New Political Religions Or An Analysis Of Modern Terrorism

While terrorism has been used throughout the ages as a weapon in political struggles, there is an essential difference between groups who use these tactics for more or less rational political goals and those seeking more apocalyptic ends. Cooper argues that today's terrorists have a spiritual perversity that causes them to place greater significance on killing than on exploiting political grievances. He supports his assertion with an analysis of two groups that share the characteristics of a pneumopathological consciousness - Anum Shinrikyo, the terrorist organization that poisoned thousands of Tokyo subway riders in 1995, and Al-Qaeda, the group behind the infamous 9/11 killings.

This book uses the theory of social movements and first-hand interviews to create a new analysis of religiously motivated political violence in the modern world. Examining the movement to restore Sharia law to a dominant place in the Egyptian government, the movement to make abortion illegal in the United States, and the religious effort to secure territory in Israel, the author contends that religion becomes violent not because of ideology or political context alone, but because of the constantly evolving relationship between them. The ebb and flow of opportunities for political access ensures that secularization and religion, although polar opposites, depend on each other to define themselves. As a result, while their respective degrees of influence will inevitably undulate over time, both will remain a part of the political process for some time. Thus, a full understanding of both is critical to a meaningful understanding of the political process. Much work has been done to understand secular social movements as part of the political process, and consequentially researchers now know a great deal about the motivations, resources and timing of secular social movements. Considerably less research has been done in the field of religious social movements and this book fills that gap in the literature. This book will be of great interest to students of political violence, religion, sociology, and Politics and International Relations in general. Jennifer Jefferis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government, Regent University, USA, and has a PhD in Political Science from Boston University.

Terrorism and political violence have invariably accompanied the progressive modernization of states; a socio-cultural reaction to the problems of social change and development. To understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to consider the nature of traditional society and how it differs from modernity. Starting with a basic history of modern terrorism, James Dingley uses a Durkheimian sociological framework to dissect the role of social relations, culture and religion in impelling men and women to defend their socio-cultural context with violence against the challenge of external forces. Placing emphasis on a historical and social understanding of violence and key issues such as nationalism, religion, science, the Enlightenment and Romanticism for understanding terrorism in all its forms, this book allows for a more critical examination of terrorism as a response to changes in the organization and cultural goals in a society. It is a decisive contribution to our understanding of the political and social relevance of terrorism as we know and experience it today.

In compiling this annotated bibliography on the psychology of terrorism, the author has defined terrorism as "acts of violence intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious or political objective." The principal focus is on nonstate actors. The task was to identify and analyze the scientific and professional social science literature pertaining to the psychological and/or behavioral dimensions of terrorist behavior (not on victimization or effects). The objectives were to explore what questions pertaining to terrorist groups and behavior had been asked by social science researchers; to identify the main findings from that research; and attempt to distill and summarize them within a framework of operationally relevant questions. To identify the relevant social science literature, the author began by searching a series of major academic databases using a systematic, iterative keyword strategy, mapping, where possible, onto existing subject headings. The focus was on locating professional social science literature published in major books or in peer-reviewed journals. Searches were conducted of the following databases October 2003: Sociofile/Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJ Abstracts), Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI), National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRS), PsycInfo, Medline, and Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). Three types of annotations were provided for works in this bibliography: Author's Abstract -- this is the abstract of the work as provided (and often published) by the author; Editor's Annotation -- this is an annotation written by the editor of this bibliography; and Key Quote Summary -- this is an annotation composed of "key quotes" from the original work, edited to provide a cogent overview of its main points.

Long before September 11, 2001, Daniel Pipes publicly warned Americans that militant Islam had declared war on America--yet sadly, Americans failed to take heed. The publication of Militant Islam Reaches America finally brought Pipes the attention he deserves. Dividing his work into two parts, Pipes first defines militant Islam, stressing the large and crucial difference between Islam, the faith, and the ideology of militant Islam. He then discusses the relatively new subject of Islam in the United States, and how it has developed rapidly in the last decade. In Militant Islam Reaches America, the product of thirty years of extensive research, Pipes provides one of the most incisive examinations of the growing radical Islamic movement ever written.The paperback edition includes a new essay, "Jihad and the Professors."

"Is terrorism crime or war? Can there be a 'war against terrorism'? In this fully updated edition, Charles Townshend unravels the questions at the heart of the problem of terrorism - its causes, methods, effects, and limitations - suggesting that it must be understood as a political strategy whose threat can be rationally grasped and answered"--Publisher's description.

Fifteen years after the tragic events of 9/11, bombs are still exploding and innocent people are being killed by terrorist groups in both western and Islamic societies. Most of these sinisterly threatening events are motivated by religious claims, or are taking place in religiously affected places. Is religion the main cause of terrorism, or does terrorism still arise because of leaders who brainwash and coach future terrorists so that they kill under the banner of religion? The religious imagination seems to hold here an influential power in the creation of ‘delusion’ to orient the ‘bigot’ believers toward fulfilling their religious duty against those who are religious in a different way or are not religious at all. Religion, in this sense, is tightly allied with political aspirations. In spite of the religious justification of the act of killing, ‘enlightened’ religious leaders and religious-minded people believe and argue that religion is a source of love and affection. Therefore, the sacred texts of religious tradition must be read from a ‘humanist’ perspective because the ultimate message of religion is about the appreciation of the principle of humanity. This is a growing attitude among many religious people today who believe that God is merciful and compassionate, and never orders resentment, violence, and killing of innocent people. In addition, no true religious tradition appreciates self-serving interpretations promoting violence against others. If religion disregards love, affection, and compassion as its essence, it drops into the dire vortex of ideological dogma, as it is in the case for the Taliban, ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabab. Therefore, any interpretation that admits violence and killing would be a mere provincial reading of the religious texts agitated by purposeful intentions aimed at political goals. This book investigates and addresses the root causes of terrorism from a religious studies perspective. The themes analysed and discussed here mainly include a range of religious and philosophical issues such as religious violence in scriptural monotheism, radical interpretations of religious texts, militancy and sacrifice, apocalypticism and terrorism, and religious terrorism today. The book brings together new approaches adopted by the authors to not only trace the causes of terrorism in various religious interpretations and realms, but also reach a common definition of the main religious causes beyond diverse perspectives, and advance solutions against religious-inspired terrorism.