[O]ne of the defining characteristics of fundamentalist movements is their wish to halt or reverse the trend that we called differentiation so that religion can reassert the influence it has lost in the modern world. ... States wield ultimate power in the modern world, and sometimes fundamentalist organizations and movements with high ambitions work to take control of the state. Some fundamentalist movements have an all-embracing vision of how to establish a state that is guided by the right religious values and laws, and how to mold a nation observing those values and laws. Sometimes these visions have motivated violent struggles against state authorities.
Differentiation: Institutional structures or spheres are distinguished from each other. Differentiation does not refer to internal complexity but to categorical perception and corresponding distinction. In a differentiated society, religion is differentiated from politics, law, science, etc.
During the process of differentiation, a society must formulate a new value system that supports a society undergoing the process of differentiation.
Value systems in competition: State and religion...
According to Brekke, fundamentalist groups react to this process, especially when it entails the differentiation between "church" and "state."
Sometimes fundamentalist organizations work to take control of the state.
In a differentiated society, the concept of the state (its hierarchy, rule, laws, etc.) represents the center of power.
Berger's concept of alienation is similar to differentiation within a religious context.
Within Islam, for example, there is no clear distinction between church and state. Both are the domain of God.
Members of the ummah are members in a social, religious, and political community. (Recall Yathrib, FRGCs, Umayyad, Abbasid Empires)
The "just society" is one that implements sharia as the regulating framework. (Recall: revelation > law > restoration)
Islamic fundamentalist groups often look to the traditional caliphate as the pinnacle of an undifferentiated society.
Often, according to Brekke, influential fundamentalist ideologies calling for an Islamic caliphate speak more to what it is not rather than what it is.
This tells us something about the motivation for the creation of a caliphate. (Can we now identify this as a step in the process of restoration?)
How can we explain jahiliyya (see Brekke, 107) within the context of our own theory?
Islam grew up in an independent country owing allegiance to no empire and to no king, in a form of society never again achieved. It had to embody this society in itself, had to order, encourage, and promote it. It had to order and regulate this society, adopting from the beginning its principles and its spirit along with its methods of life and work. It had to join together the world and the faith by its exhortations and laws. So Islam chose to unite earth and heaven in a single system, present both in the heart of the individual and the actuality of society, recognizing no separation of practical exertion from religious impulse. (Sayyid Qutb)