One of the central tenets of science is to define a problem to be studied with as much clarity as possible, and the key to clear communication is calling things what they really are. Unfortunately, both the American media and public intellectuals have failed to be honest in identifying what everyone in Europe knows is the primary source of terrorism in the world today: Islam.
Yes, there are political and economic motives behind terrorism in addition to religion, and most Muslims are not terrorists, particularly those living in Western countries. And of course Islam is not the only religion that can lead to violence, as witnessed in the occasional abortion clinic bombing by Christians, but I can’t even remember when the last one was. (I just checked: there were two in 2012, no injuries, three in 2007, also no injuries, a handful of inept attempts at arson in the early 2000s, with most serious attacks made in the 1980s and early 1990s.) Instead, most Christians who oppose abortion protest peacefully, as they did in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington DC that I happened upon on January 22, the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when I was in town on my book tour for The Moral Arc.
By contrast, a news cycle does not go by without a report of Islamic terrorists blowing themselves to smithereens, igniting car bombs and IEDs, shooting or stabbing so-called infidels and heretics, and cutting off the heads of or burning alive journalists and other innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. How common are these attacks? According to a preliminary report issued by scientists at the University of Maryland at College Park working at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Islamist terrorists stand out far above domestic terrorists on both the Far Left and the Far right. Utilizing data from the Global Terrorism Database, which has accumulated information on over 125,000 terrorist attacks from 1970-2013, including 58,000 bombings, 15,000 assassinations, and 6,000 kidnappings, researchers have been able to more carefully identify what the problem is, starting with a clear definition of terrorism: “The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation.” Their focus is on terrorism in the United States. Here are a few of their preliminary findings.
Waves of terrorist violence have flared up over the decades. Far Left violent extremists were most active in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Far Right terrorists were most active in the 1990s. And since 9/11 most terrorists are Islamist extremists.
Far Right and Far Left extremists tend to be loners and individuals with psychological problems, whereas “Islamist extremists tended to be part of tight-knit groups.” All three groups experienced similar rates of radicalization in prison.
Additional risk factors for all three groups included relationships with other extremists and romantic relationship troubles, but “only far right extremists had extensive previous criminal backgrounds.”
Violent Islamist terrorists tended to be young (between 18 and 28 years old), unmarried, and not well integrated into American society.
Most tellingly (for my point here) is that for both Far Right and Far left extremists, “religious activities and beliefs were negatively correlated with the use of violence,” whereas for Islamist terrorists, almost by definition, religion was the primary motive (why else would they be so labeled—the motive is right there in the name “Islamist”).
This graph, generated from the Global Terrorism Database by typing in the keyword “Islam” found a total of 5,704 terrorist incidents, the vast majority in the last couple of years, thereby confirming our intuitions that the trend lines match the headlines.
Additional data illuminates why violence may be inherent in the Islamic religion, to the extent that Muslims believe in sharia, especially the parts of the law that command corporal punishment for minor crimes, stoning for adultery, and capital punishment for leaving the Islamic faith. A 2013 Pew poll found these disturbing percentages of Muslims who believe that anyone who leaves Islam should be executed: South Asia (76%), Middle East-North Africa (56%, Southeast Asia (27%, Central Asia (16%), and Southern-Eastern Europe (13%). Why do they believe this? One reason is that most Muslims believe sharia is the revealed word of God: Pakistan (88%), Afghanistan (81%), Palestinian territory (76%, Egypt (70%), Malaysia (66%), Jordan (57%), Iraq (56%), Kyrgyzstan (54%), Lebanon (50%), Bangladesh (50%), Tunisia (44%), Albania (43%), and Russia (39%).
A 2009 Pew study found these percentages of Muslims who say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified: 43% of Nigerian Muslims, 38% of Lebanese Muslims, 15% of Egyptian Muslims, 13% of Indonesian Muslims, and 12% of Jordanian Muslims. A 2006 study found that nearly a quarter of British Muslims believe that the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London in 2005 were justified, and 28% said they hoped that one day the U.K. would become a fundamentalist Islamic state.
So when the Islamic terrorists who murdered the editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo shouted “Allahu Akbar” and proclaimed their acts to be revenge for insulting the prophet Muhammad, we should take them at their word that their religion is what motivated them.
