Download Islamic Fundamentalism Pt. 1

How to Influence Moderate Muslims to Marginalize Islamic Fundamentalism
Introduction: Internal and External Principle
There are at least two ways to attack, weaken, and destroy any enemy or opposing force.
It can be done from either an external or an internal position. A building may be exploded using
a missile or some source of attack to its external structure, which causes a weakening to the
entire building, or the building might be imploded by a destructive source within. In either case
the building is severely threatened. A human body can be attacked and weakened by outside
enemies with any number of damaging weapons or even some kind of accident inflicting damage
toward the inward body by an external contusion. The human body, on the other hand, can be
attacked severely from within by viral or bacterial pathogens that could weaken by various
degrees or even kill. About any imaginable feature of life might be considered in a similar way.
Even an army can be attacked from either external or internal sources. Nations and dynasties are
no exception to these threats. Think about Rome, which was certainly continually threatened
from external armies, but many historians theorize that it was actually internal factors which
ultimately weakened and destroyed the empire. This unwritten principle has no less application
for the world of Islam.
This external-internal principle has a parallel application in Islam in the sense that could
be understood for any religious institution or organization. For Islam, it means that the internal
threats might be directly linked to the brutality and extreme ideology of Islamists, causing a
backlash of sentiment among a majority of Muslims. Reactions by Muslims themselves are likely
to stir discord and divisiveness with the dar al-Islam (House of Islam). For Islam, it also means
that there is constantly a threat from either real of perceived external threats. This should not be
understood as merely violent or war-like threats, as real as those may be. Instead, external threats
may arise from a struggle with modernized society and its many systems. Islam, in many cases,
is threatened by influences they perceive as genuinely Western, but are relatively non-violent.
This specifically means worldliness, materialism, illicit entertainment, individualism, etc.
From an objective, phenomenological perspective, there is considerable validity to the
Islamic community’s own evaluation of external threats. Primarily, they consider these threats
coming from Western political or religious sources. More will be explicated about this in
subsequent sections. However, the curious interest at this point is the internal battle presently
threatening the stability of the entire dar al-Islam. In their fascinating book, Islam in Conflict,
authors Peter Riddell and Peter Cotterell declare, “There is a titanic struggle taking place
between moderates and radicals for the hearts and minds of the Muslim masses in the middle…”1
Could it happen that moderates will see the internal threat of extreme fundamentalism as more
threatening and destructive than the external threats perceived to issue against Islam from the
West? To begin to address this interest, it is probably valuable to succinctly establish the
historical path that has brought Islam to its present state.
1
Peter Riddell and Peter Cotterell, Islam in Conflict: Past, Present, and Future (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 2003), 192. See also reference to this in Colin Chapman, Cross and Crescent, Kindle e-book
edition, 2007, location 2541-2560 (Part Two: Understanding Islam, Chapter 15: Issues Facing Muslims Today,
point 9).
Setting the Historical Foundation
Islam, like most other religions, has not developed as a completely unified, monolithic
institution. Muhammad himself possessed the potential to be both a unifying and divisive figure.
Though his religious zeal did powerfully stimulate a united religious effort resulting in the
founding of Islam, it did not come without division and violence toward other religious
establishments, namely any of those disagreeing with Muhammad.
Perhaps the most important development in the early period of Islam’s history was the
division caused by the choice of Muhammad’s successor(s). This division technically resulted in
the two main sects within Islam today: Sunni and Shiite.2 Many of the present internal challenges
for Islam arise directly from the tremendous differences between these two Islamic sects.
There are many splintering sects, factions, or groups,3 within the Islamic historical
spectrum, but relative to the focus here there must be a historic leap to the modern period,
specifically the twentieth century to the present. The interest turns to this period because of the
tremendous progress and development of Islamic Fundamentalism. To attempt to address the
question as to how to influence moderate Muslims to disengage themselves away from any
interest in fundamentalism, there needs to be revealed the motivations and factors that have
produced the modern development of Islamic Fundamentalism that exists today.
