Understanding Religious Violence:

Radicalism and Terrorism in Religion

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Edited by James Dingley and Marcello Mollica

Understanding Religious Violence

Radicalism and Terrorism in Religion
Explored via Six Case Studies
Understanding Religious Violence
 James Dingley • Marcello Mollica
Editors

Understanding
Religious Violence
Radicalism and Terrorism in Religion Explored
via Six Case Studies
Editors
James Dingley Marcello Mollica
Queen’s University Belfast University of Messina
Belfast, UK Messina, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-00283-1    ISBN 978-3-030-00284-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00284-8

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 Previously Published Works

By James Dingley
Nationalism, Social Theory and Durkheim
Combating Terrorism in Northern Ireland (ed)
Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change
The IRA, The Irish Republican Army
Durkheim and National Identity in Ireland

By Marcello Mollica
Fundamentalism. Ethnographies on Minorities, Discrimination and Trans-
nationalism (ed)
Terra e società etniche divise: il caso del Libano del Sud
Bridging Religiously Divided Societies in the Contemporary World (ed)

v
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
James Dingley and Marcello Mollica

2 Classical Social Theory and the Understanding of

Contemporary Religious Terrorism  7
James Dingley

3 Religious Independence of Chinese Muslim East Turkestan

“Uyghur” 39
Chiara Olivieri

4 Women’s Rights Between Civil and Religious Laws: The

Lebanese Law on Protection of Women and Family Members
from Domestic Violence and the Religious Authorities’
Opposition 73
Benedetta Panchetti

5 Geopolitical Vector of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the Context

of National Security101
Yevhen Kharkovshchenko and Olena Bortnikova

6 The Case of Northern Ireland129

James Dingley

vii
viii Contents

7 Terror-Driven Ethno-Religious Waves: Mapping

Determinants in Refugees’ Choices Escaping Iraq and Syria161
Marcello Mollica

8 Being Ezidi in the Middle East195

Çakır Ceyhan Suvari

9 Conclusion213
James Dingley and Marcello Mollica

Index221
 Notes on Contributors

Olena Bortnikova is a candidate of philosophical sciences, associate pro-

fessor and a PhD student of the Department of Religious Studies Faculty
of Philosophy, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Her interests are in religion and politics, orthodoxy, religion and state
security. She has published in a variety of journals and has held a tutorage
in higher educational institutions of Ukraine for ten years.
James Dingley is a political sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast and
holds a PhD from the University of London. His main interest lies in
applying classical social theory to the analysis of ethno-national and reli-
gious conflict. He is a former NATO instructor on terrorism and has lec-
tured on terrorism in Queen’s, University of Ulster, and University of
Kurdistan-Hawler (Iraq), where he was also head of the Department of
Business and Management. He has published extensively in international
journals, published five previous books, and lectured around the world as
well as being a regular media commentator on various conflicts.
Yevhen Kharkovshchenko has a PhD in Philosophy and is Head of
Department of Religious Studies at the Taras Shevchenko National
University of Kyiv, Ukraine. His core interests are in ‘Sophiology’, Kyivan
Christianity, Ukrainian Orthodoxy and Sophia’s reception in the Ukrainian
intellectual culture. He has held a tutorage in higher educational institu-
tions of Ukraine for 35 years, during which time he has published widely
and presented at a variety of international conferences.

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Marcello Mollica holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of

Leuven (2005) and a European Doctorate Enhancement in Peace and
Conflict Studies (2007). He was a pre-doc Marie Curie at the University
of Ulster, an Intra-European Marie Curie at the University of Kent, a post-
doc and lecturer at the University of Fribourg and at the University of Pisa.
He is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the
University of Messina. His research interests include religious and political
violence, ethno-religious minorities, and political mobilisation. He has
conducted fieldwork in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Occupied Territories,
Eastern Turkey, South Caucasus, and Sicily.
Chiara Olivieri is a PhD student working as a Researcher and Professor at
the University of Granada (UGR), Spain, in the Department of Contemporary
History and Institute of Migrations of the UGR. Prior to beginning of the
PhD programme, she graduated in Sinologic Studies and Islamic Studies at
the University of Granada; she received her Master’s degree in Oriental
Asian Studies. She joined several international Congress conferences pre-
senting her topic of study “Sino-Muslim Identities”. Her research interests
include decolonial studies, Islam in China, history of Muslim communities
in China, Muslim identities in China, minority nationalities in China, con-
flicts in Xinjiang region, and internal orientalism in China.
Benedetta Panchetti holds a PhD in Law, Market and Person at the Ca’
Foscari University and the Fondazione Generale Studium Marcianum in
Venice, Italy. She is an independent contractor and research assistant at the
University of Notre Dame. She was a 2015–2017 fellow of the Catholic
University Center in Rome. She was a visiting researcher at the University
of Fribourg in 2016 and a visiting PhD student at Saint Joseph University
of Beirut in 2014. Her main research interests are religious minorities in
Middle-Eastern countries, personal status law, law and religion, interreli-
gious marriages, and religious conflicts.
Çakır Ceyhan Suvari is an anthropologist in Turkey. He worked as a
researcher at Van Museum for four years. Here he informed himself, espe-
cially about the Urartu period. Then he started to work in the Department
of Anthropology at Van Yüzüncü Yıl University. He completed his Master’s
and doctoral studies at the Department of Anthropology at Hacettepe
University. In both his Master’s and doctoral theses, he studied issues of
ethnic identity and conflict. He has written many books and articles on
ethnicity and conflict. In 2016 he signed a peace declaration entitled “We
will not be a party to this crime!” He was fired because he signed this
declaration. He is continuing his research independently in Istanbul.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

