Islamic Fundamentalism: An Interpretation Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
... Fundamentalism: An Interpretation Although Islamic fundamentalist movements have attracted much attention since the success of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 —and, increasingly, since the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed—they are not new nor have they ever been prevalent among Islamic societies. When they do emerge, these movements are more symptomatic of profound societal crises than a direct outcome of Islamic political and legal thought as such, or a common feature of all Islamic...
Hanafi, Hasan (1935) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...the East. At the beginning of the 1980s, Hanafi accused the West of lacking understanding of Islam. Furthermore, he charged the West with a conspiracy to destroy Islamic identity in Algeria and Iran. This, in turn, he argued, generated a contra reaction that was manifested in conservatism and fundamentalism within Islam. The crux of Islamic fundamentalism was indiscriminant rejection of anything identifiable with Western culture. It represented a retraction from Islamic reformism, which accepted positive aspects in Western culture, such as science, progress,...
Rashid, Rida, Muhammad (1865) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...origins of modern Islamic “fundamentalism.” It became enmeshed, from the 1920 s onward, with the older Arabian puritanical tradition of Wahhabism, promoted by the emerging Saudi state. Rashid Rida, like most Egyptians, had been opposed to this, but he later changed his position to one of support for it. He published a series of pro-Wahhabi articles in both al-Mannr and the mainstream Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram ; they later appeared in book form. One of the causes espoused by Rashid Rida, as part of his Salafi ideals, was Pan-Islamism, which in his view...
Meddeb, Abdelwahab (1946) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...primary host of Cultures d’islam (Cultures of Islam), a weekly radio program devoted to questions of Islam and broadcast on the France Culture station. His work as a translator, particularly of Sufi thinkers such as Bistami and Sohrawardi, has made the works of important Arab-language thinkers accessible to a broad Francophone readership. Inspired in part by the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 , Meddeb’s book-length essay La maladie de l’islam (English trans., The Malady of Islam , 2002 ) suggests that fundamentalism and its attendant violence...
ʿAbduh, Muhammad (1849) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...political and spiritual encroachment by Christian Europe; and he sought to free Islam from the debilitating accretion of corrupt and obscurantist practices, which rendered it vulnerable. This tendency was developed, particularly by Rashid Rida, into a movement known as the Salafiya, which aimed to revitalize Islam by reclaiming the purity of its original doctrines and sources of authority and strict adherence to them. Some see in this the origins of modern Islamic “fundamentalism.” On the other hand, ʿAbduh was also a rationalist who welcomed modern philosophy...
Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid (1943) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...the descent of the Qurʾan. Abu Zayd pursued his project in Islamic discourse critique by working in two directions. First, he developed methodologies for analyzing texts and talk; his coedited book The Systems of Signs ( Ilm al-ʾAlamat , 1986) is considered one of his most prominent contributions to this field. Second, he studied critically contemporary Islamic discourses such as salafism, fundamentalism, political Islamic groups, and what Abu Zayd termed the “Islamic left.” Critique of Islamic Discourse ( Naqd al-Khitab al-Dini ) is considered one of his...
Fuda, Faraj ʿAli (1945) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...challenge of Islamic fundamentalism and how best to overcome it. In Qabla al-suqut, he distinguishes between three Islamic streams: “the traditional stream” presented by the Muslim Brotherhood, who believe in political action within the existing order; the “revolutionary stream,” which accuses modern society of apostasy and approves violence as the only means to seize power; and the “wealthy stream,” which is directed by rich people who control financial institutions, publishing houses, and newspapers, and seek to establish a Saudi-style Islamic regime. He...
Kishk, ʿAbd al-Hamid (1933) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...at the Sharabiyya district mosque in Cairo and was already considered a good preacher with great proficiency in the Quʾan. Kishk was arrested in August 1965 after Sayyid Qutb’s book Signposts was found during a search at his home. Qutb, a prominent ideologist of Islamic fundamentalism, was accused of conspiracy against Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasser, the Egyptian president, and executed a year later. Although Kishk was released after a short investigation, he was imprisoned again in April 1966 . As he states, the charge against him was his refusal of Nasser...
Chraı¨bi, Driss (1926) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...destroy. Chraïbi’s later work reads as a foil to his first novel, which had scoffed at Islamic traditions but, like his first novel, these new novels seem to suggest that the vitality of Maghrebian Africa lies in its assimilation to the conquering cultures. His L’homme du livre (The Man of the Book, 1995 ) is fictional biography in which Chraïbi uses the life of Prophet Muhammad to distinguish between Islam (especially the mystical Sufi faith) and Islamic fundamentalism. His autobiography Vu, lu, entendu (Seen, Read, Heard) was published in 1998 and...
Salih, al-Tayyib (1929) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...murder-suicide shocks and enrages the villagers and unveils the violence of traditional patriarchy, linking it in kind to sexualized colonial violence. The crisis of Arab consciousness, ideology, and leadership in the late 1960s and 1970s, which led to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, is the subtext in Salih’s third novel, Bandarshah , which centers on the relationship between past, present, and future, or, in the mythical-allegorical scheme of the novel, grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons. This problematic relationship is depicted as a vicious...
