RT Article
T1 Blasphemy and terrorism in the Muslim world
JF Terrorism and political violence
VO 29
IS 6
SP 1087
OP 1105
A1 Saiya, Nilay
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1870740262
AB This article examines the effect of blasphemy laws on Islamist terrorism in Muslim-majority countries. Although passed with the ostensibly noble purpose of defending religion, I argue that blasphemy laws encourage terrorism by creating a culture of vigilantism in which terrorists, claiming to be the defenders of Islam, attack those they believe are guilty of heresy. This study empirically tests this proposition, along with alternative hypotheses, using a time-series, cross-national negative binomial analysis of 51 Muslim-majority states from 1991–2013. It finds that states that enforce blasphemy laws are indeed statistically more likely to experience Islamist terrorist attacks than countries where such laws do not exist. The statistical analysis is supplemented with a brief case study of blasphemy laws and terrorism in Pakistan. The conclusion situates the findings in the context of policy.
NO Gesehen am 21.11.2023
NO Published online: 08 Jan 2016
K1 Blasphemy
K1 Islam
K1 Pakistan
K1 religious defamation
K1 Terrorism
DO 10.1080/09546553.2015.1115759