Religion, Violence and
Terrorism:
History, Ideology, and
Globalization
James Wellman
SIS 201. February 25, 2009
Associate Professor,
Comparative Religion Program
Jackson School of International Studies
Jessica Stern,
“Terror in the Name of God”
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“Writing this book has helped me to understand that
religion is a kind of technology. It is terribly seductive
in its ability to sooth and explain, but it is also
dangerous. Converts such as the one I visited as a child
(a Christian saint) make good people better, but they
don’t necessarily make bad people good. They might
even make bad people worse.” xxvii
Religion in the Modern World: Three Types of
Relation to State Powers
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Religion has capacity to sustain states, legitimize their defense,
creating forms of just war, preemptive war (crusades/jihad) (US
Iraq War, Umayyad Empire)
Religion has the capacity to mobilize and motivate small groups
to resist states—that is act as non-state actors (secret cells) to
undercut and even overthrow political oppression (Algeria, Iran)
Occasionally, religion can mobilize and motivate nonviolent
resistance in states (Gandhi’s India) or against states, Martin
Luther King’s African American Christian liberation movement
for American Civil Rights against the US government
My own Definition of Religion
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Religion is a system of symbols,
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composed of beliefs,
embodied in ritual practices,
developed in a communal setting,
often institutionally legitimated,
which negotiates and interacts with a power or force that is experienced
as within and beyond the self and group;
this power or force is most often referred to as god/spirit or gods/spirits.
The symbolic and social boundaries of religion mobilize group identity;
create conflict and, more rarely, violence within and between groups.
What are the sources of religion’s power?
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Affective events/experience
Plausible, though non-verifiable truth claims and
rewards
1. Affective Events: Internal Combustion Engine of
Religion
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The powerful affective events and experiences of
religion, embodied in ritual action and mystical practice,
formulated through systems of belief and story.
(Creates an engine that never runs out of fuel).
This nexus of experience and practice a core of
religion’s internal combustion engine that fuels
individual leaders and their groups—whether
persecuted minorities or majorities.
2. Truth Claims: Pistons in the Engine
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Truth claims are the second piston of the religious
engine
Claims to truth. What is the truth is based on, faith
Confidence is always the big issue for religion/ spiritual
experience
Thus, leadership must nurture confidence, spiced with
this worldly and other worldly rewards
Rewards are non-empirical but cannot be disconfirmed
What is the Source of Religious Violence?
Worldview, Leadership and Context
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Complex mixture of religious worldview, cultural context and
religious leadership.
 Religions are extraordinarily flexible and plastic, depending
on context and leadership; isomorphic—shadowing/dancing
with social systems
 David Martin: “Religion and state are isomorphic.”
 Religion often mimics power; partnering with it and at times
resisting it.
 Religion/state partnership, powerful aphrodisiac—both
become greedy for power.
What is the Source of Religious Violence?
Worldview
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Religious Worldview that creates violence:
 Religious worldview-cosmology has symbolic resources to
create total religious world
 Religious worldview can be this-worldly or other-worldly
 The transcendental demand (hope) that the cosmic
religious vision become embodied, politically/culturally
What is the Source of Religious Violence?
Leadership
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Religious Leadership
 Most often led by young and aggressive male leadership
that is educated with access to material resources; second
level elites
 Belief that they have become agents of the vision
 Belief that the vision demands human initiative
 Belief that the cosmic visions rationalizes the use of
violence for a larger moral imperative; Soren Kierkegaard,
“Teleological suspension of the ethical.”
What is the Source of Religious Violence?
Cultural Context
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Cultural Context that facilitates/shapes violence
 Partnership between religious state and religion;
suppression of any alternative forms of religion
 Secular state with religious majority; minority other
religions are suppressed
 Secular state that enforces a majority religion; minority
religions are suppressed, some religions become energized
by persecution
Religion: From Tribe to State
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Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates
of Human Societies (Norton, 2005)
In bands and tribes (small human groups), no need
for institutionalized religion
 But in chiefdoms and states (groups over 50,000)
division of labor takes over, specialization,
institutionalized religions arrives—what’s its
purpose?