Nabeel Jabbour’s work, The Rumbling Volcano: Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt, offers
an excellent presentation of the historical development of fundamentalism within Islam, and he
states that one of his aims (purpose) “is to identify the various factors that motivated and are still
motivating people to become Islamic Fundamentalists.”4 There is a direct historic line to today’s
fundamentalism from the ancient Islamic Kharijites. These, according to Jabbour, are not in
existence now, but their legacy lives in “today’s fundamentalists who are puritans and reformers
of the umma.”5 In either case, whether the ancient Kharijites, or the modern fundamentalists,
there is a genuine interest to revive and reform Islam to a state of purity, aligned with the
teaching of Muhammad and the Qur’an, and which executes social justice by the shari’a law.
Even within the Fundamentalist Movement in Islam there are a variety of factions and
groups. Some are more moderate in their attempts to stimulate reforms to a puritan state of Islam,
while other groups are radical and extreme and advocate strict shari’a law and militant jihad.
Unfortunately, for much of Islam, it is these extreme fundamentalist groups that are generating
the most attention for world media and violating some of the primary religious principles of
Islam, including peace. Are these fundamentalist groups endangering the image of Islam in
general around the world? While many people would respond to this question affirmatively,
Islamic Fundamentalists would argue that image for Islam is only important in the eyes of Allah,
and not in the eyes of the world’s people.
It is not the differences and variation between Sunnis and Shiites that possess the most
intense challenges to peace within Islam today, though it would be insane to completely ignore
the issues of debate between these two major Islamic sects. But the churning strife within Islam
2
This break began at AD 661 when ‘Ali, the 4th caliph, died.
Colin Chapman in Cross and Crescent (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, E-book version, 2007,
location. 810-21 [Part Two: Understanding Islam, Chapter 4: What is Islam?]) breaks down the categories of
Islam as: Traditionalist/Orthodox, Folk/Popular, Modernist/Liberal, Islamism/Fundamentalist, and Sufism.
4 Nabeel Jabbour, The Rumbling Volcano: Islamic Fundamentalism in Egypt (Pasadena, CA: Mandate
Press, 1993), 9.
5 Ibid, 31.
3
is largely between the small percentage of advocates of extreme fundamentalism and the great
majority of Muslims who are generally more moderate in their views.
It is not most significant how the world’s nations perceive and come to terms with
Islamic Fundamentalism and consequent “terrorist” acts, as important as that may be. But it is
extremely significant how Islam perceives itself and how Muslims deal with extreme views of
Islam which produce terrorist acts. This perception for all interested parties must not only
consider the above historic tract of the various Islamic sects and groups, but there must be a
radical orientation toward understanding the most modern trends and personalities involved in
developing the motivations for fundamentalists today. Colin Chapman explains this by stating,
“Islamic terrorism is a very recent phenomenon; but it did not develop in a vacuum. It can only
be understood in the context of the development of Islamism or Islamic Fundamentalism in the
twentieth century.” 6 To help us understand the development of the fundamentalist perception we
must begin with The Muslim Brotherhood and Hasan al-Banna.
There is a direct track and an express orientation from Hasan al-Banna to the present
organizations and associated leaders of al-Qaeda, ISIL and others. According to Jabbour, alBanna and the organization The Muslim Brotherhood is the “trunk of the tree” from which the
major branches of fundamentalism grew.7 This is dramatically true for this modern period,
though many fundamentalists and puritan Muslims still rely heavily on the earlier teachings of
Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-91). These earlier
revisionists, along with al-Banna, have stimulated the radical, extremist ideologies of later
important fundamentalist figures like: Sayid Qutb (authored “Signposts on the Road,” a
foundational text for training Islamic Fundamentalist disciples), Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Fouad
Hussein, Ayman al-Zawarhi, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In the next segment we will discuss what grievances and other factors have contributed to
the rapid development of Islamic Fundamentalism.
6
7
Chapman, Kindle location. 2767, (Part Two: Understanding Islam, Chapter 17: ‘Islamic Terrorism.’).
Jabbour, 109.