Terrorism Psychology

Jihad violence first began in the 8th century when Muhammed Qassim ordered his men to kill millions of Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Zorvastrains and destroy their places of worship. (Suseelan, 2009) It is this ideology that still fuels Jihad hatred and violence. In Muslim communities, Jihad is commonly associated with abductions, bombings, kidnapping, murder, drug distribution, and gang violence, as well other criminal activities. (Suseelan, 2009) The cultural background of the average criminal is different than those with a terrorist mentality and this background heavily impacts criminal behavior, but the motivation behind the acts is not the same.

This paper will seek to understand what really motivates terrorists to commit the acts that make them so infamous. We are assuming that the chief motivating factor behind the decisions of terrorist organizations is the political outcome of their acts balanced against the risk and collateral damage inflicted to achieve this end. We will also weigh in the appeal of terrorism on potential recruits in weak states and determine how the motivations of the group become the motivation of the individual and how this benefits the decentralized organization of terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.

A multitude of factors contribute to any type of reasoning or psychological makeup of an individual; whether it is a person’s history of behavioral problems, inability to maintain a functional relationship, or in this case becoming part of a terrorist organization. In Sarah Kershaw’s “The Terrorist Mind: An Update”, we are able to see what drives a person to commit acts of terror where it is praised in a given community.

Al Qaeda uses this imagined war as a rallying cry to convince a small minority in the Muslim world to join its cause, as well as a justification for its actions – casting them as a “defensive jihad” against the enemies of the faith. In situations when the faith is attacked, according to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “each Muslim has an individual obligation to join the battle … this must be done by all Muslims,” and as Todd Helmus writes, “Al Qaeda thus calls Muslims to Islam 's defense.” (121)

Terrorism is a difficult issue to understand and grasp for many people. What is even more difficult to understand is what drives an individual to become radicalized to the point of joining a terrorist organization and committing terrorist acts. While there is not specific criteria or a “cookie cutter” approach to understanding what motivates and radicalizes an individual to participate in such atrocities, there are however, several psychological and behavioral factors that have been common among these individuals. The following paper will outline some of the psychological and behavioral factors that attribute to an individual’s radicalization and eventual willingness and even perhaps

Source: CNN
Synopsis: According to the online article, The psychology and neuroscience of terrorism, director of forensic psychiatry at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences stated that, “Fear is the primary psychological weapon underlying acts of terrorism. It is this fear, or the anticipation of future acts of terror, that can have serious effects on our behavior and minds,” such as the way we think, change the production level of hormones with our body, as well as alter the decisions we make. As a result, chronic stress begins to affect our ability to reason, problem solve, as well as how to respond to a fight-or-flight moment; therefore, human beings become desensitized

What do we think of when you hear the word terrorism around the globe? The answer that many people may give to this question is that it has to deal with killing of innocent people, the handling of guns, and destroying homes. Some may even ask the question, who is responsible for such actions. The answer that many give to this question would be that it is an act by the Muslims. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, massacred millions of innocent Jewish people just so he could prove what his power was to the Jewish people. The action of terrorism does not necessarily come from the Muslims. Rather, the actions stem from a decision of an individual with a corrupted mind which leads them into thinking that these actions of terrorizing and killing innocent people is an acceptable thing to do.

In the recent past terrorism, especially in politically and economically unstable regions, brings a continuously growing threat for people from every color, religion or ethnic background. And also in rather safe areas, such as Europe or the U.S., people fear the threat of terrorism. For such inhumane violence a scapegoat is often easily found in Islam, the religion these groups affirm to fight for. Such belief can readily lead to condemnation of not only an actually peace loving religion, but also innocent minorities suffering under the perverted practices of liars. This discrimination cannot be tolerated, because Al-Qaeda, the most commonly known terror organization of the world, and their leader Osama Bin Laden, were founded on a political basis and find no countenance in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. The organization Al-Qaeda, following terroristic ideas and claiming to operate as surrogate for Islamic values, simplifies and intentionally misinterprets and shortens verses of the Quran, actually having no close connection to Islamic ideas, only claiming to do so in order to use it as a weapon to attack the United States and to convince potential followers to join the ' 'holy ' ' war fighting of Al Qaeda.

