Religious Fundamentalism among Young Muslims in Egypt and Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Religious fundamentalism is conceived as a distinctive set of beliefs and attitudes toward one's religion, including obedience to religious norms, belief in the universality and immutability of its principles, the validity of its claims, and its indispensability for human happiness. Surveys of Egyptian and Saudi youth, ages 18-25, reveal that respondents with higher levels of fundamentalism are more likely to rely on religious authorities as the source of knowledge about the sociopolitical role of Islam, support religious law, be fatalistic, and feel insecure. They are also less likely to watch TV. Saudi females are more fundamentalist than males, but in Egypt, the opposite held true. Country-specific effects are present, and there are implications for future research.Late adolescence and young adulthood is considered the period of highest susceptibility to the social and political forces individuals encounter (). Accordingly, understanding the factors that shape the attitudes and value orientations during these formative years provides insights into critical processes such as the rise of religious fundamentalism. This is especially important for Middle Eastern youth in countries currently undergoing severe social and political stress, where religion plays a dominant role.

How the Non-Religious View the Personality of God in Relation to Themselves

“…This measure has been appropriated to measure fusion, which is a psychological state where there is a porous boundary between oneself and their social group [48] or other belief that represents the group [53], [54], [84]. Fusion has recently been shown to be related to many aspects of religious devotion including self-sacrifice [91], [92] ritual and cooperation [100] and has been related to extremism and fundamentalism [54], [84], [99], [61], [82]. As predicted, Hodges et al found that both the overlap of traits and the result in the inclusion of self in God scale was related to the awareness of God.…”

Changing Gender Norms in Islam Between Reason and Revelation

“…Islamic fundamentalism is defined as a movement aimed at 'establishing an Islamic sociopolitical order' through fulfillment of the Islamic law; therefore the unity of religion and politics in Islamic government is defended (Moaddel 2008(Moaddel : 1676. Similar to other religious fundamental ists, Islamic fundamentalists believe that "the focus of moral authority is God and that legal codes should reflect absolute and timeless divine law" (ibid.…”

Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim‐Majority Countries: Reconceptualization and Assessment

“…While fundamentalism is traced to some Christian churches in 20th‐century United States (Marsden ; Smith ; Wills ) and leads some to argue against its usage in Islam (Esposito ), others have argued that the construct is still preferable over the alternatives to identify similar types of movements in Judaism, Islam, and other religious traditions (Marty and Appleby ; Moaddel and Karabenick ). We propose a conceptualization and operational definition of fundamentalism that is multidimensional and thus goes beyond the existing approaches in Christianity (Altemeyer ; Altemeyer and Hunsberger ) and Islam (Moaddel and Karabenick , ) and is generalizable to the Abrahamic faiths.…”

“…To overcome these limitations, we propose that fundamentalists, despite their diversity and often irreconcilable differences—such as those found between Christian and Muslim or Shia and Sunni variants—share core orientations toward their own and other's religions (Altemeyer ; Altemeyer and Hunsberger ; Moaddel and Karabenick , ; Schwartz and Lindley ; Summers ). We conceptualize these core orientations as a distinctive set of beliefs and attitudes that rests on a disciplinarian conception of the deity, a literal reading of the scriptures, religious exclusivity, and intolerance.…”