Dying for Faith Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World

by Al-Rasheed, Madawi; Shterin, Marat

• ISBN13: 9781845116873
• ISBN10: 1845116879
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

From India to Iraq, from London to Lahore, the relationship between religion and violence is one of the most bitterly contested and casually misrepresented issues of our times. This groundbreaking volume brings together expert perspectives from a variety of fields to probe it. It seeks to shift analytical focus on to the contexts in which violence is expressed, enacted and reported. Ranging from Islam to Buddhism to new religious movements in the West,Dying for Faithoffers a comprehensive and highly original account of a complex phenomenon that has so far attracted sensational media coverage but scant academic attention.

Author Biography

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Professor of Anthropology of Religion at King's College London. Marat Shterin is a Lectuer in Theology and Religious Studies at King's College, London.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
List of Contributors	p. ix
List of Foreign Words	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xvii
Between Death of Faith and Dying for Faith: Reflections on Religion, Politics, Society and Violence
Understanding Religiously Motivated Violence
Apocalypse, History, and the Empire of Modernity	p. 3
Martyrs and Martial Imagery: Exploring the Volatile Link Between Warfare Frames and Religious Violence	p. 17
Violence and New Religions: an Assessment of Problems, Progress, and Prospects in Understanding the NRM-Violence Connection	p. 27
Of 'Cultists' and 'Martyrs': the Study of New Religious Movements and Suicide Terrorism in Conversation	p. 43
In God's Name: Practising Unconditional Love to the Death	p. 49
The Terror of Belief and the Belief in Terror: on Violently Serving God and Nation	p. 59
Religiously Motivated Violence in Specific Contexts
Rituals of Life and Death: the Politics and Poetics of jihad in Saudi Arabia	p. 79
The Islamic Debate over Self-inflicted Martyrdom	p. 91
The Radical Nineties Revisited: Jihadi Discourses in Britain	p. 105
al-Shahada: a Centre of the Shiite System of Belief	p. 111
Urban Unrest and Non-religious Radicalization in Saudi Arabia	p. 123
Bodily Punishments and the Spiritually Transcendent Dimensions of Violence: a Zen Buddhist Example	p. 139
Jewish Millennialism and Violence	p. 153
Reporting Religiously Motivated Violence
Sacral Violence: Cosmologies and Imaginaries of Killing	p. 167
Journalists as Eyewitnesses	p. 177
Understanding Religious Violence: Can the Media be Trusted to Explain?	p. 187
Notes	p. 195
Bibliography	p. 204
Index	p. 219
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