Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, the Salafi movement, Qutbism, Islamic activism, among others, and has been criticized as pejorative.
Some of the beliefs attributed to Islamic fundamentalists are that the primary sources of Islam (the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah), should be interpreted in a literal and originalist way; that corrupting non-Islamic influences should be eliminated from every part of Muslims' lives; and that the societies, economies, and governance of Muslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of Islam, the system of Islam, and become Islamic states.Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: p. 215
Definitions and descriptions
The term fundamentalism has been deemed misleading by those who suggest that all mainstream Muslims believe in the literal divine origin and perfection of the Quran and are therefore "fundamentalists",Bernard, Lewis, Islam and the West, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. and others who believe it is a term that is used by outsiders in order to describe perceived trends within Islam." 'The Green Peril': Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat", Leon T. Hadar, Policy Analysis, Cato Institute, 27 August 1992. A professor of religious studies at Georgetown 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 of Tajdid (revival) and Islah (reform) are rooted within the Islamic religious history, from the early Islamic centuries to the contemporary times. During the 1990s, the post-Soviet states used "Islamic fundamentalism" as a synonym for "Wahhabism".
Some 20th century preachers and writers sometimes dubbed Islamic fundamentalist include Sayyid Qutb, Ibn Saud, Abul Ala Mawdudi, and Israr Ahmed.Esposito, Voices of Resurgent Islam The Wahhabi movement and its funding 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 from Islamism (or political Islam) or Islamic revivalism.
Form of Islamism – Graham Fuller believes that Islamic fundamentalism is a subset of Islamism rather than a distinctive form of it, and to him, Islamic fundamentalists are "the most conservative element among Islamists". Its "strictest form" includes "Wahhabism, which is sometimes referred to as salafiyya. ... For fundamentalists the law is the most essential component of Islam, and it leads to an overwhelming emphasis upon jurisprudence, usually narrowly conceived."Fuller, Graham E., The Future of Political Islam, Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p. 48 Author Olivier Roy takes a similar line, describing "neo-fundamentalists", (i.e. contemporary fundamentalists) as being more passionate than earlier Islamists in their opposition to the perceived "corrupting influence of Western culture", avoiding Western dress, "neckties, laughter, the use of Western forms of salutation, handshakes, applause", discouraging but not forbidding other activities such as sports, ideally limiting the Muslim public space to "the family and the mosque".Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: p. 83 In this fundamentalists have "drifted" away from the stand of the Islamists of the 1970s and 1980s, such as [Abul A'la Maududi] who:
Umbrella term – Another American observer, Robert Pelletreau, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, believes it the other way around, Islamism being the subset of Muslims "with political goals ... within" the "broader fundamentalist revival".Remarks by Robert H. Pelletreau, Jr., Middle East Policy Council, 26 May 1994, "Symposium: Resurgent Islam in the Middle East," Middle East Policy, Fall 1994, p. 2. American historian Ira Lapidus sees Islamic fundamentalism as "an umbrella designation for a very wide variety of movements, some intolerant and exclusivist, some pluralistic; some favourable to science, some anti-scientific; some primarily devotional and some primarily political; some democratic, some authoritarian; some pacific, some violent." Synonym – Still another, Martin Kramer, sees little difference between the two terms (at least in usage in one country): "To all intents and purposes, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism have become synonyms in contemporary American usage."Coming to Terms, Fundamentalists or Islamists? Martin Kramer originally in Middle East Quarterly (Spring 2003), pp. 65–77. Scriptural literalism – According to another academic, Natana J. Delong-Bas, the contemporary use of the term Islamic fundamentalism applies to Muslims who seek not just "to return to the primary sources", but who use "a literal interpretation of those sources". Use of ijtihad in Islamic law – According to academic John Esposito, one of the most defining features of Islamic fundamentalism is belief in the "reopening" of the gates of ijtihad ("independent reasoning" used in reaching a legal decision in Sunni law).Esposito, John, Voices of Resurgent Islam
Differences with Islamism According to Roy distinctions between Fundamentalism and Islamism (or at least pre-1990 Islamism) are in the fields of:
Politics and economics. Islamists often talk of "revolution" and they believe "that the society will only be Islamized through social and political action: it is necessary to leave the mosque ..." Fundamentalists are primarily interested in Islamic practice, less interested in "modernity or Western models of politics or economics", and less willing to associate with non-Muslims.Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: pp. 82–3, 215 Sharia. While both Islamists and fundamentalists are committed to implementing Sharia law, Islamists "tend to consider it more a project than a corpus."Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: p. 59 Issue of women. "Islamists generally tend to favour the education of women and their participation in social and political life: the Islamist woman militates, studies, and has the right to work, but in a chador. Islamist groups include women's associations." While the fundamentalist preaches that women should return to their homes, Islamism believes that it is sufficient if "the sexes are separated in public".Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: pp. 38, 59 Variety and diversity within Islamic social movements has been highlighted by Husnul Amin in his work by referring to plurality within these movements.