James Dingley and Marcello Mollica

Religion and associated religious violence has, especially since 2001,

become an increasingly topical subject, both in the media and in the aca-
demia. However, to anyone who has seriously studied the topic there
often appears to be a gross ignorance of the nature and role of religion and
different religions in both the public and the political discourse, which is,
perhaps, to be somewhat expected. More alarming is the often gross igno-
rance of the topic in academia, especially in the international relations and
security studies area that primarily deals with the problem of religious
violence. As an example, an American intern (Sean Hermann) working
with James Dingley at Queen’s University Belfast in 2016 reviewed all the
articles published in the top international security journal Studies in
Conflict and Terrorism on the topic of Islamic fundamentalism and terror-
ism since 2001. We found 36 articles via using a keyword search: in only
six of them did they define Islam, only two made any attempt to distin-
guish between any of the different branches of Islam and none of them
defined either terrorism or radicalism.

J. Dingley (*)
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
M. Mollica
University of Messina, Messina, Italy
e-mail: marcello.mollica@unime.it

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. Dingley, M. Mollica (eds.), Understanding Religious Violence,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00284-8_1
2 J. DINGLEY AND M. MOLLICA

For a top academic journal (albeit part of Rand Corporation) this does
not augur well for serious intellectual understanding of a complex phe-
nomenon that is supposedly posing a serious threat to Western society,
even at one stage an existential threat.1 It places understanding Islamic
violence on the same level as trying to understand violence in Northern
Ireland as simply between Christians, without understanding any of the
significant differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics that have
led to 500 years of religious wars within Christendom since the Reformation
(1517). Unfortunately, this latter point is also too often the case.
There is also a general failure in the Western modern secular age to not
only view everything solely from a Western perspective but also dismiss
religion as unimportant or simply a lifestyle choice that should not enter
politics or any other arena of public or political life. This overlooks the fact
that most politics is an extension of religious belief and values, thus phi-
losopher A.C. Grayling (2007; an avowed atheist) identifies the roots of
liberal democracy in the Christian Reformation—similarly in our market
economics, rooted very deeply in the New Light Presbyterian theology of
Adam Smith and his teacher Francis Hutcheson2 (Broadie 2007; Herman
2003). As such, when the West tries to export its ideas to the rest of the
world, it fails to appreciate the extent to which it is exporting its religious
values and structures (no matter how ‘successful’) into another religion’s
structure, system of beliefs and values. This somewhat naturally leads to a
conflict of religions, a cosmic conflict where one system does violence to
another and violently offends its God(s).
This then brings one on to the entire question of violence and its cen-
tral role in nearly all religions, even if purely at the symbolic level. Thus
sacrifice, especially blood, is common to most religions, the Gods live on
human sacrifices, the Gods are also above normal human constraints—
they make and break their own laws. Religion utilises symbols and cere-
monies to develop emotional and spiritual experiences, just like organised
military forces (Dingley 2010). Nearly all the studies of religion have
shown a clear relation between religion and violence that would run
counter to the normal layman’s view of religion as pacific and all about
love and peace.

1
For an example see: http://www.understandingwar.org/report/al-qaeda-and-isis-
existential-threats-us-and-europe.
2
Hutcheson taught Smith economics and was an ordained Presbyterian minister.
 INTRODUCTION 3

