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fundamentalism


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Definition of fundamentalism

noun

[mass noun]
  • a form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture: there was religious pluralism there at a time when the rest of Europe was torn by fundamentalism
  • strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline:free-market fundamentalism

Modern Christian fundamentalism arose from American millenarian sects of the 19th century, and has become associated with reaction against social and political liberalism and rejection of the theory of evolution. Islamic fundamentalism appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries as a reaction to the disintegration of Islamic political and economic power, asserting that Islam is central to both state and society and advocating strict adherence to the Koran (Qur’an) and to Islamic law (sharia)

Derivatives

fundamentalist

noun & adjective

fundamentalism in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of fundamentalism in the US English dictionary
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