A few thoughts on various current debates re.: the relationship between the fundamentalism as such, the religious precepts on which it relies and the social situation in which it grows.

On one hand, the social factors are certainly causal to an extent - I would expect fundamentalism to be more likely among the less educated, thus among the impoverished and dispossessed. E.g. in quite a lot of poor African countries religion finds pretty ugly expressions, be it Islam or Christianity. That, unfortunately, is more or less expected.

On the other hand, it would be hard to argue that particular “commandments” of particular religions don’t play a major role. If the anti-women and anti-gay precepts inherent in the Abrahamic tradition weren’t there, it’s not at all clear that today we would be witnessing public executions of gays in Iran or Malala’s suffering (etc.). It could have still happened, sure, but the probability of it happening would have been different.

When these precepts are (mostly, to some extent or other) overcome (cf. Turkey and Israel), it happens despite religion and due to socio-political factors.

So one could, in principle, differentiate between various religious sets of rules in how they influence this or that situation.

Of course, in order for such a differentiation to work, one should sort out the “religious tradition” from the “folk tradition”. Which can be hard to do, esp. as the former is often but a glorified form of the latter (the difference often lying in whether or not this glorified folk tradition is indigenous). E.g. clearly FGM is not Islamic in the sense that it neither originated with Islam, nor is unique to those demographically Muslim regions where it’s traditionally practiced. Both Christians and Jews in the areas were/are known to practice it. So it’s more of a folk tradition that has been enshrined as religious by some Muslims, but not by the historical Islam as such. It could even be that FGM would continue in a revolutionary-atheistic state, with corresponding “materialistic” excuses for it. One could also remember about the treatment of male homosexuals in USSR (though here the “chicken or egg” problem arises - were the “popular attitudes” such because Russia had previously been an Orthodox state?).

In the end, it makes sense to analyze all factors - social, political, “theological”. There’s a complex interplay and feedback between all of them. Still, recognizing the “theological” factor would mean the acknowledgment that religions do carry with them a no small amount of “garbage” collected throughout the centuries, the “garbage” the modern people could do without. Focusing only on that “garbage” doesn’t amount to some heroic clear-headed analysis. It’s a one-sided, oftentimes bigoted approach. But ignoring it, while concentrating only on the political or social factors won’t do either.