Nsoumer, Fatma (1830) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...Nfatma Nsoumer ” (meaning “Daughters of Fatma Nsoumer”) both as a way to remember Nsoumer’s martyrdom, and as an example of a steadfast and fearless woman to be emulated by today’s Algerian women in their struggle against Islamic fundamentalism and all forms of patriarchy. In 1995 , while Algeria was in the midst of a civil war with Islamic terrorists, Nsoumer’s remains were secretly transferred by the authorities to the martyrs’ cemetery of El Alia in Algiers, to lie close to other nationalist heroes at a time when Algerian women were battling the Algerian...
Folly, Anne Laure (1954) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...( 1992 ), tackles the subject of Togolese voodoo, using interviews to elucidate its practices and tenets. In 1993 Folly shot two films, L’o r du Liptako and Femmes du Niger entre l’intégrisme et démocratie . In the latter, Folly showcases the tension in Niger between Islamic fundamentalism and democracy. Using interviews extensively, Folly shows how Nigerien women can vote, but only through the proxy of their husbands or fathers. Yet these women have become the strongest advocates for democracy, despite risking physical attack and excommunication if they...
Waberi, Abdourahman (1965) Reference library
Dictionary of African Biography
...and kinds of prose: spy novel, diary, travel notebook, legends, parables, incantations and prayers. Djibril’s reminiscences give us a sense of Djibouti’s past and people; his present observations implicitly criticize its wretched state in the present, while a satire of Muslim fundamentalism is unwittingly delivered through the other Djiboutian voice. Waberi’s parody gives us a lesson in tolerance, while his often poetic evocation of the region conveys his love for it and at the same time delivers a warning. Abdourahman A. Waberi is one of the leading Francophone...
Religion. Reference library
Mark A. Noll
The Oxford Companion to United States History
...Morality and Sex Reform ; Slavery: Slave Families, Communities, and Culture ; Temperance and Prohibition ; Voluntarism ; Woman Suffrage Movement ; Women's Rights Movements . Sydney A. Ahlstrom , A Religious History of the American People , 1972. George M. Marsden , Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1870–1925 , 1980. Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams , eds., Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience: Studies of Traditions and Movements , 3 vols., 1988. Daniel G. Reid et al. , eds., Dictionary of Christianity in America , 1990....
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (b. 15 January 1929) Reference library
Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present
...experiences with racial integration even included a romantic relationship with a young woman who was white—inconceivable in the Jim Crow South—and his election as president of the college's interracial student body. Exposure to liberal Protestant theology led him to reject fundamentalism, but at the same time the “realist” teachings of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr alerted him to the omnipresence of sin and evil. The personalist approach dominating at Crozer reinforced King's belief that, by searching for God's love and serving the community, individuals...
Islam in Africa Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
... in Africa Expression of Islam in Africa, and the role of Africans in the spread and practice of the religion. For information on African Islamic political leaders: See Abd al-Qadir ; Bello , Ahmadu ; Idris I. African Islamic scholars: See Abd Allah ibn Yasin ; Ahmad Baba . Beliefs and traditions of Islam: See Islam and Tradition: An Interpretation . Specific aspects of Islam: See Feminism in Islamic Africa ; Islamic Fundamentalism: An Interpretation ; Islamic Salvation Front ; Marabout...
Islamic Salvation Front Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
...youth. The FIS employed “Islamic police” to ensure that people followed Islamic codes of behavior. The anti-Western sentiments of the FIS extended to members of the international press corps, and the group was suspected of sponsoring the murders of foreign journalists. Women activists and intellectuals who spoke out against the establishment of a conservative Islamic state also risked reprisal from the powerful group. Actions attributed to the organization have been difficult to verify. The movement, dubbed “Islamic fundamentalism” in the West, extends beyond...
Political Movements in Africa Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
...on Movements in Africa: See African National Congress ; Antiapartheid Movement ; Black Consciousness in Africa ; Decolonization in Africa: An Interpretation ; Environmental Movements in Africa ; Feminism in Africa: An Interpretation ; Feminism in Islamic Africa ; Islamic Fundamentalism: An Interpretation ; Mau Mau rebellion ; Polisario Front ; Rassemblement Démocratique Africain . Organizations involved in political movements: See Front for the Liberation of Mozambique ; Holy Spirit Movement ; Inkatha Freedom Party ; Pan-Africanist...
Khaled Hadj Brahim Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
...war-ravaged population was under twenty-five, and the fame of Khaled, “the King of Rai,” spread with it. Khaled’s music was censored in Algeria until 1983 , when the government relaxed controls on popular culture in an effort to undermine growing support for Islamic fundamentalism. Conservative Islamic leaders saw Khaled’s music as corrupting and declared a fatwa, or religious decree, pronouncing a death sentence against him. In 1990 he bargained the profits for his record Kutche for a visa, and fled to France. Since his move to Europe, Khaled has once...
Benjedid, Chadli (1929–) Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
...Benjedid was reelected president in 1989 , the Islamic Salvation Front won municipal elections in 1990 . In 1991 Benjedid resigned as the head of the FLN as support for the FIS grew. Shortly thereafter, he was deposed by a coup and placed under house arrest. More than a decade of violent unrest would follow, mostly involving Islamic groups in opposition to government forces. Some 150,000 people were killed before the fighting largely came to an end in 2002 . See also Islamic Fundamentalism: An Interpretation . Marian...
