10 and ½ COMMON MYTHS ABOUT MUSLIMS (in no particular order): Re: Why is a Muslim Scary?

» Pinky102 - Re: Why is a Muslim Scary?

In response to Why is a Muslim Scary? posted by Binte:

"If you do post your understanding of the word, I'd appreciate an additional, more particular, definition of the kind of Muslim you would consider a 'fundamentalist'."

Here's a quote from the Karen Armstrong book, The Battle For God:

"Fundamentalism--whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim--rearely arises as a battle with an external enemy...it usually begins, instead, as an internal struggle in which traditionalists fight their own coreligionists who, they believe, are making too many7 concessions to the secular world. The fundamentalist will often instinctively respond to encroaching modernity by creating an enclave of pure faith, such as a yeshiva. This marks a withdrqawal from the Godless world into a self-contained community where the faithful attempt to reshape existence in defiance of the changes without. It is thus essentially a defensive move." (page 110)

In her introduction, she writes, "

"One of the most startling developments of the late twentieth century has been the emergence within every major religious tradition of a militant piety popularly known as 'fundamentalism.'"

Armstrong is well known and highly respected for her great knowledge of Islam and Judaism and was a Roman Catholic nun highly educated in her field.
Some of her other books are:Through the Narrow Gate, Beginning the World, The First Christian:St. Paul's Impact on Christianity, Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience, The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West, Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World, The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet and a half dozen or so more similar books.

-- posted by Pinky102