RT Article
T1 Framing the Intentions of Suicide Bombers
JF Religions
VO 13
IS 9
A1 Janowitz, Naomi 1955-
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2022
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1816893919
AB Despite the extensive information known about suicide bombings, widely-varying intentions have been used by many scholars to explain the religious motivations for the violence: these events are framed by participants as religious experiences, raising complex questions about the relationship between religious experience and violence. Recent studies use the vocabulary of religious studies—sacrifice, martyr, witness—to locate “cultures of violence” in a specific psychic structure, in a specific religion, or in religion in general; this paper compares three major studies that are representative of contemporary debate about religious experience. Ivan Strenski’s approach offers the broadest view, grounding suicide bombings in specific Islamic shaping of religious experience by a (non-normative) view of self-sacrifice emboldened by notions of jihad. Gideon Aran reconstructs a much narrower frame, a mutual attachment by bombers and their enemies around motivations from the redemptive capacity of blood (spilling and collecting). Ruth Stein psychoanalyzes the mind of a specific suicide bomber, Mohammed Atta, locating a complex web of love and hate as a motivation. These studies, each in a different way, demonstrate just how elusive the intentions of bombers remain and the sheer range of frameworks that might illuminate the aims of individuals who engage in suicide bombings.
K1 Religious Experience
K1 Psychoanalysis
K1 Islam
K1 Martyrdom
K1 Sacrifice
K1 Suicide
DO 10.3390/rel13090864