Modern people have to some extent marginalized God and have equally experienced a void in the center of their culture. What Nietzsche called the death of God and what Sartre called a God-shaped hole. Without respect for and practice of cult, myth slowly lost meaning, and religion lost purpose. Moderns were much better off materially and a new secular spirituality was evolving. Religion had given war and inquisition and other cruelties. So secularism thought itself above this until the Great War (and since) showed the modern spirit no better. And perhaps due to the availability of more efficient means of destruction, modern times were more cruel that what had gone before. Then holocaust, gulags and atomic bombs showed how extremely cruel modernity could be.

“During the middle of the twentieth century, fundamentalists in all three of the monotheistic faiths were beginning to retreat from the mainstream society to create countercultures that reflected the way they thought things ought to be. They were not simply withdrawing out of pique, but were often impelled to do so by horror and fear. It is important that we understand the dread and anxiety that lie at the heart of the fundamentalist vision, because only then will we begin to comprehend its passionate rage, its frantic desire to fill the void with certainty, and its conviction of ever-encroaching evil.”

Even before the 1930's most orthodox Jews wanted nothing to do with the modern world, and were already convinced the gentile world was evil. They were forced to flee Europe and the USSR. In Palestine they met secular Zionists working desperately to create a safe place for Jews. Agudat Israel were orthodox but active. They promoted their own religious settlements and included modern subjects in their studies – not only Torah studies. From this came a religious quarrel and the birth of a fundamentalist movement. Rabbis Shapira and Teitelbaum felt outraged by the actions of Zionism and the accommodation of Agudat Israel These were heretics and aligned with the forces of evil. They felt that Satan not God dwelt in Jerusalem. Only the most holy and religious Jew could safely settle the land. The faithful must separate themselves from all evil. They were the light separated from the darkness. The smallest of details were important. No deviation from tradition was permitted – especially in matters of dress and appearance.

“Where protestant fundamentalists had sought to fill the void by seeking absolute certainty in stringent doctrinal correctness, these anti-Zionist ultra-orthodox sought certainty in a minute observance of divine law and customary observance. It is a spirituality that reveals almost ungovernable fear which can only be assuaged by the meticulous preservation of old boundaries, the erection of new barriers, a rigid segregation, and a passionate adherence to the values of tradition.“This rejectionist vision is utterly incomprehensible to Jews who regard the Zionist achievement as wondrous and salvific. This is the dilemma that Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all had to face in the twentieth century: between the fundamentalists and those who adopt a more positive attitude to the modern secular world there is an impassable gulf. The different groups simply cannot see things from the same point of view. Rational arguments are of no avail, because the divergence springs from a deeper and more instinctual level of the mind. ... To this day, the placards and graffiti on the walls of an anti-Zionist district in Jerusalem equate the political leaders of the State of Israel with Hitler. To an outsider, such an equation is shocking, false, and perverse, but it gives us some idea of the profound horror that secularism can inspire in the heart of a fundamentalist.”

These Jewish rejectionists based their behaviour on a 3^rd century story where it was said the true defenders of Jerusalem were the Torah scholars, and so named themselves Neturei Karta (The Guardians of the City). They felt that the collaboration of Agudat with Zionism was doomed. Jews were a holy people given the duty of Torah study and all else was profane. As the years passed and things didn't get worse, they concluded it was Satan's work that such sacrilege had not been punished. They refused participation. They refused offers of government financing for their schools. They condemned the Knesset and all that was done there. Their condemnation was total. They felt that the smallest compromise was capitulation to evil.

Yet the rejectionists often described the Zionists as “seducers”. Armstrong points out that hate and love are not always so far apart in human nature and that the recoil from modernism that is found in each of the fundamentalist movements is yet another characteristic in common. Though these anti-Zionist Haredim are a small minority, they continue in modern Israel to have considerable influence as they continuously challenge their more accommodating Haredim brothers. They are in a state of constant rebellion, and live in a counterculture. But their reaction takes only petty forms like throwing rocks at those who drive on the Sabbath.