It is the aim of this collection of studies and ethnographies to correct

some of these misapprehensions so that the question of religious violence
can be better understood in both a wider and deeper manner—also, by
specifically placing greater emphasis on the Middle East and Islamic coun-
tries to alert the reader to a less Western-orientated perspective that does
not assume the problem purely from a Western position. Indeed, we
would go further and suggest the ignorance of much Western thinking on
(Islamic) religion, violence, culture, society, religion and politics, as sug-
gested in our reference to the above Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.
And this may be part of the problem for the West.
The book is based on a series of papers presented at a conference in
Milan (2016)3 and then rewritten and revised for this book. All the papers
were selected on the basis of representing a cross section of different cul-
tural and national perspectives (Italian, British, Kurdish, Turkish, Ukrainian)
in a variety of different locations (Ukraine, Northern Ireland, Iraq, Syria,
China, Lebanon, Turkey, Georgia). In addition, we include one theoretical
chapter examining the history and role of religion in social science analysis
so as to give the reader a general orientating perspective from which to
understand the following chapters. This in turn has enabled us to identify
key points in all the chapters of more general interest to an understanding
of the role of religion and violence in the contemporary world.
On a general level several key questions emerge; first, just how accurate
was Nietzsche in claiming that God was dead. In fact He appears to be
remarkably alive and fighting in many parts of the world. Does this imply
that it is Western secularism that has got it wrong? Perhaps the West needs
to rediscover God and how active He is in the world, rather than simply
dismissing ‘others’’ religion as we pursue our vested (secularised Christian)
interests. In the West we generally defer to ‘science’ and the legacy of the
Enlightenment (reason, rationality and objectivity) as our legitimating
value system, yet how different or morally better is this than religion? In
addition, we tend to forget how conflated science and religion originally
were in Christendom: God revealed himself via two books, the Bible and
the Book of Nature, and science was merely the correct reading of the lat-
ter to better understand God’s laws and so get closer to God’s will (Brooke
1991). Perhaps we have fatally forgotten this latter dimension in the West,
which is why we can no longer comprehend a religious imperative.

3
The 14th European Association of Social Anthropologists Biennial Conference, University
of Bicocca, Milan, July 2016.
4 J. DINGLEY AND M. MOLLICA

Another problem that emerges lies in much of the contemporary dis-

course of post-modernism and post-colonialism and their critique of
imposing universalising Western values. However, when it comes to human
rights, or more specifically (for feminists) women’s rights, this is exactly
what many post-modern and anti-colonialists do, assuming Western
(Christian) values should represent a norm. Thus the rights of minority
cultures and identities are vigorously defended against homogenising and
universalising Western trends, whilst defending homogenising local identi-
ties that would deny individual universal human rights. Perhaps there may
be universal values and standards that have an objective reality that make
minority cultures redundant and these values lie in science—that is not so
much Western as that an appreciation of them emerged first in the West, but
the West may misapply (perhaps through forgetting its appreciation of God).
Finally, we would note for readers’ attention that the primary emphasis
in this book is on the relational or structural aspects of religion, rather
than on the values, beliefs and ideas contained within it. Two key reasons
for this lie in the fact that this was what most of the papers presented in the
original conference tended to emphasise whilst also referring to values.
Second, given the current vogue for post-modern and/or critical theory,
this structural dimension tends to be, in our opinion, grossly overlooked,
especially given the etymology of religion (religio; Latin = bonds and rela-
tions). And if there is one thing we would emphasise, it is just this that it
is the bonds and relations contained within a religious system which pro-
vide it with its political mobilisation potential (one reason so many nation-
alist movements formed around a religious tradition). And in this lie the
seeds of conflict as opposing structures of relations, and the vested inter-
ests within them, clash.
We are not arguing that structure alone is important—merely empha-
sising it in this book. However, we are aware of the importance of other
dimensions, for example, sacred values and beliefs that inspire men to spe-
cific acts of violence such as sacrifice (of self or others), but in the space
and time permitted for this particular publication, there is not the room,
but we do hope to fill this gap in a future volume.

Bibliography
Broadie, Alexander. 2007. The Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Birlinn.
Brooke, John. 1991. Science and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
 INTRODUCTION 5

Dingley, James. 2010. Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change. Farnham:
Ashgate.
Dingley, James, and Sean Hermann. 2017. Terrorism, Radicalisation and Moral
Panics: Media and Academic Analysis and Reporting of 2016 and 2017
‘Terrorism’. Small Wars and Insurgencies 28 (6): 996–1013.
Grayling, A.C. 2007. Towards the Light. London: Bloomsbury.
Herman, Arthur. 2003. The Scottish Enlightenment. London: Fourth Estate.
 CHAPTER 2

Classical Social Theory

and the Understanding of Contemporary
Religious Terrorism

James Dingley

Introduction
Terrorism currently dominates the media headlines, often posed as an
imminent threat which the West (primarily the US and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation [NATO]) feel obliged to fight a global war against.
We are even told by some political leaders that it poses an existential threat,
invariably left undefined, at least to our (Western) way of life.1 Much of
this threat ‘realisation’ followed the 2001 Twin Towers attacks, which had

1
http://theweek.com/articles/697599/real-existential-threat-radical-islam: this is just
one example of a flurry of articles on the Web and in other media that suggest an existential
threat. However, saner voices have now begun to roll back this rhetoric; see: https://www.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/24/terrorism-poses-no-existential-threat-
toamerica. See also Dingley and Hermann (2017). Here we assume the term to be used as
implying a threat to the existence of Western life, society and democracy in generic sense,
since all terrorism threatens individual lives, as do motor accidents or ordinary murders.

