Full Description
In Religious Fundamentalism in the Middle East, Moaddel and Karabenick analyze fundamentalist beliefs and attitudes across nations (Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia), faith (Christianity and Islam), and ethnicity (Azari-Turks, Kurds, and Persians among Iranians), using comparative survey data. For them, fundamentalism is not just a set of religious beliefs. It is rather a set of beliefs about and attitudes toward whatever religious beliefs one has. In this analysis, the authors show that fundamentalist beliefs and attitudes vary across national contexts and individual characteristics, and predict people's orientation toward the same set of historical issues that were the concerns of fundamentalist intellectual leaders and activists. The authors' analysis reveals a "cycle of spirituality" that reinforces the critical importance of taking historical and cultural contexts into consideration to understand the role of religious fundamentalism in contemporary Middle Eastern societies.
Contents
Series Editor's Foreword
Preface
Introduction: Theoretical Issues in the Study of Religious Fundamentalism
1. Cycles of Spirituality and Discursive Space: Religious Fundamentalism in Historical Perspective
2. State Structure, Religion, Sect, and Ethnicity
3. Methodology and Macro Comparisons
4. Religious Fundamentalism among Youth in Egypt and Saudi Arabia: Epistemic Authority and Other Correlates
5. Religious Fundamentalism in Iran and Lebanon
6. Fundamentalism as Discourse versus Beliefs about and Attitudes toward Religion
Conclusions: Approaches to Fundamentalism and the Cycle of Spirituality
References
Appendix A: Egypt and Saudi Arabia Surveys
Appendix B: Iran Survey
Appendix C : Lebanon Survey
Index
