This is not always the case. Some may be educated and economically well off, within particular fundamentalist sects, but use an idealistic vision of the past to provide a solution to what they see is lacking in the contemporary world. This was true of the Muslim Brotherhood of 1929, which used religion as part of its ideology of colonial resistance -- and is also true of many of the terrorist leaders of the modern groups threatening America today. (Gelvin, 2004, p.295) An advocacy of a return to origins has provided a powerful way for Muslims to advocate regional solidarity, national resistance to a hated leader or colonial power, or simply for a cause that is supposed to remedy the present.

The difficulty of articulating a liberating ideology within a fundamentalist mindset, however, should not be dismissed. Even the contemporary Egyptian author of The Committee, which portrays an Middle Eastern government...
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