Are you a Fundamentalist?
Guest Post: Fariha Akhtar
Few years back in one of the social sciences class, our instructor asked us “Are you Fundamentalists? Our instant reply was “No, Sirno way. Then he asked, “Do you believe that the Holy Quran is meant for all times and for all kinds of environments? This time our reply was “Yes, SirAlhamdulilah being Muslims we do believe in this fact. On that he showed us an excerpt from a book on sociology and it was as following:
In “Popular Conceptions of Fundamentalism, anthropologist Lionel Caplan (1987) offers his readers one of the clearest overviews of a complex religious phenomenon fundamentalism, a belief in the timeless nature of sacred writings and a belief that such writings apply to all kinds of environments
After reading this from a book which was quite an authentic one and knowing that our instructor always checks the veracity of all the information he shares with us, all we could do was to say “Yes when he asked his first question again.
Now, I would like to ask the same question from all the readers of this post, “Are you a Fundamentalist?”
I am sorry, no. That’s propaganda from those that would totemize their–usually revisionist, neo-conservative, if you will, not even traditional–interpretation of fundamentals of their faith and attempt to take over the whole community by making the case that since they *say* that they are following the *original* fundamentals, everyone should just accept their definition, and let them drive the community. Read the history of the movement from which the name comes, the Christian Fundamentalist Movement in 19th Century America, and you will see an eerie parallel to our “Fundmentalists”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist
It’s the same thing with the term “Islamist”. But I need to work on a post/article on that separately. Will refer to your post, there, too, if you don’t mind.
Definitely yes! Wonderful point, TM. With all the western propaganda, people are now somewhat ashamed of accepting that they are fundamentalists, or in some extremes even Muslims!
I say that you cannot be a Muslim without being a fundamentalist. There are three ‘fundamentals’ of Islam: 1. The belief in the unity of Allah, 2. The belief that Muhammad (S.A.W.W) was his last prophet; and 3. The belief that we will be resurrected to account for our actions.
You cannot be a Muslim if you do not belief in these three fundamentals. So yes, I am a fundamentalist!
Absar – just a little clarification – this post was written by Fariha who appears here as a guest blogger.
I think this debate needs to be highlighted properly as sadly Fundamentalism is now purely orchestrated as an Islamic Phenomenon
Ya, sure.
Oh, I didn’t notice that the first time :)
Anyway, it goes to say I agree with the point, no matter who said it :)
@Fariha
This Arab Celeric claims that he is a fundamentalist as well,
Tarnslation:
If the husband wants to use the beating to treat his wife, the he must never never do this in front of children. It must remain between him and her. It must be done according to the following conditions: He must not cause bleeding and bruise her body(Follow the link for full statement)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlR6yxFMUAk&mode=related&search=
Being a fundamentalist is a good thing but not extreemist. There is a big difference between two which was unfortunately removed by west and then west like desis among us.
The terms “Fundamentalist”,”Islamist”,”islamofacist”,”Radical Islamists”,”Mullahs”.
DP about “Islamist”:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3848
The word fundamentalist for selected Muslims has been wrongly used by writers especially of the Western nations. Muslims good or bad, practicing or not,who believe in the principles laid out in the Quran as guidance for mankind for all times have all been termed fundamentalists.
Basically all Muslims are fundamentalists and there is nothing wrong in believeing in the Quran and its ideology.
After the passing away of the messenger, some two hundred years later some historians wrote The Hadeeths. Soon many sects were born among the followers of the Quran. Many strictly followed the Hadeeths and its teachings as even superior to the Qurans. This was a conspiracy
to mislead the fundamental Muslims away from the Quran and split them into factions beacuse the Early Iranians and the Christian Monarchs found the Quran highly injurious to their power and rule by force. Many Muslims still believe in the Quran only messages. Due to the belief in the Hadeeths, clash of interests took place which continues to this day. Fundamental Muslims only believe in those Hadeeths that do not contradict the Quran in any way and reject all man made material written in the Hadeeths for fulfilling their own personal ends. The word funamental has been disguised to represent all Muslims who resort to violence. The is not true at all. Some will never call a spade, a spade.
To Saijad Ali.
If more people would take the time to speak of Islam in terms that can be easily understood such as you do in the above comment, then people in Western nations would be more likely to understand. I learned more from your paragraph than I have learned in many hours trying to figure this out.
Fundamentalist or no fundamentalist. Muslims have been tagged to this word whether we like it or not. We are being called fundamentalist in a derogatory term (some of us here agree that it is not). But to an extent I dont blame the west.What do you expect them to call us after what our media is projecting. and even if we forget about media for a while whatever has been happening in sawat and for that matter in entire country is by every means extremism.
Yes there is a particular group who is responsible for all the chaos. but when it comes to the tagging part, the entire nations gets tagged!