The counterculture the Haredim have built includes rebuilding the schooling and court systems of pre-holocaust Europe, and they do this as an act of piety to those dead millions. This is also in America as in Israel. The graduates of these yeshivas study the Torah as a life long full-time mission, and expect their wives to support them. They believe they keep the world existing by this study - that should the Jewish people not carry out their central vocation of Torah study the universe would actually end. Secular studies were not only a waste of time, but tended to assimilation with murderous gentile culture, and any Jewish faction that gave into modern ways was illegitimate.

This new zeal for tradition had to be reconstructed due to the total destruction not only of 6 million people, but of their books, and their every community. They had lost the practical passing from generation to generation of the minutiae of Hasidim. Considering that the smallest detail of tradition was essential to their way of life, not having knowledge or record of the small details was a problem. In the effort to reconstruct these details, essentially by polling everyone's memory, a new tradition was reconstructed that was more rigid than the original tradition ever likely was.

Rabbi Abraham Yeshayahu Karlitz was known as the Hazon Ish and was a strong voice for this most rigid Torah interpretation. Jewish rabbis had always advocated leniency in interpretations for the sake of community. While honouring those with a more meticulous standard, they did not feel it right to impose the highest standard on the community. Else, how could people of slightly divergent standard even eat together? But this new religious standard was entirely uncompromising. For example, the ancient law of resting the land every 7^th year was certainly not compliant with modern agriculture, nor the need for production. But the Hazon Ish not only insisted upon such compliance, but further advocated that the most difficult solution, not the most accommodating was the proper one.

In secular Israel, service in the armed forces was compulsory but yeshiva students were exempt, because of course they were “true guardians of the Jewish people”, on the front lines of the war against the evil forces pressing on all sides. The Haredim were dedicated to the recreation of the world of their ancestors. In this they felt themselves “all alone”.

Another Jewish reaction against modernism, but unlike the Hasidim retreat was assertive. The Yeshiva Jew was dedicated to reviving the world of his father and grandfather, and felt himself alone against the secularists. Since the Bolsheviks had nearly eliminated the Jew, the Lubavitch Hasidim in this period saw these trials as the coming of Messiah, and used modern communication systems to reach Jews all over the world to return them to tradition. The 6^th Rebbe, Joseph Isaac Schneerson organized a worldwide underground to this end. When Hitler drove him to the US, he continued his outreach to assimilated or deracinated Jews. He taught them Talmud. He also founded Kfar Habad, the first Hasidic settlement in Israel, despite his antagonism to the Zionist movement. He was merely extending his outreach to the Jews in Palestine.

His son the 7^th Rebbe had received a modern education in Berlin and Paris rather than one limited to the yeshiva, and caused a remarkable change in the Habad community. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was more able to take his father's vision to the Jews of the world. In the 1970's he began an immense counteroffensive against secularization and assimilation. Thousands were dispatched to found Habad Houses around the world in Jewish communities as drop-in centers providing information about Jewish tradition. This little army visited the campuses and patrolled the city streets accosting Jews and inviting them to prayer and to Jewish practice. They were trying to find the “divine spark” lodged in their souls.

Rabbi Schneerson was a modern whose spirituality combined mythos and logos in the same manner as other moderns who saw their scripture as literal, and as coexisting with science. He was the first Hasidim to see the modern world in a positive light. And he refused the modern notion of separation of the sacred and profane. Everything contained the divine sparks. It only needed to be pointed out.

American Fundamentalists would later also launch a counteroffensive against the modernity that had defeated them, but at this time were in a defensive posture, as had been the Jews. After the Scopes trial many conservatives that believed in the “fundamentals” left the mainstream churches to found new, often premillennarian churches. In the 1950s televangelists created ministries replacing the old traveling evangelist preachers. They were creating a counterculture separated from society. Their colleges were enclaves of holiness, “separatist citadels,” like the Heredi yeshivot.

Bob Jones University was such an example. Founded in 1927 in Florida it provided a safe place for young people to hold their faith while preparing for life in an atheist world. They would be taught to defend biblical authority. Bob Jones University is a considerable influence in the Christian community and a principle supplier of fundamentalist pastors.

