Religious Terrorism: Understanding the Tactics and Strategies of Faith-Based Extremism

By Fouad Sabry

What is Religious Terrorism

Religious terrorism is a type of religious violence where terrorism is used as a strategy to achieve certain religious goals or which are influenced by religious beliefs and/or identity.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Religious terrorism

Chapter 2: Terrorism

Chapter 3: Militant

Chapter 4: Female suicide bomber

Chapter 5: Definition of terrorism

Chapter 6: Islamic terrorism

Chapter 7: Christian terrorism

Chapter 8: Religious violence

Chapter 9: Robert Pape

Chapter 10: Dying to Win

(II) Answering the public top questions about religious terrorism.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Religious Terrorism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: May 27, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Religious terrorism

Religious violence that uses terrorism as a tactic to further religious objectives or that is affected by religious beliefs and/or identity is known as religious terrorism. Mark Juergensmeyer, a sociologist, and others have claimed that religion should only be seen as an incidental role in this type of terrorism and that it is largely geopolitical.

The opinion of Juergensmeyer, religion and violence have had a symbiotic relationship since before the Crusades and even since before the Bible.: 4–10 Religion is sometimes used in combination with other factors, and in occasion as the main driving force.

Religious terrorism is closely related to present geopolitical factors.

According to Bruce Hoffman, there are three characteristics of contemporary religious terrorism:

To excuse or explain their violent behavior or to recruit new members, the perpetrators must cite religious texts.

Clerical figures must be involved in leadership roles.: 90

Perpetrators use apocalyptic images of destruction to justify the acts.: 19–20

Blood sacrifice and other significant symbolic acts connect acts of violence to religion and terrorism.

Global terrorism is supported by organized systems that promote holy war as the highest calling, as well as by legal, illicit, and frequently covert means of financing these systems, which occasionally utilize charities as fronts to mobilize or channel resources and money.

The first comprehensive database of all reported suicide bombings from 1980 to 2003 was created by Robert Pape. There is minimal relationship between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions, he claims, calling the news reports concerning such assaults gravely false. He draws the conclusion that political strife, not religion, is the cause of the 315 suicide bombings that have occurred over the past 20 years.

Writer Terry Nardin, The question of whether religious terrorism truly differs from political terrorism in terms of its motivations and causes is a fundamental one. Supporters of religious terrorism frequently utilize moral arguments to support their arguments. But because nonreligious terrorists sometimes employ moral arguments to defend their actions, the use (or abuse) of moral reasoning fails to discriminate between the two types of terrorists. Political terrorism can also serve as a symbol, and other forms of violence frequently involve a sense of alienation and dispossessed. In conclusion, one questions whether the term religious terrorism goes beyond being a journalistic convenience.

Mark Juergensmeyer, a professor, wrote, Religion is not always pure.

However, it usually does not result in violence.

Only an unusual confluence of events, such as political instability, can cause that to occur, social, and ideological, which occurs when violent social objectives are combined with religion, personal pride, and movements for political change.: 10

and

Whether one labels violent activities as terrorist depends on whether they are justified in doing so.

The use of the term is greatly influenced by one's worldview: if one believes that the world is peaceful, Apparently terrorist attacks are violent acts.

If it is believed that there is a world war, Violence may be justified under some circumstances.

They could be viewed as preventative action, as a defensive strategy in a conflict, or as symbols indicating to the world that it is indeed in a state of grave and ultimate conflict.: 9

Genocidal lunacy cannot be attributed to a specific ideology or faith, according to David Kupelian.

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Terrorism

The use of deliberate violence and fear to further political or ideological goals is referred to as terrorism in its broadest sense. In this context, the phrase primarily refers to deliberate acts of violence committed against noncombatants during times of peace or during armed conflict (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel). but during the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the Basque struggle, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, it became frequently utilized internationally and received widespread attention. The September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001 exemplified the rise in suicide strikes that began in the 1980s.

There are many distinct definitions of terrorism, and there is no consensus on it.

The Latin verb Tersere, which eventually became Terrere, is the etymological source of the term terror. The latter form first appears in European languages in the 12th century; the term awful was first used in French in 1160. The term terreur is in use by 1356. The Middle English word terrour, which later became the modern word terror, has its roots in terreur.

the adjective terroriste, which is terrorist, is first used in 1794 by the French philosopher François-Noël Babeuf, who calls the Jacobin government of Maximilien Robespierre a dictatorship.