But why is Islam caught up in this cycle of violence and not one of the other two great monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity. It was not always so. In the book of Numbers, 31:7–12, for example, Moses assembled an army of 12,000 troops to defeat the Midianites, who were allied with the Moabites in their desire to see the Israelites wiped off the face of the earth.
They warred against Mid′ian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and slew every male. They slew the kings of Mid′ian … And the people of Israel took captive the women of Mid′ian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, and took all the spoil and all the booty, both of man and of beast. Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses.
That sounds like a good days pillaging, but when the troops got back, Moses was furious. “What do you mean you didn’t kill the women?” he asked, exasperated, since it was apparently the women who had enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful with another God. Moses then ordered them to kill all the women who had slept with a man, and the boys. “But save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man,” he commanded, predictably, at which point one can imagine the thirty-two thousand virgins who’d been taken captive rolling their eyes and saying, “Oh, God told you to do that, did he? Right.” Was the instruction to “keep the virgins for yourselves” what God had in mind by the word “love” in the “love thy neighbor” command? I think not. Of course, the Israelites knew exactly what God meant (this is the advantage of writing scripture yourself—you get to say what God meant) and they acted accordingly, fighting for the survival of their people. With a vengeance.
Worse, the book considered by over two billion people to be the greatest moral guide ever produced recommends the death penalty for saying the Lord’s name at the wrong moment or in the wrong context, for imaginary crimes like witchcraft, for commonplace sexual relations (adultery, fornication, homosexuality), and for not resting on the Sabbath. How many of today’s Jews and Christians agree with their own holy book on the application of capital punishment? I dare say it is close to zero. That is how far the moral arc has bent in four millennia.
The reason, I argue in The Moral Arc, is the Judaism and Christianity went through the Enlightenment and came out the other side less violent and more tolerant. Ever since the Enlightenment the study of morality has shifted from considering moral principles as based on God-given, Divinely-inspired, Holy book-derived, Authority-dictated precepts from the top down, to bottom-up individual-considered, reason-based, rationality-constructed, science-grounded propositions in which one is expected to have reasons for one’s moral actions, especially reasons that consider the other person affected by the moral act.
The Enlightenment secular values that we hold dear today—equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity for all, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, civil rights and civil liberties for everyone, the equality of women and minorities, and especially the separation of church and state and the freedom to practice any religion or no religion at all—were inculcated into the minds of Jews and Christians (and others) in the West, but not so much in Muslim countries, particularly those who would prefer a return to the medieval barbarism of theocracies. Until we can take an honest look at the problem and stop accusing people of “Islamophobia” who are courageous enough to say what almost everyone else is thinking, the problem will not go away on its own.
I would suggest to Mr Sharmer that the reason that Christians (and Jews) have found it relatively easy to be more flexible in the theology is the following:
a) Christians never had any illusion that the Bible was dictated word by word by Jesus. Muslims do believe that the Koran was dictated directly by Mohamed who got it from the Angel Gabriel (who got it from god);
b) There is no violence (that I am aware of) by Jesus nor of him encouraging violence; Mohamed was personally involved in battles, encourages the taking of non muslim women captives “concubines” and worse;
c) It is difficult to assert that one part of the Bible is superior to another, which leaves a lot of room for debate. In the case of the Koran there is the important concept of abrogation, in which in the Koran itself Mohamed says that latter revelations trump earlier verses (god has the right to change his mind). The problem with this is that the earlier parts of the Koran are much more “love thy neighbour” than the latter verses, which are much more “go out and kill non-believers without mercy.”
My final point would be about the statistics of Islamic violence. I would suggest that pre 1990 it just was not reported as there was little integration of the world compared to today. I lived in Indonesia per 9/11 and there was regular violence against the local Christian minority, but it would certainly not have been reported in the western media.
have you ever read the coran !!! please try to be more rational don’t let felling change your mind read the coran again and ask help from muslims did they explain it to you and you will find the truth is not shame to find yourself make mistake but the shame is to close your eyes from the truth and in addition you speak about something you don’t understood the real meaning or you want to curse the coran just because you follow the majority in your state search search search
Some of us HAVE read the koran, more than once (Dawood translation twice, Ali’s once) and it is precisely that reading that lead to a deep dislike of islam. The notion that anyone with an aversion to islam is so out of “ignorance” is a comforting assumption I see moslems make online all the time…It is understandable that they would create and cling to that illusion, but it is nonetheless an illusion.
i read the Koran – and since then i hate islam.
