Charles Selengut believes that to understand where any religion is headed, one must look at those on its extremes.

For Islam, he said, one must look at what fundamentalists are teaching in the madrassas; similarly, in Judaism, it is useful to look at the haredim, or fervently Orthodox.

"What is extreme today sets the norm for the future," he said in a telephone interview. "Those who violate the established norms and violate accepted realities – they set the agenda."

Selengut – a professor of sociology and religious studies at Drew University in Madison – will examine religion through this lens when he serves as scholar-in-residence at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston April 27-29.

Author of Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence and editor of Jewish Muslim Encounters: History, Philosophy, and Culture, he is currently working on a book about Jewish fundamentalism.

The biggest issue facing Islam today, he said, is pluralism.

"There's a notion in Islam that Islam is for everyone. There's a desire for everyone in the world to join their religion," he said. "There's a sense that Islam is not just for Muslims but that Sharia law, the koranic legal code, is good for the entire community. That creates a tension between the desire to establish a Muslim society and the possibility of other religions being on par with Islam."

Selengut pointed out that this provides a real contrast with Judaism. "Even the most extreme Jews believe that Judaism is for Jews and that all religions have a right to practice what they believe," he said, adding as an aside – as long as they are monotheistic.

There is also a tension within Islam between fundamentalists and modernists, he said. "Modernists are absolutely opposed to suicide bombers. They say it violates the Koran. But other Muslims using the same texts see it as fully correct."

The issue, he said, is: "Who decides what the religion says? We see the same thing in Judaism. If you ask whether Judaism says can women have an aliya or not, the answer you get will depend on whom you ask."

There are ways to view the Koran as compatible with the modern world, Selengut said. For example, the Koran says men are permitted to have four wives. "Fundamentalist Muslims like Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rachman say it is permitted and encouraged by the Koran. But modern scholars say you could have four wives if you could treat them equitably. That might have been possible in the time of Mohammed, when there was more land and houses were spread out. But it is not possible in the modern world. Therefore, in the modern world, you can have only one wife."

Selengut acknowledged that for now, the modernists are a smaller group. Still, he said, there is no way to know now "who will ultimately carry the day." The one thing that is "laughable," he said, is for people outside Islam to say what the Koran says.

The problem with United States policy in the Middle East, according to Selengut, is that many politicians do not view the conflict through the lens of religion.

"If they are too removed from religious feelings, they cannot understand how religion underlies the politics. They refuse to recognize its potency."

That blindness comes into play, for example, in understanding suicide bombers, he said.

"This lack of understanding of the religious contours of the world leads to the idiocy [of] some New York Times editorial writers and the foreign policy establishment types [who] have said suicide bombers are poor, uneducated, mentally ill. But Mohammed Atta, the lead bomber in the 9/11 attacks, was the son of a rich lawyer. Atta won first prize in architecture from the University of Hamburg. He had a master's degree."

Selengut added, "What I can say is, listen, the crucial factor in understanding today's era is religion."

Judaism is not exempt from Selengut's critical eye. He sees a rise in religious authoritarianism among the fervently Orthodox when it comes to Halacha, or Jewish law.

"The history of the halachic system is full of controversy and disagreement. That is very controlled and minimized now" among haredim, he said. "There is a longstanding principle that all decisors, all poskim who are respectful, can legitimately come to halachic decisions."

But today, he said, haredi authorities declare that "our interpretation of religious law is the one and only interpretation. Now they refuse to acknowledge the variety and pluralism of normative Jewish law. They claim almost a divine right to establish the norms."

Selengut dates the rising authoritarianism to the 1960s, viewing it as a reaction to modernity.

"The choices are so great, the attraction so alluring, that traditionalists have created enclaves to isolate and separate their followers from contact and choice."

These new norms, he said, include ever stricter emphasis on modesty as well as the denigration of work and, in its stead, the creation of a "scholar society" in which people who are "not gifted in Talmud study are still programmed not to work but to sit in yeshivas their whole lives."

The concept of full-time religious study among Jews itself is not new, but its implementation across the society is, according to Selengut. "Before World War II, there was something like this, but only for a handful of very gifted scholars. Now it has become the norm for everyone."

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