The Crusades

[DVaut1]

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But wouldn't it be fair to hypothesize then that those 2 causes were themselves caused by Islam and thus there is a causal chain linking totalitarian states and Islam after all? Else how do you explain those two causes existing in most Islamic states?

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I don't think Islam 'caused' a fear of change (a characteristic of humanity, I think, that has always existed to varying degrees -- long before Mohammed lived); it's when the rejection of modernity becomes an overwhelming and ubiquitous societal concern, or more correctly, when accepting the inevitable changes of modernization cause widespread fear (fear, of course, being one of ways that successful fascists and totalitarians alike can negotiate consent) -- that totalitarianism is bred. In all honesty (and I freely admit to this being idle speculation), but I'm guessing the current Islamic/totalitarian correlation is caused by ( if it even exists )to the fact that the Middle East, and the Islamic world, by and large, missed out on the Industrial Revolution -- for reasons that are many and varied and aren't particularly related to Islam, either.

I'll admit that there's a rather strong case to be made between fundamentalism and adherence to an overly-masculine ethic -- but as Ducat posits, this is a characteristic found in all religious fundamentalism, not Islam alone.