Reflection 2: Islamic Fundamentalism and Religious Studies

When I attended my first university, I started out as a religious studies major because it offset my mathematics major (which was easy, but boring).  I love learning about all of the different religions, and as I progressed in the program, I was able to choose my higher level classes and direct my focus on the areas that most interested me.  One of my first religious studies teachers was a huge mentor and I enjoyed all of his stories of travels, experiences, and wisdom, so I ended up choosing most of the classes that he taught.  This particular teacher was focused on Islamic Fundamentalism, knew Arabic, and spent a lot of time teaching and studying in the Middle East when he wasn't at the university teaching us.  My last year, I ended up taking a religious fundamentalism class, which covered fundamentalism across Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

I was so intrigued by the differences in religions, but did not even think about the fact that each religion usually has a fundamentalist sect of some sort, if not many.  Christianity was well known to us and we flew through those discussions and lessons, but Judaism and Islam was incredibly fascinating to study.  We looked at what the most strict, religious, and/or extremist did on a daily basis in the name of their religion, and how that affected the people, the area surrounded that group, and the religion itself.  I do not want to go into the actually class subject matter, but instead focus on how different it was to look at religion in that light.  At a time of war and extremism, it was fascinating to see why each group acted and reacted to different situations, the reasoning to each action, and how they formed those thoughts.  It gave incredible insight into the world of war and the middle east, terrorism, extremism, fundamentalism, and how each religion can be changed, adapted, and followed.  I would highly recommend this to anyone who has the least bit of interest.  I know it helped me a lot, and I think it would help most people, especially in the United States, to see things from a different perspective.