Defining Fundamentalism

Are we applying a Western concept to an Eastern religion?

BY TRACY IDELL HAMILTON

Labeling as "fundamentalists" the men who altered our lives forever by their murderous act of terrorism on Sept. 11 is inadequate, inaccurate, and ultimately hinders our understanding of what happened.

Within minutes of the towers' collapse, someone on the news had already said it: "…possibly the work of Islamic fundamentalists." Osama bin Laden’s face filled the screen, even as anchors emphasized that we had no evidence yet. Shades of Oklahoma City, except ....

"The moment that we identified Timothy McVeigh, the issue of religion was dropped," says Dr. Faysal Kolkailah, a Cal Poly professor of aerospace engineering whose areas of expertise include Islamic issues in the U.S. and the Middle East. "Do you know what religion he was?"

Everyone knows what religion bin Laden and his followers profess to be. Islam is intertwined with their motives: We've heard of the detailed instructions on how to turn an airplane into a fiery missile, intermingled with pious phrases of devotion. Of wills detailing strict Islamic burial practices. Of martyrdom and eternal reward for fighting the holy struggle, jihad.

Stories about Muslims and the practice of Islam are being produced with increasing frequency, and many are doing an admirable job of separating the terrorists’ interpretation of faith with that practiced by most Muslims. But even as we learn of the terrorists’ selective use of the Qur’an to justify mass murder, some media outlets, pundits, and politicians continue to describe the terrorists–and the Taliban–as Muslim fundamentalists.

Others question the accuracy of that label. "The term has gained so much currency that it deserves some serious scrutiny," writes Ilyas Ba-Yunus, Ph.D. in his paper, "The Myth of Islamic Fundamentalism" for the State University of New York, Cortland. "It needs our attention especially because it is the Western rendition of Islam. It seems to emphasize that there are those among Muslims who believe in the basic principles of Islam and there are those who do not."

Kolkailah agrees. He sees he and his family, who have been in the U.S. for 25 years, as fundamentalist Muslims, but not the kind of fundamentalists represented by either the Taliban or Jimmy Swaggert. While some of the problem comes from the baggage associated with the word fundamentalist, American ignorance of Islam doesn’t help, he says.

Serving for many years as the President of the Islamic Society of the Central Coast, and speaking at interfaith panels aimed at breaking down stereotypes, Kolkailah has had many chances to see that ignorance up close. After one such panel, a woman from Nipomo wrote him, thanking him for opening her eyes to another religion.

As he describes his experiences, he pulls an old text down from the crowded shelves in his office, "The Fundamentals of Classical Thermodynamics." "It's just the basics, isn't it?" he asks. He pulls out notes from one of his engineering classes. At the top is a small block of Arabic script. "This says the same thing that the Egyptian pilot said before EgyptAir 990 went down: ‘In the name of God most merciful and most compassionate.’ I say that before every class. I say it every time I get in my car. I try to do everything for God. That’s fundamental."

Fundamentalist Muslims, he says, are merely people trying to live by the book.

While that may be true, the term fundamentalist in the U.S. has come to be far more value-laden, to mean much more than just "the basics." Most Americans are more familiar with the word fundamentalist appearing after the word Christian. The Moral Majority's Jerry Falwell springs to mind, he who partially blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on feminists, ACLU members, abortionists, gays, and lesbians.

Comments like that, and the attendant intolerant world view that goes along with it, contribute to the term's generally negative slant–not to mention most people’s aversion to those who promote such world views. The word was first applied to some Christians at the beginning of the 20th century, when a group of Protestants, concerned with the modernist direction the church was taking, responded with a 12-volume set of fundamental doctrines. The followers became known as Fundamentalists (see sidebar). Some sects of Christianity, most notably Southern Baptists, still use the word to describe themselves.

As the word is applied more frequently, and to different religions, scholars are attempting to quantify common fundamentalist traits–beyond just an effort to get back to the basics.

In an effort to understand it better, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences funded a multi-year project that brought scholars from around the world to study the concept of fundamentalism. Admitting difficulty with the term, the resulting project used it anyway, because the word is commonly accepted, here to stay, and the best term anyone has come up with for the phenomena.

The project came up with several common traits they found in fundamentalists everywhere: they agree that fundamentalism is still a fight against the forces of modernity, against the split between the secular and the sacred; that religious idealism is the basis for personal and communal identity; that truth is revealed through literal interpretation of their holy book. They demonize the opposition and are reactionary; they would like to see spiritual laws replace secular ones; they are selective in what parts of their tradition they stress; and they are led by males.

When applied to the Moral Majority–or even the Taliban–these descriptions fit. Applied to Kolkailah and his family, few seem appropriate. For example, Kolkailah, like many Muslims, understand Jews and Christians as fellow people of the book. "It’s in my holy book, the Qur’an," he says.

While holding fast to the first creed of Islam, that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger, Muslims still generally respect Judaism and Christianity as related religions, says Judy Saltzman-Saveker, a philosophy and religious studies professor at Cal Poly who has taught a class in Islam for many years.

"The Qur’an talks about ‘no compulsion,’" she says. "It’s not the purpose of followers to forcibly proselytize and convert, although they do want others to hear their message." Many Muslims she knows would describe themselves as fundamentalist, she says, but in the simplest sense of the word, following the teachings of the Qur’an, not according to the traits identified by the Academy of Arts and Sciences project.

Indeed, what so many Muslims in the Middle East would like to see is not the West reverting to Islam, Saltzman says, but the West pulling out, leaving Muslims to practice their faith without what they see as the corrupting influences of the secular West.

