ABSTRACT
Contemporaneous fundamentalism makes a new link, but for other purposes, between sectarianism and combat, or practical ethics and violence. The New Fundamentalism closes a cycle, passing from classic jihad, shared by conservative governments and popular feeling, and from modern terrorist actions against a Pharaonic tyrant, to becoming terrorism against Westerners. In maintaining excellent relations with Pakistani and Saudi officials, the new fundamentalism, contrary to the radical Islam of the past, is not breaking up with society and has no obsessive fear of the secret services. Islamic terrorism could be a temporary phenomenon reinforcing the search for moderation and balance in the long run. The remedy was to go back to the origins of Islam, but purged from traditionalistic interpretations, Sufism, popular ritualism or kismet. The plethora of literature about radical Islam can be located in the “postulate of failure”: failure of modernisation, secular legitimisation, liberalisation and democratisation.
