RELIGIOUS JUSTIFICATIONS FOR TERORRISM
RELIGIOUS JUSTIFICATIONS FOR TERORRISM

Summary/Abstract: religion; terrorism; fundamentalism; Islam; violenceIs there a religious ethos providing inspiration for terrorist acts? Has religious terrorism decisively imprinted the nature of new terrorism? The predominant not least controverted role of religion is one of the most important yet unanticipated phenomena of the new century. Religion is considered to be one of the central features and the predominant model for what has been labeled the ‘new terrorism’, although experts in terrorism advise that the other secular motivations, should not be completely eliminated from the picture. Religiously motivated terrorism also contains elements of secular terrorism and in some circumstances the borderlines between the two types are rather diffuse. While distancing from the general inconsistent claims that Islam is the exclusive exponent of religious terrorism one should not overlook a certain Muslim predominance of such terrorist acts. The predominance should not be analyzed strictly in terms of number of incidents and victims but to a deeper level in terms of sources and aims as they are likely to determine the future incidence of such actions. Clearly and correctly distinguishing the sources and aims is the sine qua non condition for efficient counterterrorist measures. In a millennium confronting a stringent, complex peril, that of the overwhelming phenomenon of terrorism, whose implications and consequences many times lead to insecurity and instability, and go beyond the immediate acts of terror to cause vulnerability or in some cases the relativism of civil liberties, more substantial efforts and energies are called to action.

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