J. Dingley (*)
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 7

J. Dingley, M. Mollica (eds.), Understanding Religious Violence,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00284-8_2
8 J. DINGLEY

no follow-up. Since then we have been constantly reminded by many

­politicians and security experts of the threat posed by Islamic extremism-­
fundamentalism-­terrorism-radicalism, terms often lacking clear legal or
academic definition (Dingley and Hermann 2017; Neuman 2013; Detter
2013; Saul 2006).
The year 2001 was a major atrocity and terrorism according to most
definitions. However, Western responses are more problematic, leaping
from counter-terrorism to security, including a global war against the pur-
ported existential threat. It also tends to assume Islam as posing the threat,
with implicit (negative) assumptions about it as a religion, which often
fails to acknowledge the role of religion in violence generally. Thus the
history of Christian violence and terrorism is ignored, for example, the
ETA in the Basque Lands or the IRA in Ireland/Northern Ireland, so too
is that of the role of most ‘peaceful’ of religions (Buddhism) in Sri Lanka
is ignored. Meanwhile the example of Roman Catholic, Orthodox and
Islam in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia offers an even starker
example of predominantly Christian political violence.
Thus, for anyone studying terrorism pre-2001, current counter-­
terrorism and political violence, particularly religious, poses serious ques-
tions, rarely asked. Consequently, just how novel and prevalent is the
current terrorist or religious violence threat? What counts as terrorism?
How is the assessment of the number and seriousness of relevant incidents
established? And myriad other questions, rarely asked.
Consequently, important historical, economic, sociological and anthro-
pological dimensions of violence (terrorism) become sidelined for a narrow
security and political analysis. The problem here is that security and politics
tend to emphasise a Western, rational individual model of behaviour, inter-
est and technocratic responses (Gupta 2001; Dingley 2010). However, this
frequently fails to understand the causes of violence, especially the role of
religion, and therefore how to effectively prevent and respond to it. The
Western security mind often fails to grasp the perpetrators (religious) mind-
set which leads them to violence (see Riches 1986, on the link between
perpetrators, victims and violence). However, for security industries this has
financial benefits: thus the European Union (EU) estimates the interna-
tional security industry rose from $10b to $100b in 2001–11.2 Meanwhile,
the American Department of Homeland Security (non-existent in 2001)
has an annual budget (2016) of over $41b and employs 240,000 people.3

2
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/index_en.htm.
3
https://www.dhs.gov/about-dhs#.
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 9

Such an industry may not welcome questioning the reality of terrorism

or the Islamic threat, or cost-benefit analyses of ‘security’. Many violent
actors, initially described as terrorists, may be just deranged or disgruntled
individuals seeking revenge on ‘society’ for personal problems.4 These
have always existed, always will and are invariably mental-health-related
problems. Meanwhile, terrorism, defined as politically or religiously moti-
vated armed conflict by mentally stable people, goes back to biblical times,
for example, the Sicarii or Zealots (Rapoport 1984). Hence, if we assume
there is a terrorism threat, what actually is it? The current vogue concen-
trates on Islamic terrorism (slowly being subsumed into radicalism),
closely related to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle
East and young Muslims in the West inspired by them.
As Detter (2013, p. 26) notes, radical has semi-officially replaced ter-
rorist in media terminology, indicating major problems of definition. One
suspects it is aimed at trying to understand how ‘ordinary, decent young
Muslims’ can turn against us ‘nice, reasonable, moderate, peace loving
westerners’ (who never violently invaded Muslim countries). Thus: Nice
(2016), Brussels (2016), Paris (2015), London (2005 and 2017) and
Madrid (2004).5 And, how can ISIS be so appealing to all those Western
Muslims wishing to join them? Meanwhile, our TV screens further rein-
force the image of Muslim violence and radicalisation. Coverage of vio-
lence in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years
has greatly enhanced an image of violent Islam, now invading the West.
Radicalisation is assumed as something only happening to ‘them’
(assuming radicalisation exists). This is largely, one suspects, because so
many Westerners are historically and culturally ignorant (which includes
being insensitive and ill-behaved abroad). Also, one suspects, because the
West too easily assumes its own values, standards and norms from which
to judge others. If one does not make these assumptions and then adds a
broader historical perspective, one can then look at (Christian) Western
behaviour as violent and radical, spreading terror and disruption around
the world—Afghanistan and Iraq being current examples or the Sykes-­
Picot Pact that carved up the Middle East in 1916–17 (Barr 2012).
The point is that terrorism, radicalism or political violence (all begging
better definitions beyond the scope of this chapter) are all old problems.

