Radical Islamic fundamentalism in South Africa. An exploratory study

Abstract

The wave of Islamic militancy that is currently sweeping the world and which is variedly referred to as radical Islamic Fnndamentalism, Islamism, Islamic Resurgence, and the world-wide Jihad movement has its remote origins in the Muslin Brotherhood movement in Egypt in the late 1920s. During the early years of its existence the Brotherhood advocated the revitalisation of Islam as part of the anti-colonial movement among Egyptians. The Brotherhood soon spread to other parts of the Arab world where it acquired a more temporal and a less apolitical character as it became more deeply involved in the growing anti-colonial struggle that followed the end of the Second World War in 1945. As a result, by the early 1950s the Brotherhood's welfare activities had become over- shadowed by its commitment to mainly political objectives.