Islamic Terrorism And Religious Terrorism

Religious terrorism is "inspired violence that is a type of political violence that is motivated by an absolute belief that an otherworldly power has sanctioned and commanded the application of terrorist violence for the greater glory of the faith." (Martin 134) These acts of terrorism are committed in the name of faith because it is what they are told to do and then are promised gifts in the afterlife. As it is thought Tamerlan’s individual radicalization was most likely connected Al-Qa'ida's Religious Foundation, in which to unite Muslims in a holy war. In the reading The Road to Boston it was stated that Tamerlan was connected to the Islamic groups in Dagestan (an area known for violent islamists). It is thought that Tamerlan had dreamed of taking part in the global jihad through the association with the Caucasus Emirate, in which he had gained his religious extremist faith following the values and beliefs of Al-Qa'ida. As it was shown

In the reading from Terror in the Mind of God, the author Mark Juergensmeyer aims to explain to the reader what religious terrorism is and dig deeper into why violence and religion seem to be tied, searching for “how terror could be convinced in the mind of God”. The chapters we read for class had a main focus of what terrorism is, what it is not, who is committing these acts of terrorism, and what is they are trying to achieve through the acts of violence. In the last chapter of our reading, Juergensmeyer reflects on how effective previous attacks have been and outlines the only options he sees available in response to our modern global terrorism.

Secular terror is anything that does not have to do with religion; however, religious tactics can be used to get ahead in secular terrorist organizations. Religious terror is based on the protecting, converging, and maintaining beliefs of a religion upheld by a religious terrorist group. Although different tactics are carried out by each different group of terror, they have some core features in common, such as emotionally evocative symbols, rituals, and myths (Alcorta, Phillips, Sosis, 2012). With their differences and similarities, the question at hand is which terror is greater? Religious

Without engaging contextual dimensions and other studies is bound to fail in understanding the complexity reality of terrorism ion the global level, especially on so-called Islamic terrorism. It has become a routine to associate terrorism to religion, particularly Islamic. Finally, a critical approach assesses why literature on religious terrorism has nothing connecting Christian, Hindu, and Jewish to terrorism. Thus, Islamic is regarded as a violent religion, where uncritical research escalates the situation that good in understanding new set of challenges in the post-cold war era. Current literature materials stereotype Muslims as terrorists irrational, violent and consider Islamic as a backward religion that turn an ordinary Muslim into a potential

This paper will discuss religious terrorism in particular. Religious terrorism can be defined as “the terrorism [is] carried out based on motivations and goals that have a predominantly religious character or influences.” (“Religious Terrorism”) An example of this will be the 9/11 attacks. It was “a series of four coordinated terrorist attack launched by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.”(“September 11 attacks”) This attack had led to a serious causality, “almost 3000 people dies in the attacks.” (“September 11 attacks”) Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, declared a “holy war against the United States” (“September 11 attacks”) In his “letter to America”, he stated the motives as follows: In opposition to western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia; supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir; the Jewish aggression against Muslims in Lebanon; the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia; U.S support of Israel and the sanction against Iraq. (“September 11 attacks”) The disastrous attack leads to a serious attention of re-constructing the old version of counter terrorism strategy, which had failed to protect the citizens against terrorism. However, ‘terrorism is far to complex for one solution to be effective in dealing with all the possible threats.” (Lygutas 146) Therefore, some of the measures have difficulties in balancing the rights of

Kingsley, Okoro. "Religion and Terrorism: A Socio-Historical Re- Consideration." Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 2.2 (2010): 550-576. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

The issue of popular support is further connected to terrorist group’s specific objectives, or goals. In general, terrorists motivated by a religious component are often associated with ‘apocalyptic’ like goals. Hoffman notes that these ‘apocalyptic’ goals, are in nature more violent when compared to the often more tangible political based goals of many secular groups. The association between religiously motivated terrorist groups and apocalyptic like goals is well known throughout academia. Jessica Stern’s book, Terror in the Name of God further references this connection. She is particularly careful not to equate these general end-of-time beliefs to one religion in particular. Instead she notes how such beliefs often span across multiple religions by noting their presence in various sacred texts across all three of the major Abrahamic faiths. She further ties back to Hoffman’s work when discussing how apocalyptic like goals often allow for more violence and destruction when compared to other terrorist objectives (such as forming a new government, or expelling a foreign nation from perceived territory). While Hoffman notes the specific constituency that secular terrorists must appeal to, Stern ties the lack of a needed supportive constituency back to religious terrorist goals. Because religiously motivated groups often seek the complete destruction of society, these groups are less concerned with long-term popular support, (beyond basic funding and recruitment needs.)

