The term "fundamentalism" is most often used pejoratively, referring to thoughtless, narrow-minded bigots. Thus when discussing secularists, a fundamentalist within that particular broad church, would be one who railed against all religions that were not consistently based on the one true faith of secularism.
The term Islamic fundamentalists refers to those adherents who take the fundamental doctrines, precepts, principles and praxis of that religion seriously. But the term is like putty. Within a short time Islamic fundamentalism has also come to mean narrow-minded, bigoted fanatics. Is this fair?
The House of Islam (Dar al Islam) is any area where Islamic law prevails. However, many Islamic nations care little for Islamic law. A classic example would be the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. The ruling family of Saud lives in many cases in extreme opulence. It practises many things forbidden in Islam: wine, women, cigars, and song. It's leaders are educated in the West and are in many ways thoroughly Westernised. The House of Saud is anything but fundamentalist.
This is the reason Osama Bin Laden--while interested in tearing down the Great Satan (the United States)--was more preoccupied with throwing out the apostates ruling Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic fundamentalist--of which Bin Laden was one--wants to return to the purity of the religion as it was when first established by Muhammad in the seventh century AD.
The Islamists . . . [or, fundamentalists] modeled themselves on Islam's early conquerors, and aspired to nothing less than the substitution of Allah's universal empire for the existing international system. "The power to rule over the earth has been promised to the whole community of believers," argued the prominent Islamist, Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903--1979), founder of the fundamentalist Jamaat Islami in Pakistan. [Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p.212.]Going back to the beginnings. Recapturing the original purity. This is what fundamentalism strictly means. A parallel would be the Protestant Reformation. It was a movement to restore the Western church back to the fundamentals and teachings of the apostles and the early church fathers. It is not by accident that Calvin's Institutes, apart from uncounted biblical quotations, are filled with references to, and citations from, the early church fathers, Augustine particularly.
But as Western culture has become more secularist and less Christian, "fundamentalism" has become a term of contempt, inseparable from ignorance and asinine stupidity. In other words, it has become contemptible because most of the self-styled "smart set" no longer believe in the Living God.
But what is the "original, authentic purity" Islamic fundamentalists are looking to reclaim? What does Islam's reformation look like? The Islamic fundamentalists believe as did Muhammad and the early disciples that Islamic doctrine and praxis was to rule over the whole earth--by force of arms. Efraim Karsh cites Abul Ala Mawdudi again:
"A state of this sort cannot evidently restrict the scope of its activities. Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its spheres of activity is coexistent with the whole of human life". This universal state, or rather world empire, was to be established through a sustained jihad that would "destroy those regimes opposed to the precepts of Islam and replace them with a government based on Islamic principles . . . not merely in one specific region . . . but [as part] of a comprehensive Islamic transformation throughout the entire world." [Ibid., p. 213]The West cannot reconcile this fundamentalist view of Islam with its own vision--as espoused by some of its leaders and teachers, such as George Bush and Barack Obama--that Islam is a religion of peace. It may well have been in some historical periods, but only when the preachers and teachers of Islam were divorced from political power (as in the present day Saudi Arabia). But in its reformed, pure, fundamentalist reconstruction the idea that Islam is a religion of peace is risible.
Doubtless there are millions of nominal Muslims in the world. We deploy the term "nominal" to indicate "in name only". For them, Islam is a cultural tradition, an affirmation of their national and religious roots. For many, the Islamic tradition is quaint, but comforting--in the same way that Christmas is comforting to the secularist West. In principle, the nominal Muslim is no more subject to fundamentalism than the average Western secularist. However, both nominal Muslims and secularist Westerners have converted to fundamentalist Islam. But they remain outliers in a global sense.
But--and this is the crucial point--let none be confused. The nominal Muslim is neither a reformed Muslim, nor a fundamentalist Muslim. He does not represent Islam in its original purity. The latter is a wholly different proposition.
Neither Obama, nor Bush, nor David Cameron--nor the secularist West in general--have the foggiest idea what jihad means. True Islam, they believe--that is, Islam according to the House of Saud--is the genuine, enlightened form of Islam. Ah, but it is not. Saud, according to the true Islamic believer, is an apostate aberration. Osama bin Laden had declared jihad on the House of Saud. It is decidedly not Dar al Islam. In this matter the Islamic fundamentalists speak truthfully and faithfully about their historical religion. The West speaks with a forked tongue.
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