(9) Saudi Arabia Wahhabism: The Strictest Fundamentalist Sect

   Fundamentalism is a "label given to religious functions that combine political and social issues to promote a return to the traditional views and an almost literal interpretation of holy writings". For Islam, the holy writing that fundamentalists study and interpret is the Koran (Qu'ran), which consists of Allah's communications to his prophet, Muhammad, and it serves as a guide of responsibilities for Muslims. European imperialism, or colonialism that occurred in the 1700s and 1800s in the Middle East, "planted the seeds for a new revival of Islamic teaching and law". This movement of fundamentalism in the Middle East can be a way for many Middle Eastern people to reconnect with their roots and their ideologies that they believed in prior to the colonization underwent by the Western and European powers in the time of European domination and colonialism in foreign lands. This movement's desires lied to "return to a traditional, or fundamental, interpretation of life", and represented a way for Middle Easterners to return back to their own culture and beliefs and fight off Western imperialism.

   Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab founded Wahhabism; the dominant and most rigid fundamentalist sect in Saudi Arabia. The laws that govern Saudi Arabia are called the sharia laws, simply meaning religious laws, but these laws violate human rights. The merging of government and religion make Saudi Arabia a non-secular nation, alone in a world where many leading and developed nations have drawn the line between the two; and Saudi Arabia's non-secularism has been the source of modern tension between the conservative nations of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, against the modernized West and Europe.
   Fundamentalism has been linked to violence recently, especially in terrorism, which fundamentalists call "jihad", another term for holy war. In our modern times, it is commonly viewed that in the post-Cold War Era, "Islamic fundamentalism has become the West's new enemy since the fall of communism". One notorious terrorist organization that found its roots in Saudi Arabia is Al Qaeda, led by the former Osama bin Laden. This terrorist group was created to "overthrow all pro-western governments in Islamic nations", and went as far as to attacking the world Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people, all to display to the United States, and the modernized world, their rejection of Western society. Unfortunately, the acts of only a few violent Muslim fundamentalists has left the world, particularly the United States, in a state of islamphobia, where many Muslims are suffering prejudice and hate on behalf of the acts of only a few "bad seeds". This results in an increase of social unrest and it, in turn, fuels the terrorist groups to do more damage.