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Parallels in Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Fundamentalism
Peter A. Huff
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Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jeruslaem's Old
City. (Debbie Hill / UPI)
UNDERSTANDING FUNDAMENTALISM: CHRISTIAN, ISLAMIC, AND JEWISH MOVEMENTS
By Richard T. Antoun
Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2001
181 pages, paper, $19.95
Anthropologist Richard Antoun, a specialist in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, began his career in 1959 with ethnographic field work in rural Jordan. Intermittently, for almost the next two decades, he lived in a small Sunni Muslim village, studying the Qur'an with the local self-educated preacher. Though an American of Christian background, he experienced few negative challenges to his comfortable status as resident alien. In the 1980s, however, his presence became increasingly problematic as the climate of the cultural environment dramatically changed. Dialogue turned argumentative, and outspoken villagers, especially young men, attempted to convert him to Islam. From Antoun's perspective, he was witnessing the birth of a local strain of fundamentalism.
This book issues from Antoun's firsthand observation of cultural change and religious reaction. A superb addition to the growing interdisciplinary canon of fundamentalism studies, the work argues for the crosscultural application of the category and the transnational scope of the phenomenon. According to Antoun, fundamentalists in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, despite their doctrinal and practical differences, are united by a common worldview which anchors all of life in the authority of the sacred and a shared ethos that expresses itself through outrage at the pace and extent of modern secularization.
The book's main chapters address five comparative themes illuminating fundamentalist identity and ambition: the strategic use of sacred texts to support ideological certainty and religious nationalism; the creative exploitation of tradition to enhance continuity between past and present; the endorsement of separatist schemes to protect psychological and cultural purity; the development of confrontational tactics to resacralize public life; and the attempt to co-opt modernity through programs of controlled acculturation. The final chapter offers a case study of grassroots Islamic fundamentalism drawing from the author's field study in Jordan. In all chapters examples range from Israel and Iran to South Africa and the U.S.
Throughout the book, Antoun assiduously avoids misleading cliches regarding literalism and extremism as well as value judgments based on political or theological commitments. His nuanced treatment of fundamentalism as "a cognitive and affective orientation to the modern world" (153) portrays fundamentalists as they might understand themselves and communicates to outsiders a degree of plausibility in the movements perhaps previously thought unimaginable. His sensitive approach to critiques of modernity, unfortunately, tends to blur the boundaries between secular indictments of modernity's dehumanizing trends and fundamentalist opposition to the mental and social worlds spawned by the Enlightenment. Not every antimodernist is a fundamentalist. His selective focus on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim fundamentalisms, while informative, only fuels debate regarding the universality of the concept of fundamentalism as an ideal type.
Anyone seeking to understand the global phenomenon of fundamentalism will profit from this well-written book. Specialists in the field will appreciate its empathetic tone and its judicious use of sources. Its straightforward prose, manageable size, and helpful glossary and bibliography make it ideal for the general educated reader and the advanced undergraduate student.
© 2004 International Journal on World Peace
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Thousands of evangelical Christians hold a rally for prayer
and peace near the Knesset in Jerusalem. (Debbie Hill / UPI)
Peter A. Huff is T.L. James Associate Professor and chairman
of the Department of Religious Studies at Centenary College of
Louisiana in Shreveport, Louisiana.
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