Islamic Fundamentalism
We are all looking for a way to define ourselves; a way to understand whom it is that we are in the world. Often, we try to create identities for ourselves by looking at the ways in which we are different from other people. This by itself is not necessarily bad, for it is true that all people are in some ways unique and there is nothing inherently wrong in feeling that way if unique. However, the unfortunate side of such a tendency is that humans tend to define themselves not only as different from their neighbors but as better than them, which leads to much of the violence and grief that exists in the world. This paper examines the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran; comparing the effects that fundamentalism has had on these two countries. It tries to justify whether or not the resurgence of Islam has benefited or hindered these countries when it comes to religion in politics and if Islamic fundamentalism is the answer for these countries. All over the Middle East there are fundamentalist groups who are fighting for the return of the "traditional" Islamic religion, untainted by Western ideologies and modernization.Islamic fundamentalism can be seen as a threat by the Western societies, because they
Black Friday was the Turing point in the revolution, people of all ranks engaged in the opposition and in political action. Many of the ulama supported the Shah at first thinking he was protecting Iran from communism. We have seen how it has stemmed from Egypt and spread all through out the Middle East. He implemented many of these ideologies into the Egyptian society and did not want the fundamentalist groups to get in his way. The most active and successful fundamentalist group was the Muslim Brotherhood lead by Hasan al-Banna and formed in 1928 in Egypt. Khomeini said: "The government has sold our independence, reduced us to a level of a colony, and made Muslim nation of Iran seem more backward than savages in the eyes of the world. " It was these fundamentalist groups in Egypt who spread the rise of Islam all over the Middle East, encouraging all Muslims to fight for the resurgence of Islam. The religious class leaned more and more towards a more natural alliance with the traditional class and values. Sadat was neither charismatic nor a popular leader and lacked political legitimacy. They started to see how he just used the return to Islam as a ploy to get political legitimacy. His writings and pamphlets were smuggled into Iran and distributed throughout mosques in Iran. The government chose a pre-Islamic name Pahlavi and adopted Western based legal and educational reforms. It played and important role in Egyptian politics and in brining about the importance of Islam to the Muslims.
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