There are many things can be seen in the psychology of terrorism. Unfortunately there is not good science on psychological factors of terrorism; there are theories and educated opinions (DeAngelis, 2009). The one overarching factor is the fear with which terrorism is based. By definition, terrorism is acts that cause terror by one group on to another, usually for political goals (“Terrorism”, n.d.). Why people suffer from these fears is related to their psychological behavior. Terrorist activity can be described as “fostering a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, in demonstrating the incompetence of the authorities, destroying a sense of security and safety, and in provoking inappropriate reactions from individuals and authorities.” (Alexander & Klein, 2005). Terrorists themselves are affected by psychological behavior; their own and that of others around them. They may even be affected by the behavior of victims and potential victims. Osama Bin Laden has even been known to admit that in the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, his

The Islamic faith has come under (unjust) mass scrutiny within the last thirty years with the rise of religious extremist terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda (AQ), Boko Haram and ISIS that use the principle of ‘jihad’ as motivation for their violence. Although we are right to fear these groups for their hatred of secular society and their willingness to murder (what Western society considers to be) innocent people, the Western world is at fault for sensationalizing and generalizing one billion Muslim believers as terrorists, which is simply not the case. Because of major terrorist attacks executed by the aforementioned groups within the last seventeen years (for example, 9/11, the 2014 shooting at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the 2015 Charlie

Terrorism is one of the greatest threats facing humanity in the modern society. There has been an increase in the number of terrorist organizations and terror attacks that are conducted by groups in pursuit of divergent ideologies (Burleigh, 2009). Since the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, terrorism has been recognized as a serious problem that calls for a global and coordinated response by governments across the world. Many countries have invested heavily in intelligence-gathering and purchase of hardware and technology needed to detect and neutralize terrorist attacks. However, this has not stopped the threat faced from terrorism and these attacks continue unabated

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines terrorism as; “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal, or the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”. Keep in mind that there are several definitions of terrorism, and all of them vary in scope and execution. The psychological and behavioral factors of terrorism are a not product of an extremist socialization process, but a group norm, For terror groups who believe that violence or fear is a tool as a rational method of for success are immerse in their cause. The psychological and behavioral factors of terrorism can be a combination one’s life events. One’s

In the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 suicide attacks orchestrated by al-Qaeda, the 9/11 Commission Report “chose to… adopt a neo-Orientalist approach by locating Ibn Taymiyya as the root cause of the al-Qaeda phenomenon” (Lambert, 2011: 172). With al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, this terrorist organisation shall be the focus of the essay to ascertain whether or not the 9/11 Commission’s suggestion is supported. Section one shall explore Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings and the context in which he was writing in the 13th Century. Section two shall analyse arguments that support the 9/11 Commission. Following this, sections three, four and five shall examine sources that challenge the notion that Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings are the root of modern Muslim terrorism, due to contradictions with al-Qaeda’s ideology. Throughout, the essay holds that the origin of modern Muslim terrorism does not stem from Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings. The basis for this position is that the organisation responsible for the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda, has used his writings on the Mongol invasions to justify jihad against the threat of Westernisation despite al-Qaeda and Ibn Taymiyya representing “two forms of religious consciousness” (Heck, 2004: 117).

Religion teaches goodness and violence is rarely found, if ever, within the teachings (Winchester, 1). Terrorists, though, need a justification for their actions and so they must dig through scriptures to find a reason (Gibson, 2). Religion and terrorism is a major controversy because of all the different opinions and facts.

The root of modern ‘Muslim Terrorism’ does not reside within the teachings of a single theorist or scholar, as the term ‘terrorism’ itself is definitionally ‘problematic’ (Jackson, 2007, 195) and subjective, resulting from a Western discourse that seeks to ascribe a definitional blanket to a broad range of diverse organisations that invoke religious justification for their politically motivated actions, of which the causes are rooted within regional context. The report in question (9/11) claims that Al-Qaeda, ‘draws upon a tradition of extreme intolerance... from at least Ibn Taymiyya’ (362), yet this does not legitimately reflect Ibn Taymiyya’s ethical and political teachings. Whilst accepting that Al-Qaeda is ‘a network of networks’ (Gregory and Wilkinson, 2005, 2) that does not denote, in any meaningful sense, to a coherent philosophy or movement, this paper will demonstrate the disjuncture between Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings and the contemporary movements that invoke his teachings in their justification. The manner in which Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings have been engaged by the concerned organisations will be first examined. Following this establishment, this paper will address the discordance between Ibn Taymiyya’s ethical teachings and the actions of contemporary jihadi groups. This paper will penultimately display how Ibn Taymiyya’s political perspective does not correspond to the view held by those such as Al Qaeda. This paper will finally implore upon the imperative for