@akka acute
The only important part Hugo Lindum forgot to mention is the concept of “taqqiya.” As a muslim I’m sure you know that this means you can (and should) lie/deceive in order to protect your religion or yourself from non-believers.
Other than that, after reading the quran (and parts of the hadith) I too agree with Hugo Lindum. There are fundamental differences that separate islam from all other religions, making it more primitive, more totalitarian, more violent and more resistant to change/enlightenment.
Personally I don’t believe in gods or deity, but the other religions are at least more peaceful and tolerant of people and opinions that differ from their own beliefs.
I have read the Coran (sic).
Have you read it? Most muslims have not. All they have done is memorised it like little parrots leaning back and forth in a language they cannot understand. I say to you one word: abrogation.
Hey, Muslims: Learn English before posting here.
Hey, read a real Qoran instead of a Christian-made one
Sir:
A) Strictly true, but there are many Christians (Protestants of various flavors in particular) who believe the Bible is the “inspired, inerrant Word of God.” Maybe Jesus didn’t write the Bible for them, but God did.
B) “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother….” — Matthew 10:34 ff.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” — Luke 14:26
While they need to be placed in their historical and literary contexts like any other text, these “hard sayings” of Jesus have made Christians itch for a long time. Jesus is not always the warm and fuzzy figure that many Christians and other seemingly contradictory texts make him out to be. And there might not be so much violence, as we’re using that term here, in the name of Jesus, but there is plenty of hate in his name.
My point though was that Jesus of Nazareth is not quoted in the bible as encouraging violence, whereas Mohammed did. If the quote you had given from Matthew had been from Jesus himself, do you not think it would have more force?
A thought experiment: if Jesus had been a warlord and not a carpenter, would this not have had a serious effect on Christianity, and the worldview of Jesus himself?
There are also other incidents that lead me to believe that Jesus could give way to unjustifiable wrath. The cursing of the fig tree that did not bear fruit, and more particularly the overturning of the money changers in the Temple of God. The latter was a singularly sedicious and anarchistic thing to do, and was bound to lead to trouble with the authorities.
@Martin That is of course true, though I would hardly put jesus and muhammeds actions in the same category.
One known for civil vandalism, and swearing at a tree, compared to one who made military campaigns.
I personally take from this, that the first is a sort of anarchist leader :) ,and the second a conquering general/
It follows thus from my view point, that if the first can inspire all sorts of horrors, the same can and will come true for the latter. Its for me even likely, that the bad shit will be on a greater scale compared to the circumstances and opportunities.
A oouple of issues, one smallone larger:
-Palestine is not a territory. It is an occupied nation. Refer to it as Palestine.
-The largest, deadliest terrorist organization in the world is the US government. This is inarguable and should be noted. I know that is the thrust of your story, but even all of the religious expired acts totaled up are a rounding error compared to what the US government does. While not totally inspired by religion, GW Bush was a devout christian.
Recall, sir, that the article defines terrorism by excluding the acts of a state, which by strict definition would be acts of war. Now, no doubt the US wages war in many places, and it maintaining its empire has done so for a good while. That makes it a warring organization, not a terrorist one.
John Smith: If you think the US is a terrorist organization, then you need to learn what the definition is of terrorism, because you are seriously mistaken.
It’s been a debatable topic even in the united nations (i.e. definition of terrorism)
It is only because we live in a free society that you can post your ridiculous comments, John Smith – surely not your real name ! It is turning the common sensical use of language on its head to suggest that the USA is a terrorist organization or state (in spite of all the mistakes that have been made). And what gives you the right to categorically call the Palestine territories a nation ? Read your history : there has never actually been an independent Palestine. (Which is not to say there never should be).
Sam Harris’ response to this Chomskyite idiocy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBwpukN7Pf8
In brief, by completely ignoring intention and just comparing civilian body counts