Islamic fundamentalism

This book traces violent fundamentalist Islam back to the 1920s and the Ikhwan, who helped establish the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and attacked targets in Iraq and Jordan before they were wiped out. Jordan and Iraq were both created in the twentieth century and had their borders drawn by Westerners, and the Ikhwan are described as committed opponents of Western influence and the Muslims who tolerate it. Like the Ikhwan, the fundamentalists that followed were purists, unable to accept changes to the traditionally Arab and/or Muslim way of life. This is repeated later in Ansar al-Islam, Zarqawi and his associates in Iraq, the al-Nusra Front, and especially ISIS; these groups insist on strict Sharia law in areas they control.

But fundamentalism is also a reaction to grievances, both by exploitative outsiders from the U.S. to the Soviet Union, and by Arab Middle Eastern governments. Like...