Campusalam

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The term ‘fundamentalist’ arose originally with reference to a tendency within American Christianity. Its first usage was intended as a compliment. In contrast to the emerging use of ‘historical criticism’ to examine the Bible, it was invented to describe those who insisted on the ‘fundamentals’ of the faith. Its original reference would be to those who affirmed the Bible as the Word of God and were inclined to understand it literally. Nowadays, in contrast to its origin, it is almost always a negative term and rarely used as a compliment.

Different commentators give different lists of the characteristics of ‘fundamentalism’, so it is not a concrete and stable concept. Some of the suggested 'fundamentalist' traits are religious, some psychological, some sociological, some political: belief in a sacred Scripture that must be taken literally, believing in strong and autoctratic leadership, beliefs in dramatic ‘end times’, political conservatism or right-wing political views, reactions against modernity, social and morally conservative opinions, and so on. To make matters worse, the various criteria given for religious ‘fundamentalism’ overlap with many other traits or concepts such as the psychological concepts of 'authoritarianism' or 'dogmatism'. Even if many of these traits are often found together, it is clear that these are all different things and may exist for different reasons.

It is difficult to translate the original literalist sense of ‘fundamentalist’ to Muslims and still have a term that does the job it was intended to do for Christians. Almost all orthodox, believing Muslims believe that the Qur’an is truly, not figuratively, the Word of God. Not all however are literalists in their understanding of the Text. Moreover, literalism amongst Muslims does not entail that they show the sociological features that are also ascribed to ‘fundamentalists’ such as authoritarianism or right-wing political attitudes.

The word ‘fundamentalist’ is often best avoided for Islam and Muslims, and a more specific term used in its place: ‘literalist’ where a stance on the understanding of the Qur’an is concerned; ‘authoritarian’ if an attitude towards leadership is meant, and so on.