4
Dingley and Hermann (2017).
5
Dingley and Hermann (2017).
10 J. DINGLEY

More specifically modern terrorism dates back to the mid-nineteenth cen-

tury, and part of the response to it was the rise of modern sociology and
anthropology:

G.M Young once said that if one wished to characterise an age, it is always a
good rule to ask, ‘What were the people most afraid of?’ For nineteenth
century Europe the short answer to that question is provided by Charles
Kingsley: ‘Look at France and see!’ or by Ashley who complained in his
diary that ‘Revolutions go off like popguns!’ Nineteenth century thought
returned time and again to the spectre of the French Revolution and the
desperate energies of the mob. (Pearson 1975, p. 159)

Revolutions, street violence, mobs, political assassinations, terrorist attacks

and wars of unification or separatism, and international anarchist conspira-
cies have dominated political life for 200 years (Crenshaw 1995; Dingley
2010). This in turn helped stimulate the development of the social sci-
ences as a response (Hughes 1961; Nisbet 1996). These began to replace
religion as the arbiter of social order and meaning as economic (industri-
alisation) and political (nationalism) change disrupted the old settled
order of the ancien régime (Burliegh 2005). Especially this reflected a
concern for (social, economic and political) order, the flip side of the chaos
and disorder associated with political violence. Our modern stable order
precluded violence and conflict, making it social science’s core focus, when
previously high levels of war and violence had been regarded as normal
(Dingley 2010; Ong 2002).
Of particular relevance is how religion became a key concern in trying
to understand order, chaos and violence in classical social theory. For
Durkheim and Weber, religion was central to understanding such prob-
lems, whilst for Marx it played mainly a negative role. Yet even for Marx
religion was, indirectly, important, since it was the new industrial cities
that changed men’s consciousness away from a religiously interpreted
world. Hence classical social theory may already hold the key to under-
standing modern religio-political violence.

Terrorism and Definitions

As already mentioned, religious terrorism-radicalism is neither new nor an
existential threat; the Bible chronicles, even inspires it and other religions
are the same, for example, Thugee in India (Dash 2005) or Assassins in
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 11

Islam (Lewis 2003). Actually, the entire history of religion is studded with
violence, especially against unbelievers and heretics, thus: the Albigensian
Cathars (Pegg 2008), the burning of Jan Hus in Bohemia (Wallace 2012),
the Spanish Inquisition (Armstrong 2014) and the nineteenth-century
Fenians and their offspring, the IRA, who were wholly Roman Catholic
(Townshend 1983). Terror was a prime agent of religio-political control.
To this we can add the other terrorist groups of the twentieth century,
such as the ETA (Basque Lands), the secular Christian Baader-Meinhof
Gang (Germany) and the Red Brigades (Italy) (Crenshaw 1995).
Meanwhile, the act that instigated war in 1914 was the terrorist assassina-
tion of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary (Lyon 2015). And
the British mandate in Palestine was fatally undermined by Jewish terror-
ism against Palestinians (Bell 1977).
Further, if we are now to see terrorists as radicals, the situation gets far
more alarming. Thus we have radical Christian pacifists who refused to
fight or kill in war or who allowed themselves to be eaten by lions instead
of renouncing their faith. Meanwhile, it was two highly public Christian
activists (or radicals?), Bush and Blair, who tried to bring democracy to
Iraq and Afghanistan, in 2003, through violence. And whilst the West may
support Israel, few Muslims regard its foundation as anything other than
an act of terrorism against them (Cattan 1988; Wasserstein 2003).
Prior to 2001, there were a plethora of major terrorist incidents against
the West in Africa and the Middle East. These ranged from bombing
American embassies (Kenya and Tanzania, 1998) to attacks on Western tour-
ists visiting the pyramids (Luxor, Egypt, 1997). Meanwhile, IRA and ETA
terrorism continued well past 2001 (perhaps still ongoing). However, as a
leading expert on the law of armed conflict observes of the post-2001 world:

The scenario at present with regard to terrorists is strikingly different from

how terrorists were viewed before the 9/11 attack. Earlier, it might have
been convenient to attempt a de-limitation between terrorism and war; but
now terrorists have become main actors in war situations. The essence of
this form of terrorism is pronounced hatred of certain values, especially
Christianity and ‘Western’ attitudes,6 coupled with self-sacrificing perpetra-
tors who practice suicide attacks. (Detter 2013, p. 26)

