NCJ Number
101517
Date Published
1986
Length
7 pages
Annotation
The growth of terrorism in and from the Middle East should be considered within the context of the rise of radical youth movements that favored violence as a means of promoting their religiopolitical aims and the importation of the politics of liberation (politics as salvation or redemption) from Europe.
Abstract
This dichotomy between a tradition that insists on the supremacy of the nation of Islam and the demands of the modern, territorial secular State, has placed Middle Eastern regimes in a dangerous position. In Iran, for example, the dominant Shiite community of believers ignores territorial boundaries in seeking to extend its 'universal truth.' Conversely, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while having to permit an Islamic influence on their institutions and policies, do not recognize Islamic groups as alternate forms of government. The resurgence of Islamic identity has given rise to an increase in both domestic and international Islamic terrorism, a terrorism based on the belief that power belongs to the believers for use against the unbelievers and as a means of revenge against the perceived injustice of the infidel West. As the European influence receded, the return of the traditional politics of religiously justified violence became inevitable. The Islamic nexus provides those who perpetrate domestic and international terrorism with a justification; the doctrinal conflict between the Islamic world and non-Islam societies promotes terrorist conflict.