sure thing ABC,
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Charles A. Kimball
3. Can you give us an explanation of the differences between the tenets of "fundamentalist" Islam and "extremist" (or violent) Islam?
Religious studies scholars approach the term "fundamentalist" in different ways. Some argue the term is so rooted in a particular form of Protestant Christianity that it cannot easily be used in relation to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Martin Marty, a renowned scholar who co-edited a five-volume study on fundamentalism, argues that fundamentalisms are certainly very different. However, there are also striking similarities. Fundamentalists in various traditions teach that there was a perfect moment and they endeavor to recover that moment. This often involves reacting to that which is seen as a threat to realizing the ideal-even if the ideal never actually existed. In the case of selected Islamist groups (e.g. Hizbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad), the realization of their vision of an Islamic state is being thwarted by corrupt leaders in predominantly Muslim countries. The pervasive dominance of external powers, most notably the US, is also seen as both polluting Islamic culture and as a mechanism for exploitation. In recent decades, some groups have sought to work within particular political systems; some have resorted to violent extremism. To understand particular groups, it is important to do careful contextual analysis.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1004/p25s1-wosc.html
Feel free to explain to me how Prof. Kimball and his lackeys at the Christian Science Monitor are just a bunch of politically correct leftist Islamo-fascist sympathizers.
Wiki has a page on it too, which led me to this funny little quote of Voltaire:
"This religion," he wrote, "is called islamisme." Not only did his usage depart from Sale's, but so did his conclusion: "It was not by force of arms that islamisme established itself over more than half of our hemisphere. It was by enthusiasm and persuasion." The great nineteenth-century French dictionary by Littré quoted just this passage from Voltaire's Essai sur les mœurs when it defined islamisme as "the religion of Mahomet."
http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Terms.htm
I wonder why he thought Islam spread through enthusiam, and not through violent conversion? Typical French revisionism perhaps?
In my opinion, those who attempt to create an equality between Islamic fundmentalism and Islamic extremism are taking a very specific and narrow view of Islamic scripture and ultimately serving the cause of the extremists, that is, violent conflict between Muslims and the Western world. We can both google the Qu'ran all day and throw non-contextual scriptures back and forth at each other justifying and condeming extremist practices. You could arguably do that with any body of religious text of sufficient size.
But I'm certainly not advocating kid glove treatment of violent extremists. If someone thinks it's OK to kill countless innocents to achieve their goals, they deserve whatever they get in this life and, if there is divine justice, the next.
Anyway, I'm just glad a decade ago when I was sitting at a table at Denny's, arguing like a typical rebellious high school geek with some Islamic friend of a freind of a friend (really, I have no idea how that even got started), that he wasn't the sort of fundamentalist you'd describe, as we were able to civilly agree to disagree at the end of our argument and no one left with a steak knife in their back.