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Religion: From Tribe to State
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Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates
of Human Societies (Norton, 2005)
States are forms of kleptocracy: centers of powers
that take from margins to sustain/enrich themselves
 This needs justification, for Diamond,
institutionalized religions do the work of legitimation
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Religion: From Tribe to State
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Jared Diamond’s Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates
of Human Societies (Norton, 2005)
Religion creates ritual, temples are built, and a
hierarchy is sacralized to support the powers that be
 Two benefits:
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Religions provide a reason for a state populace not to kill
those who are unrelated by kinship
 Religious ideologies give people a reason to sacrifice
themselves for the sake of the groups (tribes/bands don’t
do sacrificial patriotism)
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Religion, Terror and Public Policy
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“Any policy that seeks to conquer Muslim
societies in order, deliberately, to transform their
culture is folly.” Robert Pape, Dying to Win,
(Chicago 2005).
No suicide terrorism in Iraq in its history;
03: 20; 04:50; 05:75; 06/07: hundreds?
 Not ideology, but occupation
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What is Suicide Terrorism?
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Suicide
Egoistic
 Altruistic
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What is Suicide Terrorism?
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Terrorism
Violence (verbal/physical) by organization, other
than a national government to intimidate a target
 Gain supporters/ coerce opponents
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Demonstrative
 Destructive
 Suicidal
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Cause of Suicide Terrorism?
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Political Occupation: control of local
government
Religious Difference:
Demonizing: Enemy
 Ideology of us vs. them
 Essentializes national identity
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History of Suicide Terrorism: Rare
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Jewish Zealots, 66 ce – 70
Zealots was also
known in Latin
as sicarii,
"daggermen“
 Killing collaborators
 Killing Romans,
 Inciting rebellion
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A drawing of Herod's Temple
in Jerusalem
Ismaili Assassins: 12th Century
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Northern Iran; Muslim order, Hashshashin
Offshoot of Shia order
Secret underground to destroy Abbasid Caliphate
Killing Sunni Muslim rulers; Nizam-ul-Mulk; attempts
on Salidan; finally, decimated by invading Mongols
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Terrorize and overcome ‘felt’ occupation
Intimidate and create fear
De-Throne a corrupt form of religion—collaborators or what
they called, “impious usurpers.”
Statue of Saladin at the Damascus citadel
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Northern Iran; Muslim order, Hashshashin
Shia order
Secret underground destroy Abbasid Caliphate
Killing Muslim rulers; Nizam-ul-Mulk; attempts
on Salidan
Statue of Saladin at the Damascus citadel
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Ṣaladan c. 1138 - March 4, 1193) was a Kurdish
Muslim who was Sultan of Egypt and Syria.
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He led the Islamic opposition to the Third Crusade. At the
height of his power, the Ayyubid dynasty he founded ruled
over Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz, and Yemen.
He led Muslim resistance to the European Crusaders and
eventually recaptured part of Palestine from the Crusader
Kingdom of Jerusalem.
He did not maim, kill or retaliate against those whom he
defeated.
Japanese Kamikazi’s
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1944: Fearing occupation
3,843 pilots
 375 US naval vessels
 12,300 American soldier die
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Fear of occupation and attempting to intimidate
the enemy
Japanese Kamikaze: Mitsubishi Zero
about to hit the USS Missouri
Are these Group Members Deranged?
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Economically deprived
Social deprived
Cognitively limited
Psychopathological
 Costly but not crazy
 Intense but not brainwashed
 Social networks important
Aren’t Suicide Bombers Irrational/
Suicidal?
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No specific type:
Most often educated
 Married and single
 Male and female
 Isolated and socially integrated
 Most don’t exhibit previous suicidal tendencies
 One study found in ME: mostly highly educated,
coming from better paying jobs
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Suicide Bombing: Poverty?
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Most countries associated with terrorism
between 1980 and 2001:
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Mid range GNP per capita:
Algeria, 111
 Egypt, 121
 Saudi Arabia, 139
 India, 162
 West Bank, 112
 Extreme poverty, over 200
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Suicide Bombings: Islamists?
