I suppose I should point out that before the 19th Century, Islam was not a radicalized religion -- at least no more so than Christianity. It had its expansionist periods, it had its equivalents to the Crusades, but it also was the shining light of scholarship preserved during a period when in Europe knowledge was lost, learning suppressed and education at least partially demonized. It really was the "Religion of Peace", inasfar as any religion can manage it -- certainly it had at least as good a claim to the name as Christianity did.
It was only in the middle of the 19th Century that what we now consider Islamic fundamentalism and extremism first emerged. (By a very curious coincidence -- and if I were any kind of student of anthropology or sociology I'd want to investigate this -- at about the same time Christian fundamentalism, particularly of the apocalyptic eschatological flavor which informs modern Conservative Christianity, was born in the United States. I'd be very curious to find out if there were similar social or political influences that drove the birth of both movements.)
In any case, I wanted to note that Islamic Fundamentalism is not so much a religious movement as a political movement taking advantage of religion for its own benefit -- like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell with Christianity in the United States. As is frequently the case, it isn't the religion we need to worry about -- it's what cynical leaders who cloak themselves in that religion can do with the true believers that follow them.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
It was only in the middle of the 19th Century that what we now consider Islamic fundamentalism and extremism first emerged. (By a very curious coincidence -- and if I were any kind of student of anthropology or sociology I'd want to investigate this -- at about the same time Christian fundamentalism, particularly of the apocalyptic eschatological flavor which informs modern Conservative Christianity, was born in the United States. I'd be very curious to find out if there were similar social or political influences that drove the birth of both movements.)
In any case, I wanted to note that Islamic Fundamentalism is not so much a religious movement as a political movement taking advantage of religion for its own benefit -- like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell with Christianity in the United States. As is frequently the case, it isn't the religion we need to worry about -- it's what cynical leaders who cloak themselves in that religion can do with the true believers that follow them.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.