Islam in the Contemporary World
181
Another type of “fundamentalism” of a somewhat different nature, which has come to the fore during the past two or three decades and especially since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, is more activist, revolutionary, and radical than the type associated with Jamā‘at-i islāmī or the Ikhwān almuslimīn movements. This type of revolutionary movement, with which the very notion of “fundamentalism” is mostly associated in the West today, is seen not only in Iran, where it came to power through the revolution guided by Ayatollah Khomeini, but also among various Islamic groups in Lebanon and among Palestinians, in certain radical circles in Egypt, in the Sudan, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and in small circles in many other Islamic countries. There are, however, major differences between such movements. For example, the Taliban were inspired by Wahhābism and therefore strongly opposed to Shī‘ism and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although firmly opposed to the West, most of this type of “fundamentalism” often incorporates certain theses of nineteenth-and twentieth-century European political thought, including the very notion of revolution. It politicizes Islam, not in the traditional sense, but in a way that is an innovation in Islamic history. Also, in contrast to the earlier forms of “fundamentalism,” which were opposed not only to the imitation of Western culture but also to blind acceptance of Western technology, this more revolutionary “fundamentalism” favors the wholesale adoption of Western science and technology and seeks to gain access to power by whatever means possible, including violence and in some cases even terrorism. Fed by resentment of the situation of Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, etc., as well as Western