Researching Religion-Terrorism Nexus for Sustainable Global Security Management: Is Islam Being Falsely Accused? (original) (raw)

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Terrorist activities have taken a new turn in the wake of 21st Century, thereby creating a sense of insecurity in the global family, The reason for the upsurge of terrorism has also remained an enigma. However, scholars have posited diverse reasons and motivations for terrorist activities. Scholars mostly of western orientation, blame religion for it. On the other hand, scholars with liberal inclinations place the blame on the socio-political exigencies that fosters authoritarianism as the sole cause of the social phenomenon. The third group of scholars posits eclectic sources of terrorism. They opine that though, socio-political exigencies are at the root, however, religion fans the ember and gives it legitimacy. The fourth group proposed an alternative model in which they subsumed that globalization and not religion is the purveyor of modern terrorism. They noted that globalization agenda depersonalizes culture, breaks traditional identities, nullify national sovereignty and violates human rights and life of those at the fringes of development. Thus, those affected adversely by the scheme resort to terrorism as retaliation for the violation done to them. Religion, on the one hand, occupying a central position in human life becomes a medium of translating this sociopolitical conflict into a moral one. It is by religion that secular conflict acquires a cosmic nature. Any conflict understood in cosmic terms acquires stateless and timeless status and as such become unending. Therefore, the paper surmises that terrorism will not end unless globalization ends.

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Many Muslims complain that the current news media focus on the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East and other parts of the world unfairly portrays Islam as a religion that condones the use of terrorism. Given the fact that throughout human history conflicting religious beliefs have often been used by adherents of all of the world’s major religious faiths as a rationale for the use of terrorism, there may be some justification for these complaints. Therefore, this essay will review literature and research published from1984 to 2005, which analyzes religiously inspired violence and terrorism by Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Jewish as well as Islamic extremists. It is hoped that a broader and deeper understanding of the root causes of various different types of pseudo-religious political terrorism might open the door to more constructive dialogues between religious and political leaders of all religious faiths on ways to reduce religiously inspired violent terrorism. It should also be noted that although many books and articles have been written about religiously inspired Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, three of the works reviewed here, which examine religiously inspired terrorist attacks attributed to all of the world’s major religions, were published prior to 2001.

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Since the end of the Cold War, the West has mounted a campaign against Islam as the essential source of terrorism and the Muslims as necessarily terrorists. However, the problems of violence and terror are not isolated issues but have epistemological and unspoken real causes. Violence is related to despotism, especially the despotism of hegemony. The US-led war on terrorism is not a simple struggle between good and evil. The hidden reasons behind it makes it difficult for the Muslims and others in the Third World to appreciate the efforts. Constructed mostly by reporters of such powerful TV cables like CNN, intelligence analysts and "experts on Muslim affairs," the Muslim is perceived as the terrorist, the imminent menace to civilization and the universal values of democracy and freedom. This campaign gained much momentum and became more intense with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. The untiring rhetoric associating Islam and Muslims with terror...

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The purpose of the study was to examine the validity of the argument indicating that the religious nature of the terrorist groups accounts for the increase in the violence of terrorist acts today. The study also intended to explore the relationship between terrorism and religion and to address whether or not there has been interrelatedness between religion and terrorism. Another purpose was to explore the scope of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and to examine how religion was exploited to disseminate terrorism and eradicate global peace and how the possession of WMD could influence global peace. The study employed a meta-analysis of literature which pointed out the significance of religion and the controversy as to whether or not religion triggered terrorist violence. Incidents such as 9/11, the 2005 London underground attack, Paris attack, and 2019 attack in New Zealand were analyzed to serve the purposes of the study. The findings showed the main triggers and incentives behi...

Violent Terrorism in the Name of Religion

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Many Muslims complain that the current news media focus on the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East and other parts of the world unfairly portrays Islam as a religion that condones the use of terrorism. Given the fact that throughout human history conflicting religious beliefs have often been used by adherents of all of the world’s major religious faiths as a rationale for the use of terrorism, there may be some justification for these complaints. Therefore, this essay will review literature and research published from1984 to 2005, which analyzes religiously inspired violence and terrorism by Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Jewish as well as Islamic extremists. It is hoped that a broader and deeper understanding of the root causes of various different types of pseudo-religious political terrorism might open the door to more constructive dialogues between religious and political leaders of all religious faiths on ways to reduce religiously inspired violent terrorism. It should also be noted that although many books and articles have been written about religiously inspired Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, three of the works reviewed here, which examine religiously inspired terrorist attacks attributed to all of the world’s major religions, were published prior to 2001.