leaders said "desires death more than you desire life."
Few fundamentalist movements in the Islamic world gained lasting political
power. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, fundamentalists helped artic-
ulate anticolonial grievances but played little role in the overwhelmingly sec-
ular struggles for independence after World War I.Western-educated lawyers,
soldiers, and officials led most independence movements, and clerical influence
and traditional culture were seen as obstacles to national progress.
mix of indifference, cynicism, and despair. In several countries, a dynastic state
already existed or was quickly established under a paramount tribal family.
Monarchies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Jordan still sur-
vive today.Those in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen were eventually overthrown
by secular nationalist revolutionaries.
Arab Socialism or the Ba'ath Party of Syria and Iraq) that called for a single,
secular Arab state. However, what emerged were almost invariably autocratic
regimes that were usually unwilling to tolerate any opposition--even in coun-
tries, such as Egypt, that had a parliamentary tradition. Over time, their poli-
cies--repression, rewards, emigration, and the displacement of popular anger
onto scapegoats (generally foreign)--were shaped by the desire to cling to
power.
nearly all paths for peaceful opposition, forcing their critics to choose silence,
exile, or violent opposition. Iran's 1979 revolution swept a Shia theocracy into
power. Its success encouraged Sunni fundamentalists elsewhere.
The Saudi government, always conscious of its duties as the custodian of Islam's
holiest places, joined with wealthy Arabs from the Kingdom and other states
bordering the Persian Gulf in donating money to build mosques and religious
schools that could preach and teach their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.
movements by ceding control of many social and educational issues. Embold-
ened rather than satisfied, the Islamists continued to push for power--a trend
especially clear in Egypt. Confronted with a violent Islamist movement that
killed President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the Egyptian government combined