ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Islamic Fundamentalist Revolution and its causes, characteristics, and consequences. It explains how certain events such as the French invasion of Egypt in 1798 shocked Muslims by revealing that Christian countries had developed technology and weapons that rendered Islamic peoples virtually powerless to resist European imperialism. Some Islamic scholars concluded that Islam and Islamic societies had become corrupt and weak and that the only way to become strong again was to return to the pure form of Islam that had characterized the earliest years of the faith. The chapter describes how both Shia and Sunni Muslims developed forms of fundamentalism. The Shia Hezbollah and its actions are described as well as the creation and distinctive characteristics of four Sunni fundamentalist movements: Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS.