6
This, one can only assume, is what is meant in discussions of existential threats; see
footnote 1.
12 J. DINGLEY

However, what is actually now so different? Suicide terrorism is ancient

(the Sicarii and Assassins), whilst the Tamil Tigers (Hindu) in Sri Lanka
and ‘radical’ Muslims in Palestine used the tactic long before 2001 (Pate
2005; Bloom 2005). The Second World War produced the Kamikaze,
whilst military histories are replete with acts of self-sacrifice for comrades,
regiment, Queen and country (Dingley and Mollica 2007; Dingley 2010).
Meanwhile, if we regard radical as interchangeable with terrorist, how
does one define Christ radically sacrificing himself on the cross? And then
there were all the other Christian martyrs who followed his example. After
all, the Romans tried to eradicate Christianity because it was regarded as
an existential threat to their order and imperium (rule) (Armstrong 2014).
What one means in law by terrorism has become increasingly murky
(Detter, above), which has increasingly grave consequences since 2001
and the ‘war on terrorism’:

Previously the lack of definition was legally inconsequential – no interna-

tional rights or duties hinged on the term ‘terrorism’. Since 11 September
2001, that has changed. The Security Council has required States to imple-
ment measures against terrorist acts and terrorists, according those terms
operative legal significance without defining them. (Saul 2006, p. 5)

Previously clearer ideas existed of terrorism as organised violence moti-

vated by political aims that did not conform to the rules of the interna-
tional laws of armed conflict. And although religion was rarely an overt
motivator, many of the nominally secular nationalist movements that uti-
lised terrorism had deep, implicitly religious roots to their identity, for
example, the IRA and Basques (Roman Catholic) or the Irgun and Stern
Gang (Jewish). The law was fairly clear; it involved bearing arms openly,
wearing recognisable insignia or uniforms, not targeting non-combatants
and having a recognisable chain of command. Most importantly, there
should be no democratic alternative to violence to promote a group’s
cause. In addition, legitimate categories of state and non-state armed
­conflict existed that included concepts such as war, guerrilla war, liberation
struggles or resistance to armed occupation, which were fairly clearly
defined: terrorism fell outside of these (Green 2000).
Consequently terrorism was violence outside the accepted norms and
laws of war, making it criminal, which changes if one conducts a ‘war’ on
terrorism. War provides legitimacy, moral and legal, implying both sides as
combatants and hence equally legitimate. This is why states, prior to 2001,
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 13

preferred not to wage ‘wars’ against terrorism (Dingley 2010). Additionally,

practical counter-terrorism methods are invariably far closer to policing
precisely because terrorists are not soldiers but civilians acting in civilian
contexts. (Admittedly, in the Levant, ISIS is a different matter; it is more
a conventional war machine that overtly flouts some of the laws of war.)
Terrorists utilise traditional criminal modes of operation, from violence to
coercion and straightforward criminal fund-raising to finance themselves
(see also Mollica’s chapter in this volume—Chap. 7).
Another reason terrorists operate criminally is because they usually lack
enough support, resources, military skills and weaponry to do anything
else. Even if they operate within a ‘sympathetic’ population its sympathy is
usually passive. But, this then makes it difficult for state authorities to
counter them, for example, in Northern Ireland or the Basque Lands
(Dingley 2012). Terrorism is, then, essentially criminal behaviour, how-
ever nasty, which puts it into perspective. Consequently, it is hardly an
existential threat, nor does it require a war (implying clearly defined begin-
nings and ends). One might almost say that in the grand scheme of things
it is a minor irritant compared to many other threats, for example, nuclear
war, plagues or global climate change. As Mueller and Stewart (2011)
have observed, an ordinary American has more chance of drowning in
their bathtub than being killed by a terrorist.
Despite this many ‘security experts’ proffer alarmist warnings, for
example, terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction (chemical,
biological and nuclear). But once more calmer reflection deflates the
threat. The practical problems of gaining, transporting, placing and deto-
nating such weapons make the threat highly impracticable. A nuclear det-
onation or dirty bomb requires expert skills to acquire materials,
manufacture, transport, plant, detonate and then escape, way beyond the
capabilities of the most expert terrorist. A deranged scientist, or a group of
scientists, is a more likely scenario, and even that is highly unlikely. Those
with access to such potential weapons/materials will already be carefully
monitored and vetted by the relevant authorities in highly secure facilities.
As such the real worry here would be what some Western countries regard
as ‘rogue’ states, for example, Iran or North Korea. But monitoring of
them is intense and fairly accurate, as the International Atomic Energy
Agency has shown (Global Security 2016). Meanwhile, such states are
known and can be dealt with on a (relatively) open, legal and state-to-state
basis, which makes it not terrorism but normal international relations in
both legal and academic terms.
14 J. DINGLEY

