Armed Violence in Contemporary Islamic Fundamentalist Ideology: A Study of Models.

Abstract

Armed violence is considered one of the most important means to achieve the goals and aspirations of many Islamic movements characterized by extremism. These movements have legitimized and built ethical justifications for violent practices, and developed ideological justifications to justify their use, whether domestically against governments or against those who are perceived as religious, intellectual, or sectarian "others", or externally against countries that are referred to as "infidels", especially the United States.

The importance of this study lies in its close connection to consolidating civil peace, political stability, and prosperity. The study aims to build theoretical frameworks for concepts, identify the ideological, social/political characteristics of religious fundamentalism, and analyze the organizational and ideological structures of contemporary models of armed Islamic fundamentalism. The study's hypotheses are summarized as follows: all religious fundamentalist movements exhibit high levels of rejection of modernity, secularization, and secular values, and violence is a common phenomenon in all forms of religious/fundamentalist revival.