Sacred and Profane: Exploring the Relationship Between Religion and Terrorism

Article info Received: 25 April, 2021 Accepted: 26 May, 2021 Published: 27 May, 2021 Available in online: 27 May, 2021   *Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract Religious terrorism has become a global issue in the 21st century. Recently the world has seen an increasing number of religiously motivated terrorist activities. This article first attempts to explore the relationship between religion and terrorism, and then investigate why religion is often used as an influential tool of terrorism. The study also examines the factors that trigger young people to engage themselves in terrorist activities. This study follows a qualitative research design where primary data were collected through in-depth interviews with ten religious’ leaders from four major religions: Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism. Secondary data were gathered from various sources including journal articles, books, newspapers, and documentaries. The findings of the research reveals that a trivial number of deviated minds from various religions carry out terrorist activities by misinterpreting the verses of religious texts. Moreover, some interest groups influence young people in terrorist activities with the aim of serving their motives. Keywords: Terrorism, Religious Terrorism, Jihad, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity.

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