Religion, War and Violence

However, definitions are important for both legal reasons and intellectual
comprehension of the phenomenon we are attempting to deal with. If we
cannot define terrorism or radicalism we cannot study or analyse it in any
meaningful way, let alone respond effectively to it. Is this why it costs
America $41b per annum? They (and the rest of us) don’t know what they
are looking for! Conversely, there may be no specific threat that is beyond
the ordinary police’s capability within existing criminal law.
The radical-terrorist threat as currently presented by the media and
governments may be a highly dubious one, which does not deny a terrorist
threat, but merely warns one to ask serious questions. And because it does
harm individuals, society and polities alike, it does deserve attention but
also perspective. As Neumann (2013) observes, just because something is
difficult to define does not mean it does not exist. Terrorism has been an
explicit feature of the last 200 years of Western history (Crenshaw 1995;
Dingley 2010), much of it religiously inspired. What turns religious believ-
ers to violence is therefore an important topic, but not necessarily con-
fined to terrorism. All religions have been used as rallying cries to violence.
Thus the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–48 (Wilson 2010), saw the mass butch-
ery of almost 50% of Germany’s population in the name of religion
(Roman Catholic versus Protestant). Meanwhile, most of the combatants
in the First and Second World Wars (Christian, Muslim and Hindu) had
God on their side.
The mistake is to take ‘terrorism-radicalisation’ out of the general con-
text of religious violence. A key point in religion is that God is beyond
human rules, laws and time. He makes His own and is not bound by
earthly categories and rules (Juergensmeyer 1993, 2001). This may help
explain why defining religious terrorism is so difficult and why it makes the
threat so easy to exaggerate. It may also help redirect us towards under-
standing the nature of religious violence in general and not just terrorism.
From this we can simply view religious terrorism-radicalism as a small sub-
set of a general manifestation, providing a clearer idea of our subject mat-
ter and its appeal.
In anthropology this is already well developed and exemplified in Girard
(1977, 1989), Douglas (1984), Levi-Strauss (1972), Eliade (1959) and
Matusitz (2015). These works in turn have already been applied to terror-
ism (Dingley and Mollica 2007; Dingley and Kirk-Smith 2002; Feldman
1991, or Zulaika 1988). Such works emphasise the important role of
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 15

concepts such as purity and profanity, symbolism, martyrdom, sacrifice,

ceremony and ritual as core features of most religions. They provide mean-
ing, purpose and identity in ways that also imbue core military activity and
values, inculcated in training to inform deeds on the battlefield.
Consequently, ceremonies honouring dead heroes, worshipping martial
values, parading regimental colours, marching in formation and drilling
are standard military fair. Such rituals and ceremonies are key aspects of
any religion or military, and both provide a religious experience of ‘being’
greater than the individual (Nye 2004).
Meanwhile, violence itself is often ritually conducted. As Taylor’s
(1999) study of the Rwanda genocide indicates: the ritual way in which
the killing was conducted had deep religious significance in terms of
Rwandans’ religious health model. In Britain, the Royal Navy ‘religiously’
observes the heroic death of Nelson every year on Trafalgar Day and toasts
his ‘immortal’ memory (Dingley 2010). In France, the Foreign Legion
annually recalls the heroic defiance and death of Capt. Danjou (Perret
1991). It parades Danjou’s wooden hand (all that was left of him, ‘just like
a piece of the one true cross’) in front of his regiment, drawn up in full
ceremonial order, full of religious symbolism. Here, death and sacrifice is
honoured above life itself. Something not dissimilar occurs in the Christian
Eucharist—death transcends life and the shedding of blood sanctifies and
provides new life (Dingley and Mollica 2007). The whole point of sacri-
fice, your own or others, is to commune with the Gods, who in turn
bestow renewal of life (Eliade 1959).
Thus we gain insight into the suicide bomber, hunger striker or the
Brussels gunman (2016), who knew he was almost certain to be killed.7
They are not dissimilar to Capt. Danjou, who both killed and died—­
sacrifice of self and others sanctified their acts. This idea of sacrifice for a
greater good and transcendent being has inspired men and women for
millennia and goes to the core of military veneration for dead heroes.
These heroes died gloriously (not lived) for their country, comrades, regi-
ment or ship, effectively the same as for one’s God. The two (social group
and God) are so deeply entwined as to be the same, which they were for
classical sociologists such as Durkheim and operated via similar
mechanisms.

