A lot has been said, especially through media channels, about Islamic fundamentalism over the past years, culminating with the tragic 9/11 events. At that point in time, Islamic fundamentalism and its apparent consequential branch, terrorism, were the primary causes invoked for the occurrence of the tragedy. My paper will try to cast an objective light upon this established global phenomenon, in order to better understand where it comes from and where it is heading; I will also take into consideration the actors that have taken the neccesary measures for preventing or stopping the negative effects of such a trend; in the end, I will state my opinion regarding these decisions and try to ofer better solutions.

First of all, what does the word fundamentalism mean? According to Col. B.S.Burmeister , fundamentalism, taken in its conceptual framework, is a term which was originally used to describe Christian doctrines (!) that were based on a literal interpretation of the Bible- usually, these developped into 19th c. movements that were against modern scientific theories or philosophies. Nevertheless, in spite of its origin, the term changed its meaning in such a m

But where do all these extremist measures come from? On what are they based? According to Burmeister , the main reason for the spread of terrorism is the concept of the niy’yah (motive). The mullahs (religious jurists) have established that any purely motivated action (spreading of fundamentalist views) is accepted by Allah; in other words, “the end justifies the means”. One of the strategies used by Khomeini was inoculating the belief that anyone who is not a fundamentalist is an ennmy of Allah. This two-edged view of believers and non-believers in Allah (“the City of Faith” and “the City of War”, alegoric names for the Muslim countries and Western countries respectively) crystallized itself into the idea that the only solution of bringing infidels to the true faith is by starting the Jihad (Holy War) and that all who participate in it are heroes of the faith and will gain access to Paradise. What we should understand from this is that fundamentalism is not a dangerous phenomenon in itself but its belief system has a great potential for extremism and extremism is the starting point of terrorism and terror, proclaimed by the extremist fundamentalists as legitimate methods of promoting their ends. Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas in Palestine, Al Jihad in Egypt, and others have flourished in almost all Muslim countries and fight for achieving the “true Islamic State”.

• United Nations Association of the USA and The Business Council for the United Nations, “The Role of the United Nations in Combating Terrorism”, http://www.unausa.org/newindex.asp?place=http://www.unausa.org/bcun, click Fact Sheets (“Information” category), accessed January 10, 2003

What are Islamic fundamentalists fighting for? First of all, if not bizzare then at least an interesting

Some topics in this essay:
United Nations, Financing Terrorism, East” Muslims, Security Council, American Western, Founded Osama, Kibble Muslims, GLOBAL THREAT, Entreprise Institute, West” Sudan, united nations, accessed january, 2003 •, islamic fundamentalism, january 10 2003, 10 2003 •, january 10, accessed january 10, 10 2003, september 11, islamic fundamentalist, security council, council united nations, council united, january 8 2003,