WHAT IS POLITICAL PHENOMENON?
Answers
Answer:
Al-Azmeh, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001
Islamic fundamentalism is a political and ideological phenomenon of the twentieth century. Born in the 1920s, it gathered momentum under the impact of social, political, cultural, and economic changes that supervened in Muslim lands in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Taking its cue from movements of Muslim Reform at the end of the nineteenth century, Islamic fundamentalism dented and finally rejected the apologetic modernism of Muslim Reform, taking quite literally its appeal to a return to Muslim origins as contained in the Koran. Islamic fundamentalism projected an imagined Muhammadan Golden Age as a Utopian social project to be copied in the present, married this to a populism typical of the twentieth century, and propagated an anti-modernist social and cultural program for re-socialization. It rested in its moderate forms on social conservatism, but its radical tendencies borrowed ideas of revolution and total societal transformation. It is a movement of varying incidence and depth in Muslim lands and among Muslim Diasporas, with particular appeal to the subaltern intelligentsia and to structurally marginalized sectors of the population, both of whom regard the socially expansive definition of religion a solution to a variety of crises and historical impasses.
Sibling-order Effects
F.J. Sulloway, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001
5 Conclusion
In past centuries birth order and functional sibling order have influenced such diverse social and political phenomena as royal succession, expansionist military campaigns, religious wars and crusades, geographic exploration, and inheritance laws. Even today, birth order and family niches more generally are among the environmental sources of personality because they cause siblings to experience the family environment in dissimilar ways. In particular, birth order introduces the need for differing strategies in dealing with sibling rivals as part of the universal quest for parental favor. This is a Darwinian story, albeit one with a marked environmental twist. Although siblings appear to be hard-wired to compete for parental favor, the specific niche in which they have grown up determines the particular strategies they adopt within their own family. Finally, because birth order and family niches underlie differences in family sentiments, including filial loyalty and self-conceptions about family identity, the family has historically supplied a powerful engine for revolutionary change.