Most academics today believe that the Jewish Sicarii Zealots, who assaulted Romans and Jews in first-century Palestine, was where the current tactic of terrorism first emerged. They trace its evolution from the Persian Order of Assassins to the anarchists of the 19th century. The Reign of Terror is typically seen as an etymological problem. Since the Anarchist Movement of the 19th century, the term terrorism has often been used to refer to violence committed by non-state actors as opposed to government aggression.

After a horrific battle, the [Directory] Troops eventually defeated the Citizens. They have a large, well-armed corps of irregulars to further secure them. They release thousands of those Hellhounds known as Terrorists, whom they had imprisoned during their previous revolution as the Satellites of Tyranny. (I added emphasis.)

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict caused the terms terrorism and terrorist to regain some of their former popularity in the 1970s, According to estimates, there were more than 109 different definitions of terrorism in 2006.

When a state commits terrorist attacks against its own people or another state, it is said to be committing state terrorism..

Any act intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act was defined as terrorism in a report from the United Nations Secretary-General in November 2004. Angus Martyn explained this to the Australian parliament and said, An agreed, comprehensive definition of terrorism has never been created by the international community. The United Nations' attempts to define the phrase during the 1970s and 1980s failed mostly because of disagreements among its members over the use of violence in battles for national liberation and self-determination.

Because of these differences, the United Nations has been unable to reach an agreement on a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that includes a single, all-inclusive, legally binding definition of terrorism under criminal law. A number of sectoral treaties have been ratified by the international community that define and make various terrorist acts illegal.

Since 1994, the UN General Assembly has consistently denounced terrorist attacks while referring to terrorism in the following political terms::

Whatever the political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious, or other justifications that may be used to justify them, criminal acts intended or calculated to incite a state of terror in the public, a group of people, or particular people for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable.

Different legal systems and government organizations define terrorism differently under their respective national laws.

Terrorism is described as Premeditated, politically motivated violence conducted against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine operatives in U.S. Code Title 22, Chapter 38, Section 2656f(d).

18 U.S.C.

§ 2331 defines international terrorism and domestic terrorism for purposes of Chapter 113B of the Code, by the name Terrorism:

Activities having the three qualities listed below are considered international terrorism:

involve aggressive behavior or actions that endanger human life and are prohibited by federal or state legislation; appear to be designed to: I intimidate or compel a civilian population; (ii) sway a government's policy by intimidation or coercion; (iii) influence a government's behavior through mass devastation, assassination, or kidnapping; and

predominantly take place outside of American territory, or transcend national lines in terms of the methods used, the targets they appear to be trying to intimidate or coerce, or the location where their perpetrators operate or seek refuge.

At the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Carsten Bockstette's concept of terrorism emphasizes its psychological and operational components:

Political violence in an asymmetrical battle that is intended to sow dread and mental fear by indiscriminately attacking and killing noncombatants is known as terrorism (sometimes iconic symbols). Such actions are intended to convey a message from a prohibited clandestine group. To affect the targeted audience(s) in order to achieve short- and mid-term political aims and/or desired long-term end states, terrorism uses the media as a means of magnifying its impact and maximizing its publicity.

Attacks against national symbols by terrorists may have a negative impact on a government while enhancing the reputation of the specific terrorist group or its ideology.

Political motives are frequently present in terrorist acts.

The term terrorism, which connotes something morally evil, is frequently used to disparage or vilify opposing parties, whether states or non-state groups.

Bruce Hoffman provided an explanation of why the term terrorism is misunderstood in his book Inside Terrorism:

At least one thing is universally acknowledged: the name terrorism is derogatory. It is a term with innately negative overtones that is typically used to describe one's foes, rivals, or those who one disagrees with and would rather ignore. According to Brian Jenkins' writing, What is considered terrorism appears to depend on one's perspective. Use of the term involves a moral assessment, and if one party is successful in branding its adversary a terrorist, it will have indirectly influenced others to share its moral perspective. Therefore, it becomes practically impossible to avoid being subjective when deciding whether to name someone or a group a terrorist, as it mostly depends on whether one supports or disagrees with the individual, group, or cause in question. For instance, if one empathizes with the victim of the violence, the act is terrorism. But if one identifies with the offender, the violent act is seen in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at worst, an ambiguous) light; and it is not terrorism. When a group adopting unconventional military tactics is a