Historian Ervand Abrahamian (who essentially devoted a book—Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic—to why Ayatollah Ruhollah 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 Ayatollah Ruhollah 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."Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, by Ervand Abrahamian, University of California Press, 1993, p. 13.
Differences from Christian fundamentalism
Differences between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism include (according to Bernard Lewis):Lewis, Bernard(1993) Islam in history:ideas, people and events in the Middle East:398
Types Islamic fundamentalism (at least among Sunni Muslims) traditionally tends to fall into "traditionalist" (Doctrinists) and "reformist" (Originalists) tendencies: Traditionalists (Doctrinists) accept "the continuity" between the founding Islamic "texts"—the Quran and the Sunnah—and their commentaries. Traditionalists take "imitation" (taqlid), accepting what was said before and refusing to innovate (bidah), as a "basic principle, They follow one of the great schools of religious jurisprudence (Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi, Hanbali). Their vision of the sharia is essentially legalistic and used to determine what is religiously right or wrong for Enjoining good and forbidding wrong. Traditionalists are sometimes connected to the popular forms of Sufism such as the Barelvi school in Pakistan)."Roy, Failure of Political Islam, 1994: pp. 30–31 "Reformist" (Originalists) fundamentalism, in contrast, "criticizes the tradition, the commentaries, popular religious practices" (Maraboutism, the cult of saints), "deviations, and superstitions"; it aims to cleanse Islam by returning to the Quran and the Sunnah. 18th-century examples are Shah Waliullah Dehlawi in India and Ibn Abdul Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula. This reformism is often "developed in response to an external threat" such as "the influence of Hinduism on Islam". In the late 19th century, the salafiyya movement spread throughout the Arab countries; "marking a phase between Fundamentalism and Islamism". Sayyid Rashid Rida (1865–1935), a major scholar of the early Salafiyya, believed that the triumphs of early generations of Muslims (Salaf) were God's reward for them being faithful followers and blamed contemporary decline of Muslims on four major factors: i) European imperialism ii) Western philosophy iii) neglect of the correct practice of Islam iv) Raafidi doctrines
Controversy Criticism of the term The term "Islamic fundamentalism" has been criticized by Bernard Lewis, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Eli Berman, and John 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":
John Esposito has attacked the term for its association "with political activism, extremism, fanaticism, terrorism, and anti-Americanism", saying "I prefer to speak of Islamic revivalism and Islamic activism."John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 8.
Khaled Abou El Fadl of UCLA, a critic of those who are called Islamic fundamentalists, also finds fault with the term because:
Eli Berman argues that "radical Islam" is a better term for many post-1920s movements starting with the Muslim Brotherhood, because these movements are seen as practicing "unprecedented extremism", thus, they do not qualify as movements which are returning to the practice of historic fundamentals.Eli Berman, Hamas, Taliban and the Jewish Underground: An Economist's View of Radical Religious Militias, UC San Diego National Bureau of Economic Research. August 2003, p. 4
Defense 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."Dennis, Anthony J. The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West (Ohio: Wyndham Hall Press, 1996), p. i.