One place I think I break with Robin's work, is in the dynamics of conservative psychology. I think there is a such a thing, and I think it is key to understanding. It is what unites the mind frame.
The psychological element is the central core which could be called a gross insecurity perhaps a fear built around the concept of human nature. It's there in Hobbes' idea that when left to its own devices, humanity tends to all that is bad, say Hogarth's Gin Ally, and or the Seven Cardinal Sins.
Order, control, and rule by higher moral hierarchical authority is essential for the stability of social, economic, and political life. Without this order we will all head immediately into the world of Hieronymus Bosch and the garden of earthly delights.
Strauss re-constructed this concept of human nature from studying Judaism in the middle of Weimar, when it must have looked very much like a Bosch painting. But a similar view of human nature is shared by Christians and Muslims since all of these traditions follow from various readings of the Old Testament.
Rather than actually reading the OT which generates a nausia all its own, try this link. It is a description of the cardinal sins and their position in a hierarchical mind frame matched with their demons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Acedia
For a different but related tract, try Leviathan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan
Was this the social body that had to be ruled? Evidently. In Hobbes view the social body was subject to physical (physics) forces that determined its actions and motions. This is a mechanistic view that had a central virtue, namely it elimenated the need for a God to account for human actions. It is very similar to Spinoza. They are close enough, in my mind to get easily confused with each other. Hobbes published his works often in Amsterdam and those works would have been available to Spinoza through friends and correspondents. What they share is reading Descartes and his interest in mathematics, science, and philosophy.
It would be nice to read left Arab and Islamic sources on these topics and current events that reflect the movements in the Middle East.
CG