: This report consists of a literature review and analysis of the existing research concerning countering violent extremism. This multifaceted report demonstrates the complexity of understanding Violent Extremism and best strategies to Countering Violent Extremism. This has been undertaken with the broader analysis of radicalisation and social cohesion theories, models and government policies and how they may impact on or contribute to best practice and policy in countering violent extremism.

/pdf/countering-violent-extremism-cve-literature-review-1555h8a3i0.pdf

Jihad and martyrdom

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Literature Review

A total of 183 Canadian participants of different religious backgrounds completed the Belief Diversity Scale (BDS). The BDS is an 80-item, 6-subscale instrument designed to quantitatively measure the religious attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies of Middle-Eastern extremists’ on risk areas that are reported in the literature. The results demonstrated the reliability and validity of the BDS as well as indicated the prevalence of Middle-Eastern extremists’ ideologies among Muslim Canadians. Results were similar to those obtained from similar study completed on South African participants. These findings suggested that the BDS has the potential to be used as an objective tool to measure Middle-Eastern religious extremism.

The Prevalence of the Middle-Eastern Extreme Ideologies Among Some Canadians

In this article, I set forth conceptions of happiness ( sa‘ada ) from the Islamic tradition, and against this background, I discuss the failure to attain happiness in the modern age. The cumulative Islamic tradition attests to the importance of happiness to faith in God, and to the importance of faith to happiness. While the themes of knowledge, enlightenment, balance, peace, and knowing the other are central to the Islamic theology of happiness, the failure of happiness is embodied by the idea of jahiliyya (a state of ignorance). I argue that a crucial issue in considering happiness and the failure of happiness is how one understands submission to God, and that submission to God is not simply obedience or servitude to God; rather, submission to God means aspiring to and seeking the goodness of God, and liberating one's soul and being from a state of godlessness, or ignorance ( jahiliyya ), in order to attain a state of Godliness. To grow into and with God's love is the epitome of fulfillment, goodness, and happiness. However, when submission becomes a formulaic relationship based on generalized stereotypes about history, societies, and people, or on a stereotyped understanding of one's self dealing with a stereotypical understanding of an omnipotent but inaccessible God, unhappiness becomes the norm. Drawing on this analysis, I argue that in the modern age, the modalities of thought in puritanical movements have had a consistently demoralizing and dehumanizing effect that persistently undermines the possibilities for social and moral happiness, and thus, undermines the very purpose of the Islamic faith.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/6CA3B32E256B0EF4E3CF9CD554B77271/S0748081413000106a.pdf/div-class-title-when-happiness-fails-an-islamic-perspective-div.pdf

When happiness fails: an islamic perspective

The Belief Diversity Scale (BDS) was administered to 89 male Canadian offenders of different religious backgrounds. The BDS is a 33-item, sixsubscale instrument designed to quantitatively measure the religious attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies of Middle Eastern extremists on risk areas described in the literature. Results indicated that the Muslim offenders scored much higher than and significantly different from both the Christian and atheist groups on the BDS. Results also suggested the prevalence of Middle Eastern extremist ideologies among the Muslim offenders involved in this study.

The Prevalence of Middle Eastern Extremist Ideologies Among Some Canadian Offenders

Talebi’s essay emerges at the intersection of the state’s appropriation of martyrdom and the subject’s ethos and act of self-sacrifice, which exceed and transform that appropriation. Through a close reading of two letters sent from the front during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), it contemplates the complex desire of its authors to be simultaneously engaged political subjects and martyrs. The analysis attempts to illuminate the dynamic relationship within the official discourse and that which is reproduced through subjects’ interpretations and practices of shahādat . These interpretations are closely tied to the political and existential context of the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, which despite the harsh political suppression allows for an appropriation of the official views of martyrdom and their evasion, elaboration, or extension. It reveals how a pious citizen utilizes the voice of a martyr to subtly criticize the very state that endorses his views. It also exposes the complex relationships between citizens and state in the Islamic Republic as manifested in the key metaphor of martyrdom. The appearance of the same passage in another letter by another combatant unravels a disjuncture that provides insight into the subjectivity of those who fought and the shared and contested meanings of martyrdom in Iran after the revolution. The essay attempts to offer an interpretation of martyrdom that recognizes the dynamism and complexity of the subjects of the shahid and shahādat instead of reducing them to pathological figures.

Jihad and martyrdom

Citations

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Literature Review

The Prevalence of the Middle-Eastern Extreme Ideologies Among Some Canadians

When happiness fails: an islamic perspective

The Prevalence of Middle Eastern Extremist Ideologies Among Some Canadian Offenders

An Iranian Martyr's Dilemma: The Finite Subject's Infinite Responsibility

Related Papers (5)

Jihad and Martyrdom in Classical and Contemporary Islam

Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought and History

Striving in the Path of God: Jihād and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought. By Asma Afsaruddin

The meaning of jihad

Jihād : from Qurʾān to bin Laden