*3.1. Cognitive Aspects*

A striking feature in the presented studies of fundamentalist groups and in the works of their founders is their sense of possessing, that is of having a complete understanding, of truth. Steven Bruce calls it a sense of "certainty" (Bruce 2000, p. 15). For example, in the theory of Sajjid Kutb, a leading ideologist of the Muslim Brotherhood, power originally belongs exclusively to God, who designed the right vision of the world. However, since God does not wield his power directly, in real life it should be held by those who have discovered and properly understood this truth. The "knowing" is embodied by warrior monks, who are the only bearers of truth (W ˛as 2006). They are an elite in the proper sense of the word: the only competent subjects who define social and individual good. Bassam Tibi points out that such an attitude, with its characteristic intellectual absolutism, represents an important trait of fundamentalists who rule out any critical reflection on their own views (Tibi 1997). Ultimately, every decision and determination made by the "enlightened" is, as it were, sanctioned by God. For the record, this does not only apply to fundamentalist Muslim groups. For example, Karen Armstrong points to the intellectual absolutism of Christian fundamentalists. In this context, she refers to Carl McIntire, founder of the Bible Presbyterian Church in the USA, who radically condemned Christians who "did not subscribe to his theology" (Armstrong 2000, p. 216). A similar trait of fundamentalism has been identified in the Hindu tradition by Piotr Kłodkowski who, like Eric Hobsbawm, points out that Hindu fundamentalism represents "a contemporary interpretation of the ancient religion" (Kłodkowski 2006, pp. 425–26), linked to an ethnically understood national idea. It is not present in the Vedas themselves, but rather in their contemporary interpreters. The claim to truth, which is in fact a claim to inerrancy, should therefore be considered the first element of a fundamentalist mindset. Let us note that the truth professed by religious fundamentalists may radically di ffer, and its sources may just as well be the Vedas, the Quran, or the Bible. Irrespective of the material from which fundamentalism develops, it is always based on the fundamentalists' belief that they have achieved, so to speak, epistemic fullness, the only correct understanding of the Revelation and of God's will for people here and now.

A consequence of this attitude to truth is—however paradoxical as it may seem—an ambivalent stance on orthodoxy. As pointed out by scholars of fundamentalism, a fundamentalist does not embrace his religious tradition as a whole. Quite on the contrary, he only upholds those fragments that he accepts himself and which make him stand out from the "mainstream." In the case of Sajjid Kutb, mentioned above, this can be seen, for instance, in the special role played by the notion of *tali'a*, i.e., the need for a select avant-garde of crusading missionaries and emphasis on the category of jihad, which was not as significant in the traditional interpretation of Islam. This selectiveness of interpretation is in fact a reconstruction and a transformation of religious tradition (Jansen 1997). Fundamentalists are not concerned about faithful observance of orthodoxy. Oppositely, "they thrive by demarching themselves from others within their own faith-tradition" (Harrison 2008, p. 9). In a sense, they are the ones who create the "true" doctrine, selectively choosing from their religion that which is submitted to politicisation and absolutisation (Tibi 1997, p. 152). The selectiveness of a fundamentalist a ffects not only his religious (or ideological) tradition, but also the world he rejects. Bassam Tibi describes this process while referring to the example of Islamic fundamentalism: "the bisection of modern civilization stems from the desire of its islamisation by instrumentally adopting its material achievements, while at the same time unconditionally rejecting its fundamental man-centered view of the world...fundamentalists are not traditionalists ... they are against modern civilization, but they are not against its instrumental, that is to say, technical and scientific achievements. Quite on the contrary: they want to understand them in order to be able to better fight against their enemies" (Tibi 1997, pp. 35, 43). The airplane attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 seems to be a particularly dramatic evidence of this kind of logic, which currently can be observed in contemporary Islamists, bred on Kutb's writings, believing themselves to be the just ones who stand up (through jihad) against the unjust ones (e.g., the political leaders of the countries they operate in) (Haynes 2010, p. 165).

The belief in their own inerrancy in a way forces fundamentalists to adopt a black-and-white view of the world. As pointed out by Edmund Wnuk-Lipi ´nski, irrespective of the grounds on which fundamentalism develops, it is always characterised by the conviction that "the part of the world which is outside of the fundamentalist movement is contaminated, sinful, and doomed to condemnation. Only within the world controlled by the fundamentalist movement can there be spiritual purity, truth, and good" (Wnuk-Lipi ´nski 2004, p. 278). Consequently, in the logic of religious fundamentalists researchers see a reflection of the Manichean approach to reality where the forces of darkness (the world) are confronted by the forces of light (fundamentalists) (Bruce 2000).
