Rise Of Religious Fundamentalism In The United States

Religious Fundamentalism is defined as the belief of an individual or group of individuals in the absolute authority of a religious text or teachings of a religious leader, prophet, and/or God. It was first used to describe a group in Protestant Christianity in the United States but in recent years the concept of fundamentalism is used to define a certain form of religious belief which is expressed in forms of extremism which has an inclination to violence such as ISIS, an extremist group believing in extreme uses of religious text to terrorize their own people and the modern world.

Within this essay, I will be accounting the rise of religious fundamentalism. This will include a detailed explanation of the historical rise of Christian Fundamentalism,

The first major establishment of the Muslim culture came from the group forming to become the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt 1929. The Brotherhood was associated with Wahhabism which there were many definitions, but most was the concept that it was ‘pure Islam’. This meant that it does not deviate from Sharia law in any way and should be called Islam and not Wahhabism (DeLong-Bas, Natana J 2004, Wahhabi Islam pp. 1213-24). Islamic fundamentalism favours a literal and originalist interpretation of the primary sources (sacred texts) of Islam which are found in the Quran and less known Sunnah which they seek to eliminate corrupting non-Islamic influences from every part of their lives. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism has been famous since the late 20th century. After the Iranian revolution took place in 1978-79 which overthrew the dictator, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, it established an Islamic republic. Throughout the years, many have perceived Islam as Islamic fundamentalism as one entity. However, not all Muslims believe in the entirety of the Quran where it is said that they must follow the word of God and believe they must require strict conformity to all moral/religious precepts in the Quran. One key factor to note is that many of the Muslim community are not ideologically committed to ideas that Islamic fundamentalists preach such as the idea of a state and society based on Islamic religious law. Islamic fundamentalists are waged in a war which they call the ‘holy war’ or ‘Jihad’ against the West or as they call ‘evil enemies’. It can be argued that the hostility to the West from Islamic fundamentalists come from the threat of modernity and the political and economic domination of the Middle East. It can be argued that many conflicts that have occurred in the Middle East have been due to the involvement of the West and their