I encourage everyone to look into this question as deeply as they can. It's very, very interesting in and of itself, plus it's very, very interesting in evaluating the place of religion in America's future -- I suspect Red Nation America and Blue Nation America would have different views on the question and what the future should be.
For instance, the practical background of Islamic Fundamentalism in the middle east gets real interesting around the middle 70s. Around that time, religious extremists in the Muslim world were few and far between and weren't very influential. They were there, but more or less ignored. Then, when the Shah came to power in Iran, two things happened. 1) Global culture tried to "modernize" Iranian culture. Sex and women's lib and all that crap became big issues. Many of the people hated that change to their culture. When they had no where else to turn, they turned to the only people who shared their hatred-- the Muslim clerics who were fundamentalists. 2) THEN the Islamic Fundamentalists rose rapidly in power and became a political force. They conquored Iran (and for the first time in a big way suicide fighters were used -- not against the West per se, but in the Iran-Iraq border wars) and the paradigm of Islam Revolt spread to Lebanon and then beyond.
It started in Iran because of the way the globalist tried to impose global culture on the Iranians. (For more of this discussion, check out The Coming War in the Middle East It's good stuff!) Mark W.