They felt themselves isolated and their faith imperiled. Their language was militant. Such language required a target. The enemy became the “liberal”, the “government”, the “Jewish Menace”, “secular humanists”, or even other Christian denominations. Sometimes, especially on radio broadcasts, the language was extreme and hateful.

By WWII, the term “fundamentalist” was being used mostly by those holding the premillennalist ideas. Other conservatives began calling themselves “evangelicals” - like Billy Graham. Saving souls required cooperation from other Christian communities. The extreme separatist aspects of the fundamentalists were not a part of the evangelical community.

The premillennalism of the fundamentalist community was in particular opposition to the optimism of the liberal community. To the first, WWII was only a taste of more horror to come, and agencies like the UN were futile against the approaching end of time. To the second, WWII was a war to motivate making an end of all war, and the UN a means to that end. America was becoming “Two Nations”.

To the premillenial literalist, the biblical prophesy they saw in the scriptures was coming true routinely and they felt powerfully informed about the coming end-times. They saw even the atomic bomb described in the bible. When the state of Israel was created they were amazed and even more confident. Support for Israel became an important part of their agenda because this would hasten the end of time. This would see the destruction of most of the Jews for their ancient and continuing rejection. A detailed timetable had been constructed for all this and more. The Jews would return to Israel. The Antichrist would help them rebuild the temple and then a complicated suffering and genocide would begin. This is a rather remarkable example of the religious rage Armstrong speaks of.

The Muslims had not quite yet experienced modernism to the crisis levels that would produce fundamentalist movements in their own religion. They were still adapting to modernism and shaping their traditions to meet the new challenges.

In Egypt, a young teacher Hasan al-Banna brought the ideas of earlier reformers Afghani, Abdu and Rida from the elite to the ordinary people. Banna had received a modern education and was Sufi. For him, faith was not about assent but about living. He knew Egyptians needed Western science and technology, but to reform their society he realized that social reform and spiritual reform had to be hand in hand. Banna was a teacher in Suez and saw Egypt suppressed and patronized by the British occupation. He saw their wealth contrasted with the poverty of the people and the decay of Muslim community (the ummah)under British administration. The Muslim leaders, the ulema, had turned their backs on the modern scene, and the politicians would not deal with the problems of the masses: social, economic or educational.

Banna thought it was time to act. He began to speak in the coffeehouses and mosques. His message was that Egyptians had become confused over their own religion. It was not a tradition of belief as these Westerners thought, but of practice. People must regain their Muslim soul. And people responded. They asked his leadership. And in 1928 the Society of Muslim Brothers was born. By his death in 1949 there were 2000 branches across the country. It's purpose was educational, not revolutionary. His 6 point program was:

1. Interpretation of the Koran in terms of this age,

2. Unity of Islamic nations,

3. Social Justice – raising the standard of living,

4. Fighting illiteracy and poverty,

5. Emancipation of Muslim lands from foreign dominance,

6. Promotion of Islamic peace and fraternity.

Muslims need not copy Europeans, they had good traditions and history of their own. Before Europe, Mohammed had proclaimed the goals of liberty, equality, fraternity and social justice. They way to freedom and dignity was to relearn and reclaim this heritage. In 1938 Banna organized an efficient modern system to achieve this which was able to adapt as required to the need. Small groups (“families”) of 10 would meet weekly to support each other in their increasing knowledge and practice of Islam. Each group belonged to a larger “battalion” to keep in touch with HQ. In 1945 Banna added social and welfare programs to the schools.

The Brothers now ran schools beside most mosques, Rovers (a youth movement similar to Scouts), night schools for workers, clinics and hospitals in rural areas, founded trade unions, created jobs by establishing factories and light industries in printing, weaving, construction and engineering. In essence the Brothers had built a “state within a state”, an immense counterculture which highlighted the deficiencies of the government of course. Their success showed that Egyptians wanted religion, and that Muslim methods were more equitable and yet still worked. Islam could be progressive.

