Since 1979, the year of the Iranian Revolution, scholars have tried to understand what has been called Islamic fundamentalism. September 11th has certainly highlighted the urgency of understanding such a phenomenon. This book provides the reader with a challenging analysis of the discussion about Islamic fundamentalism and a new reading of the relationship between identity and fundamentalism. It confronts the widespread idea that Islamic fundamentalism is a mere reaction to and rejection of Western European Enlightenment and secularism in favour of an anachronistic religious scripturalism. In this timely book, Gabriele Marranci, through an ethnographically based interpretation, rejects essentialist and cultural reductionist theories, and argues that identity and emotion play a fundamental role in the formation of what the author calls “Emotional Islam”.
