 According to the Gaddafi biographer Jonathan Bearman, in Islamic terms Gaddafi was a modernist rather than a fundamentalist, for he subordinated religion to the political system rather than seeking to Islamicize the state as Islamists sought to do.He was driven by a sense of "divine mission", believing himself a conduit of God's will, and thought that he must achieve his goals "no matter what the cost".His interpretation of Islam was nevertheless idiosyncratic, and he clashed with conservative Libyan clerics.