Religious Fundamentalism

A brief history of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalism is a modern phenomena. It has developed in response to empiricism and secularism whittling away at revealed truths and reducing the influence of religious organisations. Some parts of the religious community didn't like this and decided that going back to basics was the answer.

In 19th century America, people were dissatisfied with the secular government. There was a religious revival. Americans looked at the Bible and decided on a no-nonsense literal interpretation. The Evangelists wanted a rationalised God who told them where they came from, where they were going, and what to do. They went through the scripture attempting to justify Biblical atrocities as the actions of a loving God (eg. when God commands the Israelites to commit genocide and slaughter children, it's fine because God sent the dead children to eternal paradise), and explaining away the contradictions in amusingly convoluted ways.

American Evangelists were originally left-wing. In the 1920s many in the southern states campaigned against evolution being taught in schools; they suffered a humiliating defeat when it was brought to trial because they didn't actually understand evolution. They became a laughing stock and swung to the far right of the political spectrum, where they have remained to this day. There are Christian groups in America that want slavery brought back because the biblical God is cool with slavery.

In 19th century Europe, many Jews were assimilating into European culture. The more traditional Jews were upset by this; they founded Jewish colleges for their young to study Torah and Talmud with the experts. These colleges became the strongholds of insular orthodox Judaism. After the Holocaust, the colleges were rebuilt in America and Israel.

In early 20th century Europe, secular Jews founded the Zionist movement which hoped to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Anti-Semitism was on the increase because of eugenical racism, inspired by a misunderstanding of evolutionary biology, and the Jews wanted a way out. This movement was hijacked by religious Jews who wanted to reclaim the Promised Land. The state of Israel was founded after World War 2, ostensibly as a secular state. The Ultra-Zionists see the Palestinians as a pollution that must be driven out or exterminated.

In 18th century Arabia, Muhammad al-Wahhab decided to strip away centuries of Islamic reform and re-interpretation to get to a very literal interpretation of the Qur'an. He teamed up with a tribal chieftain called Muhammad ibn Saud to found a Muslim kingdom which would later be known as Saudi Arabia. Wahhabist Islam sees itself as the One True Faith; all other Muslims are apostates worthy of death.

It was not until late into the 20th century that Islamic fundamentalism really kicked off in the Muslim world. A few groups had been founded to oppose post-colonial governments, but they were often like the early Christian Evangelists who campaigned for social justice. In 1949, Sayyid Qutb, a well-educated Sunni Muslim from Egypt, visited America. He was appalled by what he saw: rampant materialism, racism, social injustice, and sexual permissiveness. When he returned to Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and was very influential amongst the more militant members.

After he was imprisoned and tortured by the Egyptian government, he broke. He wrote many books and essays which influence jihadists to this day. He saw the world as a fight between good and evil, where

Good = One True Faith
Bad = Everything Else

'There is only one place on earth which can be called the home of Islam, and that is the place where the Islamic State is established... The rest of the world is the home of hostility.'

His writings were popular in Saudi Arabia, who have spent lots of money distributing his writings and exporting the jihad ideology around the world.

In 1979, Shia Muslim fundamentalists took over Iran. In response, Saudi Arabia went crazy funding Sunni Muslim fundamentalist groups as a counter-measure. Some of these groups still receive funding from Saudi Arabia. Others have since turned on their former funders, seeing them as another corrupt country in league with the evil West. Until the 1990s, Islamic extremism focussed on Muslim countries. Only in the last 25 years has the jihad gone truly global.

Western politicians talk of fighting radical Islam. They'll talk about fighting the extremist groups and making the world a safer place, but they won't do anything about the beating heart of radical Islam which pumps jihadism around the world. When the king of Saudi Arabia died, the Queen, Prince Charles, David Cameron, Barack Obama, and many others all sent their condolences. Politics is depressing.