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Perhaps we could call them "Talibans" and "Wahabists" and such.

For a somewhat broader term, we could could call them fundagelicals or "Islamic fundagelicals" when we need to distinguish them from the vanilla version.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Aug 12th, 2008 at 11:57:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Calling things by their names; usually a powerful move. I agree entirely!

Somewhere, I read an article to the effect that the term "fundamentalist" was not applicable to Islam because the history of disputatious biblical exegesis to which it refers does not exist in Islam. I have no idea if that claim makes sense.

by PIGL (stevec@boreal.gmail@com) on Wed Aug 13th, 2008 at 10:06:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
While technically speaking that's probably correct, most of the Christian factions being called "fundamentalists" are not fundamentalist in the technical sense of the term. "Fundamentalism" refers to a specific historical sect/movement within US protestantism, centred around the periodical Fundamentals. I'm a bit hazy on the details of their particular version of theology, but I'm pretty sure that Catholics, for instance, can't be "fundamentalists" in the historical sense of the term.

However, like "evangelical" - and to an even greater extent - it has in common parlance become a catch-all derogatory term for religious wingnuts. And I don't think it's worth the bother to try to salvage the original meaning of the word (at least not outside scholarly discourse).

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 01:52:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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