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315 attacks, between 1980 and 2003
Islamists associated with half
Tamil Tigers, 76/315, Marxists and secular
Kurdish PKK, guided by secular Marxism
Suicide Attacks, Less Rare, more
widespread
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Less interested in individual motives/ideology
Conditions that create attacks
Strategic logic: aims and goals
 Social logic: support by community
 Individual logic: persons prepared to die for greater
good
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Attacks Succeed
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Suicide car bombing by Hezbollah on US
Marines barracks, Lebanon, Oct. 23, 1983;
killing 241 Marines
US withdraws
1985/6 Hezbollah
attacks on Israel
in Lebanon,
partial withdrawal
Community Support for Bombers
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Most Iraqi’s/ Palestinians/
Saudi Arabians support,
believe in
Osama Bin Laden and his
cause
Endless supply of Bombers:
Paradise Now (2005)
Suicide Bombings: Aim
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Political coercion
Target states are primarily democratic; felt to be
vulnerable to coercion
Different religion
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Increases fear other will try to transform religion
Increases demonization, makes killing easier vs. civilians
Use religion to re-label suicide; overcome taboo against
suicide
Creates zero-sum game, no compromise
9/11
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Hijacked 4 planes
Two hit NY Twin Towers
One into the Pentagon
4th crashes in Somerset County, PA
2,985 deaths, including 19 hijackers
Hijackers: 15, Saudi Arabia; 2 UAE; 1 Egyptian;
1 Lebanese
1998 Al-Qaeda fatwa
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Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula
Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.
Supports abusive regimes in the Middle East
Has military bases upon the Arabian Peninsula, which
violates the Muslim holy land
Creates disunion between Muslim states
Supports Israel, and tacitly maintains the occupation of
Palestine
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda
Ideology of Islamists
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Protest movement against modernization;
secularization; westernization
Salafism, Sunni movement; no follower of
Iranian/Iraqi Shiism has become al-Qaeda
bomber
Salafi: Qur’an, Sunna part of Hadith
Not monolithic; Wahhabism in
Saudi Arabia, discourages violence
Ideology of Islamists
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Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, 1928, Salafi;
distanced itself from its most famous leader,
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966)
Ayman al-Zawahiri, joined Muslim Brotherhood
as youth, Egypt;
he and bin Laden both
dedicated to Qutb, revolution
Ideology of Islamists
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Salafi and political occupation key factors that
create suicide bombers
Salafi influenced nations, 233 million Salafioriented peoples, 48 al-Qaeda suicide terrorists,
1 bomber per 5 million Salafi
In non-Salafi, 205 Sunni Muslims, 18 al-Qaeda
bombers, 1 per 12 million
Roots of Terrorism?
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Not irrational; it has an object; it changes and
learns from mistakes
Religious Ideology? Pape says no; I say, hm,
Salafism is highly correlated with attacks
Nationalism? Occupation by “Infidels”
necessary variable for suicide terrorism; is
religion the sufficient cause?
Who is the Enemy: Terrorism and
Public Policy
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War on terrorism misses the context and main
causes of terrorists
Terrorists don’t become anti-American because
they are evil
Arab/ME nations before 2003, largely favorable
toward US; toward open markets/democracy
Who is the Enemy: Terrorism and
Public Policy
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After 2003, US favorability rating plummeted;
Why? Their evil? No, occupation of Iraq
2000
2003
Turkey
52
15
Morocco 77
27
Pakistan 23
13
Jordan
?
1
Felt or Real Occupation
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World’s five largest Islamic populations w/out
American military presence produced al- Qaeda
suicide terrorists, 1 per 71 million
Fifty Five percent of al-Qaeda’s bombers
(39/71) come from Persian Gulf region whose
population is less than 30 million, but where US
has had military troops since 1990
What causes the attacks
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Al Qaeda never attacked Israel
Hamas never attacked US
Hezbollah only attacked US when stationed in
Lebanon
These groups don’t coordinate attacks, they only
attack when their territory is occupied or ‘felt’ to
be occupied
Muslim Views on US Motives
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Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco and Jordan:
Believe, overwhelming, US wants to control oil and
support Israel
 That US not in ME to stop terrorism or to promote
democracy
 US military, overwhelmingly, threatens their
country…shadow of ‘crusader’
 Iraqi’s, Jan 05, 82 % near term US withdrawal
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Scholarship, Religion and Public
Policy
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“Any policy that seeks to conquer Muslim
societies in order, deliberately, to transform their
culture is folly.” Robert Pape, Dying to Win,
(Chicago 2005).
Another good book:
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Bruce Lincoln’s Holy Terror, (Chicago, 2004).