The Brothers were not militant, but strongly believed that rulers must be accountable to the people, that wealth should be fairly distributed, that the message of the Koran could be applied to the whole society without the literalilsm that was happening in the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

They wern't perfect. They were intolerant of dissension. Banna did not delegate well, and after his death none filled his place. Their experience of the West was distorted by their colonial experience and they thought of the West in terms of only that. In 1943 a rebel group started up within the Brothers “The Secret Apparatus” as a militant and terrorist organization, in response to the general impotence the Arabs felt. This growing sense of loss was made even worse when 5 Arab armies were defeated after invading the new State of Israel. Many came to believe that “terror” was the only possible response. In 1948 the Secret Apparatus started a campaign including the murders of key people including the Prime Minister. In response, the Brotherhood was targeted for elimination by the government. 4000 members were imprisoned. Banna was shot in the street. Without his leadership, the society foundered.

In 1952, Jamal Abd al-Nasser in a coup, became the new leader of Egypt. He was defiant and socialist. He was secular, not religious. He was pan-Arab. He used the USSR to help oust the British. Initially he used the Brotherhood to his own ends due to their large base. But he had no interest in an Islamic state and when their demands became too much, he accused them of plotting against the government and dissolved them. So the brotherhood went underground. They tried to assassinate Nasser and failed, making Nasser strong enough to eliminate them. With thousands in the jails, it looked as if the secular modernism of Nasser was entirely victorious. But in prison, some of “the Brothers abandoned Banna's reformist vision and created a new and potentially violent Sunni fundamentalism.”

In Iran, Reza Shah was also carrying out an intense secular assault. His modernization program was more severe than either Turkey or Egypt and he was ruthless in it's implementation. Opponents were simply eliminated. He impoversihed the nomadic tribes. He brutally centralized the countries administration. He reformed the judiciary replacing the Shariah with 3 secular law codes: civil, commercial and criminal. Shariah law became limited only to personal circumstance. He industrialized the country. He compelled western dress.

But despite these draconian methods, they could not achieve economic independence. Britain owned their oil and returned little to Iran. 90% of the people were still involved in agrarian pursuits. They were completely ignored. There was no reform of society. Reza did not care for the poor. The military took 50% of the budget, education only 4%.

The Shah hated the clergy and tried to reduce the influence of Islam. Iran's ancient identity of Persia became his alternate.

“It was not surprising that many Iranians came to fear secularization as a lethal policy, designed not to free religion from the coercive state (as in the West) but to destroy Islam. This was exactly the kind of atmosphere in which a fundamentalist movement was likely to thrive. It did not happen during this period, but 4 things did happen that foreshadowed later developments.”

1. Creation of a counterculture. The city of Qum was revitalized as a learning centre, and in the 60's it became the “religious capital” of Iran again. Also the centre of opposition to Tehran, though without political action – else the Shah would have crushed it.

2. In 1920, a certain Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini came to Qum to teach ethics and mysticism. In 1944 he published “The Discovery of Secrets”, a challenge to the Shah from a Shii perspective. At this point Khomeini was a reformer and not at all a fundamentalist. Reza Shah died in 1944 and his son was weak.

3. In 1945 Ayatollah Sayyid Mustafa Kashani returned to Iran. He had been imprisoned by the British during WWII. His welcome back was huge. In '49 he was exiled for involvement in an assassination plot. While in Bierut he joined the National Front Party in favour of nationalizing the oil. In '50 he returned, again to a hero's welcome – the crowd even lifting his car into the air.

4. The last crucial key event was the oil crisis of '53. It was a potent mix of political change, of ulema and politicians, of assassination, nationalization of oil, together with a generous mix of American and British and Soviet intrique. A coup was organized by the CIA and British intelligence. And in '54 the new treaty gave 50% of the oil profits to the cartels. Thus began Iranian distrust of America. “Over the years the Americans repeated the old political patterns used by the British ... shortsighted, self-interested policy that would eventually cast the United States in a demonic light.”

“Iran was not unique. By the middle of the twentieth century, the societies of all the countries we are considering were being divided into two camps. Some saw the modern age as liberating and empowering; others experienced it as an evil assault. There was fear, hatred, and a barely suppressed rage. It would not be long before fundamentalists, who felt this anger acutely, would decide that it was no longer sufficient to hold aloof from society and build a counterculture. They must mobilize and fight back.”