging nationalists. Theoretically nationalism and fundamentalism are opponents, as Maududi believes that religion stands at the opposite side of nationalism. This is because he suggests that sovereignty belongs to God, not to people, parliaments or legislations. According to Maududi, “he principle of the Unity of God altogether negates the concept of legal and political sovereignty of human beings, individually and collectively God is alone sovereign and His commandments are the Law of Islam” (p. 84).
Islamic movements in Arab countries, ideologically are rivalries of nationalists. Muslim Brotherhood routinely deny nationalism and regard the nationalists as “infidels” or “man worshipper”. The nationalists are rejected for bringing man-made laws. Anwar Sadat was killed by Khalid Islambouli, whose mentor Abd al-Salam al-Farraj drew heavily on Ibn Taymiyya’s writings. Some nationalists have been heavily permeated by religious symbols and where religious differences exist, they have made religion as a core identity. The defeat of Nasir by Israel in 1967 was a crucial event for revival of Islamism by those who saw Nasir as symbol of secularist nationalists.
Ruthven argues that Nabhani, Madanni and Bin Laden present a “religious nationalism” as it was argued by Mark Juergensmeyer (1993). Juergensmeyer does not see nationalism as the ideological or polar opposite of fundamentalism but regards it rather as a complement or a variant. Both nationalism and fundamentalism, have strong abilities, among other allegiances, particularly in giving moral sanction to martyrdom and violence (p. 88).
Ruthven argues that Islamists, as Laura Guazzone has pointed out, hold governments responsible for all deviation of Muslim community and then turn around to use the government as instrument of salvation. References to the state as the central framework of Islamist political thinking and action show that fundamentalism and nationalism overlap and blend into each other. Developed during the classical age of Islam, this is an engagement of “Islamist movements in national political processes” (p. 90). The shift of state from economics control to control of social morality involves no reduction of the state’s power but rather the reverse. This has been seen in role of a state in Iran after revolution.
Quoting from Anthony Smith: “For nationalists, the nation, whether the acts committed in its name, is essentially and ultimately good, as the future will reveal; the conviction of its virtue is not a matter of empirical evidence, but of faith” (p. 93), Ruthven argues that historical progress, as used later by Hegel and Marx, is a secularised version of Christian eschatology. The author argues that religious fundamentalism, with absolutising the conflicts, is best understood as an intensification or deepening of nationalism by way of religion’s catalysing force (p. 103). Brotherhoods blend traditions and indigenous ideas of spiritual leadership with modern Western organisations of bureaucracy.
He argues that the heart of fundamentalist project lies not in religion itself but in the essentially modern agenda of extending or consolidating the power of national state, or the “revolutionary Jacobin” state appeared in the French Revolution”.
While fundamentalists have appropriated some aspects of the political programme of modernity such as participatory, moralistic and egalitarian orientations, they reject enlightenment values including sovereignty and autonomy of reason and perfectibility of man.
They in reality secularise and bring religion down to earth. The fundamentalist seem modern but they don’t accept choice and make it difficult for post modernists to explain the relativist concept of tolerance. Forces of secularisation are not unidirectional, they are part of a dialectical process. Alliance and political order, are concepts that religious fundamentalists use and so they have to compromise in some points and it is inconsistent with the purity they usually claim for their ideas.
Ruthven with optimism brings his excellent book to an end, “In the age of satellite broadcasting and the internet, pluralism and diversity of choice are no longer aspirations. They are dynamic realities with which believers of all traditions are having to contend” (p. 136).
Reviewed by H. Noraiee 10/3/2007 – London
