This research paper discusses the relationship among modern Islamic militancy, or fundamentalist movements, traditional Islamic thought and practice and the preservation of basic human rights in Islamic nations. In the second half of the 20th century, and particularly since the 1970s, a broad revival of Islamic traditions, which encompasses many disparate groups, has gathered momentum in the Middle East, North Africa and other Muslim lands, overthrowing some Muslim governments and threatening many others. Its more radical elements have advocated and engaged in practices such as airplane hijackings, car bombings, kidnapping and torture of hostages, political assassinations and other forms of terrorism.
In the Muslim nations in which they have come to power, Iran and the Sudan, ethnic and religious minorities have been persecuted, religious orthodoxy has been imposed, primitive forms of punishment such as stoning, flogging and amputation have been restored and women have been relegated to the human and the veil. Such groups have generally opposed, often violently, largely secularized regimes in the Arab and Muslim world. The thesis of this paper is that Islamic fundamentalism has deep roots in Islamic culture, religion and traditions. It, however, represents only one of many important strains in Islam, and in its most extreme manifestations, represents a serious threat to the best of those traditions and to basic concepts of human rights.
Islam is the religion preached by the Prophet Muhammad (571-632 A.D.) and established in the Arabian towns of Mecca and Medina in the 620s. It is one of the three great monotheistic religions which originated in the Near East in ancient times, the others being Judaism and Christianity. Islamic religion and culture were spread throughout a large part of the world by the Arab conquests carried out by Muhammad's successors, especially during the Caliphates of the Umayyads (660-749) and the Abbasi...