Revisiting Fanaticism in the Context of Wasaṭīyyah

Fanaticism is derived from the Latin word fanum, which refers to sacred placesof worship such as temples or other consecrated sites. The complete term fanaticusmeans “to be put into raging enthusiasm by a deity.”2 In the modernsense, a fanatic is simply an individual who goes to an extreme, is overly zealousor unreasonably enthusiastic regarding an issue, idea, opinion, or action.These ideations do not have to be of a strictly religious nature, but may alsobe in regard to a personal or private matter or a larger political, social, or economicissue. Despite the broadness of its contemporary application, it is mostcommonly used in its traditional sense of religious zealousness, intolerance,and violence.In today’s literature fanaticism stands not for the content of any particularreligious position, but for a mentality and attitude that can attach an attitudeof radicalism, rigor, and extremism to the content of any ideal or ideology.According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it refers to a person “holding extremebeliefs that may lead to unreasonable (actions) or violent behavior.”3 One featureof this mentality is the “religious assurance of the establishment of beliefthrough dogmatic and moral legalism, often founded on a fundamentalist positivismin matters touching revelation.”4“Fundamentalism” (uṣūlīyah), on the other hand, is originally a Protestantterm developed in the early part of the twentieth century to refer to Christiangroups that believed in the Bible’s inerrancy, as opposed to those who soughtto make scriptural changes to accommodate the modern world.5 It is somewhatredundant in the Islamic context; however, some scholars have been trying tounderstand the connection between Islam and fundamentalism.6 Theoretically,the great majority of practicing Muslims are “fundamentalists” because theybelieve that the Qur’an remains unchanged from its initial revelation. Therefore,the following analysis will mainly focus on the concepts of fanaticismand wasaṭīyah from a comparative perspective that emphasizes their recentdevelopments and connections to Islam ...