Fundamentalism
Few years back in one of the social sciences class, our instructor asked us “Are you Fundamentalists?” Our instant reply was “No, Sir…no way”. Then he asked, “Do you believe that the Holy Quran is meant for all times and for all kinds of environments?” This time our instant reply was “Yes, Sir…Alhamdulilah being Muslims we do believe in this fact.” On that he showed us an excerpt from a book on sociology and the excerpt was as following:
In “Popular Conceptions of Fundamentalism”, anthropologist Lionel Caplan (1987) offers his readers one of the clearest overviews of a complex religious phenomenon – fundamentalism, a belief in the timeless nature of sacred writings and a belief that such writings apply to all kinds of environments”
After reading this from a book which was quite an authentic one and knowing that our instructor always checks the veracity of all the information he shares with us, all we could do was to say “Yes” when he asked his first question again.
Btw.. I would also like to ask the same question from all the readers of this post “ Are you a fundamentalist?” 
As I was saying on Teeth Maestro’s blog:
I am sorry, no. That’s propaganda from those that would totemize their–usually revisionist, neo-conservative, if you will, not even traditional–interpretation of fundamentals of their faith and attempt to take over the whole community by making the case that since they *say* that they are following the *original* fundamentals, everyone should just accept their definition, and let them drive the community. Read the history of the movement from which the name comes, the Christian Fundamentalist Movement in 19th Century America, and you will see an eerie parallel to our “Fundmentalists”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist
It’s the same thing with the term “Islamist”. But I need to work on a post/article on that separately. Will refer to your post, there, too, if you don’t mind.
Comment by iFaqeer — February 28, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
@ifaqeer
U can definitely refer to my post..i don’t mind!
Comment by Fariha — February 28, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
I am not a fundamentalist according to the definition given by your teacher
Comment by babar — April 18, 2007 @ 11:21 am
@Babar
Ok…..if u have ne conflicts with the ideas presented in this post then i wud request u to elaborate as i may get a chance to learn sumthing new!
Comment by Fariha Akhtar — April 19, 2007 @ 1:39 am
I am a fundamentalist and an extremist.
And no I have never shot a gun all my life
Comment by Muneeb — June 10, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
@Muneeb
Welcome to my blog
Nice to meet yet another fundamentalist 
Comment by Administrator — June 10, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
I am a fundamentalist. I ve fired guns many many times. I ve (possibly) killed a couple of men too…
Now why do people have a problem with being a fundamentalist while they dont mind being liberals or liberal-extremists ??
Comment by Cavaliere — February 6, 2009 @ 4:04 pm