Word: fundamentalistism
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...fundamentalist challenge is dangerous for Khomeini, particularly because his right-wing critics can outdo him in blind radicalism and rabble-rousing. An outstanding example of the obscure but dangerous figures growing angry with him is Sheikh Mahmoud Halabi, seventyish leader of a Shi'ite purist society. Halabi, says one Iranian writer, "is so right wing that compared with him, Khomeini is Karl Marx." Halabi criticizes the I.R.P. for its political accommodation with the Tudeh Party, Iran's pro-Moscow Communists. (The arrangement is designed to counter opposition from left-wing Muslims.) And he calls for a program against...
...Lieut. Khaled Ahmed Shawki el-Istambuli , a member of the Takfir wa Hijra (Atonement and Holy Flight) group, and three others shoot Sadat at the military-day parade. This plan was approved by Abboud Zomor in his hideout near the pyramids of Giza. It was also sanctioned by a fundamentalist group in the southern city of Asyut, which had launched attacks on police stations in Asyut soon after Sadat was killed. Finally, the plan was accepted by the plotters' spiritual leader, a blind mufti named Omar Ahmed Abdel Rahman, who had $20,000 in crisp new bills concealed...
Mubarak's government, which is clearly trying to arouse public sentiment against Muslim extremists, claims that the five groups were all fundamentalist organizations linked by a conspiracy "to fight the government and seize power." The ambitions of the conspirators were thwarted on Sept. 25, when many were arrested during Sadat's wide-ranging crackdown on dissenters. Concluding that they were not strong enough to stage a coup, the plotters reportedly concentrated on just assassinating the President. After his death, they also thought of dropping bombs from rooftops on the funeral procession as it wound its way through Cairo...
Arabist John Williams of the American University of Cairo: "These groups appeal to those who don't think they are getting their fair share of the benefits of modernization." Fundamentalist tendencies are most entrenched in the lower middle class and in Egypt's universities, where they have mushroomed over the past four or five years. Says Dessouki of the converts: "These are people who are neither urban nor rural, who are overwhelmed by city life and feel alien to it. They are a very precarious class...
...likelihood, the shock of Sadat's murder will impede the rapid growth of the fundamentalist movements for the time being. But, as one Egyptian scholar cautions, "the huge base of sympathizers, which may number in the millions, is still in place." Almost everyone agrees that the militants lack the power to seize the government, but they do have the capacity to cause endless trouble. Security crackdowns, such as Sadat's roundup of 1,600 assorted opponents last month or the arrests last week, could easily backfire. So could the Reagan Administration's plan for a spectacular display...