Americans may be offended by the way women are treated in many Muslim countries, Kolkailah says, but by the same token, the way women are treated in the U.S. offends him: seeing mostly-naked women advertising for everything under the sun. "It’s so disrespectful," he says. "That’s why, while I am an American citizen, I try to stay apart from the culture."

Unlike those of all religions who allow that there may be different paths to the truth, fundamentalists, using the definitions above, are unable to even entertain that possibility.

Lori Adoff, president of the Ministerial Association of San Luis Obispo, says more fundamentalist churches used to be part of the association, but its focus on ecumenical and interfaith understanding doesn’t fit with the fundamentalist view of a single truth–their truth. "I believe there used to be a more fundamentalist faction," back in the 1960s, she says, "But I think there was friction with the social justice faction. [Fundamentalists] didn’t feel as if they fit in."

Not fitting in, not wanting to fit in, is one of the hallmarks of fundamentalist, or Orthodox Jews.

Rabbi Norman Mendel of Temple Beth David in San Luis Obispo wouldn’t use the word fundamentalist to describe Orthodox Jews, even as he describes them as the least amenable to change, the most concerned with encroaching modernity.

"Fundamentalism is such a loaded word," he says. "What it's been taken to mean today borders on the unhealthy. Every religion has its traditionalists."

Traditional Orthodox Jews do not seek to bring the world around to Judaism’s laws, says Mendel, who also teaches religion at Cuesta and Cal Poly. Because Judaism is no longer a proselytizing religion, Orthodox Jews are generally more concerned with keeping unbelievers out–much like the many Muslims who would like to see Westerners leave the Middle East–than bringing them into the fold.

Saltzman concurs: "An ultra-Orthodox Hasidim may stop another Jew on the street and talk to him about how he prays, but as I understand, he would never stop a non-Jew."

Fundamentalist Judaism also tends to lack the blind acceptance of authoritative, charismatic leaders, says Mendel, because tradition allows for debate over Jewish laws. "That dynamic helps keep Judaism healthy," Mendel says. "It leaves room for doubt, but also exploration."

Doubting or questioning for most fundamentalists is unthinkable, says Peter Dill, a philosophy professor who teaches comparative religion at Cuesta College. "When you question authority, you’re disrespect God, because all authority comes from God."

Saltzman says she sees evidence of blind faith among a few of her students: "They tell me, we shouldn’t even be questioning this stuff."

Because fundamentalists see all authority as coming from God, it follows that one of their goals is to bring religion back to center stage when deciding public policy issues.

Therein lies one of the biggest problems with fundamentalism, says Dill. "It starts out as a commitment to purify one's self by rigorous and set standards. But when those standards are considered universal [and then pushed on others], that's when problems arise."

Basing secular laws on scriptural teachings may be an anathema for a country founded on the separation of church and state, but many Islamic countries are ruled by some measure of theocracy. That makes it difficult to compare Christian fundamentalists’ efforts to push religious law in the U.S. with Muslims trying to do the same thing in their countries.

Although Dill notes that coming from a Muslim, a non-Muslim is less likely to hear about the divisions and sects within Islam, the religion in all its forms is intertwined with culture in many Muslim countries, he says. Kolkailah agrees, but he says people need to be careful in distinguishing between culture and religion. In Saudi Arabia, for example, where women may not drive, that is the law, but it is not from the Qur’an. That’s culture, not religion."

Unlike Christianity, which generally exists outside of civic life in the U.S., tenets of Islam have made their way into public policy in most Muslim countries. In Saudi Arabia, the constitution consists of the Qur’an, and its accompanying traditions, but includes laws not from the Qur’an, like not allowing women to drive. Egypt is more secular, although fundamentalists have tried for years to create a more religious state.

In Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, women are not allowed to be educated, drive cars, or hold jobs. They must cover up from head to toe. Crimes such as adultery are punished by stoning to death. Men are reportedly whipped in the street for not leaving their beards uncut.

Saltzman says the Qur’an is not explicit about women being veiled head-to-toe, and says nothing about forbidding to educate women. Her colleague Kolkailah, she notes, has three highly educated daughters. His wife holds a Ph.D.

The Taliban, while definitely fundamentalist by the above definition, they veer into the extremist category with its severe and questionably Qur’an-based practices.

Osama bin Laden may also be a fundamentalist, but his selective application of holy laws, and the violence he employs to reach his goals push him firmly into the extremist camp, says Saltzman. Bin Laden and his followers might be better compared to zealous Christian groups such as Operation Rescue, a now mostly-defunct organization that advocated bombing abortion clinics and killing abortion providers.

Kolkailah says he is concerned with the why behind the acts of violence. He makes an analogy to a problem student. "Once you find out the reasons why he might be acting out, you can often get past them. We need to find the reason." Labeling the attacks as "senseless" or "mindless" acts of terrorism by "Islamic fundamentalists" does nothing to advance our understanding of the events of Sept. 11.

Understanding Islam, what it is, and what it is not, while not providing all the answers, can certainly help, he says. He has already seen a surge of interest in Islam. "As bad, and ugly, and sad as it is, I’m still optimistic that good will come out of this," he says. He has already found some: The day after the attack, he came home to find a gift basket on his front door, and a note signed by all his neighbors, reassuring he and his family of their support.

"This Sunday I’m inviting my neighbors over for tea," he says. "I have lived there for many years, and have never had my neighbors over for tea. We all came over on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat. Now we must work hard not to let it sink."

New Times staff writer Tracy Hamilton may be reached at [email protected]