Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Is “Islamist” suicide bombing in the Middle East really motivated by religion?

Is “Islamist” suicide bombing in the Middle East really motivated by religion?

Last updated on: September 14, 2019 at 10:34 pm by Dan Peterson

Is “Islamist” suicide bombing in the Middle East really motivated by religion? 2019-09-14T22:34:34-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Inside Edirne’s Selimiye Mosque (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

My friend Dr. William J. Hamblin and I published the following column in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News on 11 July 2015:

The so-called “New Atheists” differ from previous generations of vocal unbelievers (e.g., Bertrand Russell and Antony Flew) by not merely repudiating the existence of God but aggressively denying the moral legitimacy and cultural value of religious faith. They’re fond of citing the great 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully,” he said, “as when they do it from religious conviction.”

And nothing has played so well into the hands of the New Atheists in this regard than the violence associated over the past couple of decades with fundamentalist Islam. It’s believers in God, partisans of the New Atheism observe, who strap bombs to their backs and fly airplanes into buildings.

“For good people to do evil things,” the outspokenly atheistic Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has famously said, “that takes religion.”

Of course, matters aren’t quite so simple as some imagine. Pascal himself, for instance, was a very devoted Christian, and Weinberg shared his 1979 Nobel Prize with Mohammad Abdus Salam, a devout Anglo-Pakistani Muslim who quoted the Quran in his acceptance speech.

But the fundamental problem with blaming religion for suicide bombings may surprise many readers: The data simply don’t support the charge. Not by a long shot.

In 2005, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago published a vitally important book titled “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” It’s based upon meticulous analysis of every suicide attack occurring anywhere in the world between 1980, when modern suicide terrorism began, and 2003.

Pape’s case is factually rich and rigorously argued. “The data show,” he concludes, “that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. In fact, the leading instigators of suicide attacks are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion.”

He continues: “Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective.”

Even in the Middle East, at least half of the suicide attacks between 1980 and 2003 had little, if any, link to Islamic fundamentalism; indeed, many such attacks were undertaken by Communists, secular nationalists and even Christians. The motivations were this-worldly, tied to national liberation. Those who carried them out weren’t impelled by poverty, alienation, psychological dysfunction, hopelessness or a pathological desire for death. On the contrary, by a very wide margin, suicide attackers turn out to have been relatively prosperous, exceptionally well-integrated within their communities, healthy and in no conventional way suicidal. Their acts were oddly altruistic and idealistic, however depraved others outside their community might judge them to be.

Why have we so misunderstood what’s going on? For one thing, we’ve paid disproportionate attention, in a sense, to suicide attacks in the Middle East; after all, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka target that nation’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority, not us. The West has no vital interests there, and little representation, and we seldom hear reports about Sri Lanka on the nightly news. So our sample is skewed. Moreover, although they’ve spoken openly, we’ve paid curiously little attention to what suicide attackers have actually said about their motives and goals.

The fundamental point of Robert Pape’s argument is strikingly congruent with the entirely distinct case made by Graham Fuller in his brilliant 2010 book “A World Without Islam.” We’ve summarized that 2010 book in a previous column: Fuller observes that today’s divisions between the (Islamic) East and the (Christian) West regularly trace the same geographical and other lines that divided East from West long before the rise of Islam in the seventh century (see “Is Islam a primary cause of international violence?” published Sept. 6, 2014).

In other words, what we typically understand to be a fundamentally religious conflict in the Middle East may, at its root, have relatively little to do with religion. And that, if true, has major ramifications for — among many other things — the way in which the United States and the West should conduct their foreign policy in and about the region.

“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble,” Will Rogers once quipped, “it’s what we know that ain’t so.”

Islamic fundamentalism

Previous Post

September 14, 2019

"Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions"

Next Post

September 14, 2019 "The Spirit of Elijah"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which northern king made golden calves for worship at Bethel and Dan?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ahab Jeroboam Jehu Omri