Religious terrorism occurs when the use of terrorism is systematized by an ideology and fanatical interpretation of a religious text. Terrorist group functioning in the absence of this pretext create junk. Religious terrorism functions on the basic of five essential principles. These are: means justify the end, holy war, blind obedience, absolute truth claims and the ideal times . Kimball explains that ‘truth claims’ are essential point in a religion “at which divergent interpretations arise. Extreme interpretations of ‘truth claims’ provoke the ideology upon which religious terrorism is based. However the “authentic religious truth claims are never as inflexible and exclusive as zealous adherents insist. The staunch ‘truth claims’ professed

Religious extremism is often assumed the major cause of terrorism. This assumption became justifiable in the minds of numerous people because the terrorist groups are frequently associated with a religious organization, such as Islam. However, the focus on religion deters from other plausible explanations that cause terrorism. Although, religious extremism is a popular belief of the cause of terrorism, I pose it is not a major cause of terrorism due to the errors with misrepresented claims and support, the overlook of material interests, and the motivational incentives.

Over simplifications of religion and violence often lead to misguided understandings and exaggerations of causes for why some people commit violence and why most do not commit violence. Overall, religious violence is perpetrated for a wide variety of ideological reasons and is generally only one of the contributing social and political factors that leads to unrest.” In other words, the entire society tends to find religious violence as terrorism. They tend to ask how there is people who can cause many danger and hurt others without being consent of how many people suffer from it. In the article titled “How We Misunderstand the Sources of Religious Violence” by Adam Garfinkle published in December 19, 2016 in the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the author states that “In these days and in this country, when most people hear the phrase “sources of religious violence,” they tend to conflate religious violence with terrorism, tend to assume that the principal source of that violence is “religious” in nature, and tend to focus their attention on violence perpetrated in the name of Islam. These conflations are

Terrorism is a political action ensued using violence and intimidation, yet has no correlation with race or religion; therefore, the assumption and stereotype that terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS are fueled by a ‘violent’ religion, Islam, is false. In actuality, Islam is built on altruistic and nonviolent principles, and unfortunately the majority of people seem to have unfairly institutionalized all Muslims as jihadists and anti-Semitic, even going as far as to deduce all individuals practicing their faith as terrorists themselves. This often bigoted and racist presumption had led to further conflicts, and ultimately terrorism coupled with the parochial views of many has made life particularly arduous for the peaceful Muslim Americans

Terror groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda have struck fear deep into the hearts of many Americans. Fear that has turned into hate and ignorance among these same people because they believe that the acts of less than one percent of an entire population have somehow translated onto the other ninety-nine percent. It is this same fear that spreads hurtful messages around the internet:

"Religion and violence" is currently one of the most recurrent themes authors write about due to the numerous terrorist actions that consistently occur. These incidents raise multiple questions that the authors of the articles tried to answer by treating different aspects that intersect with religion and violence such as politics and terrorism. The authors of these articles share a lot of ideas and assumptions while simultaneously disagree on others and try to explain certain aspects differently.

Have you ever had a fear for your family, your town, your country, or your world. How about the fear to have everything taken from you, destroyed, and not caring if it has hurt you or not? What about your fear and pain is, and can be someone else’s happiness? The fear of you being terrorized? That is terrorism. Someone else bringing fear and terrorizing you. That is a terrorist’s goal. Terrorism is common and is very difficult to stop. The government promises protection for the people, and their home, but they can not give that protection if they can not stop terrorism. Terrorism needs to stop to protect the live of the people, and their country.

Throughout history, there have been those who take a literalist point of view, interpreting texts and edicts at face value, and acting upon such statements with a very low degree of understanding. This has resulted in what is currently known as “extremism”, and has unfortunately become very prevalent in the world today. This can be seen through the many political and religious groups that misinterpret information and act off of their own beliefs in an attempt to practise a more radicalised version of their faith. While fundamentalism and extremism are possible in every belief and position one holds, religious extremism has become much more common in the present day. Religious groups across the world have been forming terrorist