Introduction

Abstract

‘Another book on Islamic fundamentalism?’. I can hear the question echoing among friends, colleagues and readers. Since 2001, more than 100 books and 5,600 articles have been published on Islamic fundamentalism. Broadening the research to agnate labels — such as Islamism (about 200 books and 243 articles), political Islam (345 books and 4,670 articles) and Islamic extremism (only 16 books and 1610 articles)¹ — we can appreciate the amount of scholarly publication pressed into the past seven years. The reasons behind such abundance are multiple. Surely, after September 11 the demand for books and academic articles on religious fundamentalism increased, reinforcing a pre-existing market focused on the Middle East. Two military campaigns (in Afghanistan and Iraq) under the banner of ‘the war on terror’, as well as terrorist attacks in different parts of Europe and in non-Western countries such as Bali and Saudi Arabia, have further increased the number of publications, both academic and popular, to an unprecedented level. Said (1978, 1981) and Said and Viswanathan (2001) may have even suggested that Western writers and publishers exploited the morbid Western orientalistic curiosity about the violent Oriental man combining the divine with the political, and the political with holy violence.