7
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/12194789/Brussels-
police-shot-at-during-raid-linked-to-Paris-attacks.html.
16 J. DINGLEY

The foregoing in turn helps us to understand something of the nature

of the current terrorist threat, that is, Islamic fundamentalist-radicals: the
violence may well be impelled by something deep in religion itself, not just
specifically Islam. There may not be a radicalisation process as such (thus
making the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme,8 which seeks to fund proj-
ects aimed at countering radicalisation, redundant), just something that
triggers a religious experience.
To highlight this one only has to look at more recent terrorist cam-
paigns, for example, the IRA (Roman Catholics, Northern Ireland), ETA
(Roman Catholics, Spain and the Basques), FLQ (Roman Catholics,
Quebec and Canada), Tamil Tigers (Hindu, Sri Lanka) or even the break-
­up of the former Yugoslavia (Orthodox Serb, Roman Catholic Croats and
Muslim Bosnians). All were ostensibly about ethnic identity and national-
ism, yet religion lay at the core of their national-ethnic identity and vio-
lence (Dingley 2011a, b).
The links between nation and religion and religion and violence are
well-established (Dingley 2011a, b; Smith 1986, 2003; Hastings 1997;
Greenfeld 1993). Most nationalisms invoke God, and nationalism is often
regarded as the new religion. Instead of worshipping God we now wor-
ship the state, and churches say prayers for the state and its rulers. Religions
usually support their state in times of war or other threats. In addition,
modern Romantic nationalism (Kedourie 1993; Greenfeld 1993; Berlin
2000; Dingley 2011b) stresses the idea of nation and ethnic identity as
God endowed. The notion of nations as part of a divine order was central
to Romantic nationalists like Herder and Hegel. And as Berlin (2000) or
Greenfeld (1993) indicate, Romanticism, in opposing the Enlightenment,
had a very strong association with, even idolisation of, violence. Further,
any ‘national’ claim to independence rests on its claim to sovereignty, that
is, its ability to make its own laws, just like God.
Thus, by looking at (religious) terrorism-radicalism we may be focusing
on the wrong aspects of the subject. We need to scrutinise the context as
well as the deed. Violence has always been with us, and as Armstrong
(2014), Ong (2002) or Durkheim (1970) remind us, the more religious a
society, the more violent it has often been. Meanwhile, Berlin (2000)
makes a similar observation when he noted that it was the Enlightenment,

8
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/
h2020/topics/sec-06-fct-2016.html.
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 17

with its emphasis on material rationality, not mysticism, which has led to a
more pacific world. The problem is of religion and ideas of a transcendent
order or being and their relationship to violence. People with primarily
material interests have more prosaic concerns than sacrifice.

Religion
Formal definitions of religion (indeed in Anthropology it begins with two
definitions: from Tyler and from Durkheim) are difficult, but generically
religion refers to largely transcendent questions of being, ultimate values,
reason and purpose of life, and how to lead it. However, some religions,
for example, Buddhism, do not necessarily invoke an afterlife. Most reli-
gions claim to be about love, peace and harmony, yet most can also be
found to be deeply involved in violence. Thus Christ died for a greater
love, whilst Christian Crusaders often wrought death and destruction
(Hindley 2004). Sacrifice (of virgins, lambs, Son of God or whatever),
both real and symbolic, is frequently central to religion, that is, ritual vio-
lence. However, the purpose of such sacrifice is usually to export out vio-
lence from a community (Dingley and Kirk-Smith 2002; Girard 1977 and
1989; Zulaika 1988; Matusitz 2015), to restore peace and harmony in the
community and appease the Gods. The Gods live off human sacrifices and
their blood sanctifies.
Nearly every society or civilisation has had religion at its core; indeed as
Armstrong (2014) observes, most early religions and Gods were civic, that
is, peculiar to and protective solely of a specific city or community. Similarly,
most modern ethnic identities have evolved from religion (part of Smith’s
1986, myth-symbol complex), and most modern nationalisms invoke
(their) God. This is especially so when struggling for ‘national’ indepen-
dence or ‘rights’, and major occasions of state are invariably marked reli-
giously (Smith 2003; Dingley 2011b; Hastings 1997). There appears to
be an eternal need for religion in some form, but more overtly in the past
when it was invoked more constantly.
In pre-modern times everything was religious—there were no separate,
social, economic or political spheres; the whole of life, nature and society
was religious (Bossy 1985; Wallace 2012; Lewis 1994). This also reflects
the way in which in simpler, peasant societies, there is a tendency to con-
flate multiple concepts into a single, undifferentiated, all-inclusive concept
(Gellner 1990). The world and its order was God given and created; our
role and place in it ordained by Him. Similarly the social, economic and
18 J. DINGLEY

political order was ordained by God, reflecting on earth the cosmic order
decreed according to His laws and will (Lewis 1994). Indeed, God(s)
intervened directly not just in the generic order but also in man’s daily
routines and affairs. Meanwhile, our prayers on earth could affect the fate
of souls departed, hence praying for the dead (Armstrong 2014; Bossy
1985; Wallace 2012).
To pre-modern man it was common sense that God made and ordered
the world, which made it religious and where religion was not just a life-
style choice or something on a Sunday. Religion was to be lived out in
one’s daily life, as God willed. God, or his saints, watched over all of us and
our communities continuously and interceded for us: from the weather,
harvest failures and diseases to success in war or love. Consequently those
who disrupted God’s order posed an existential threat.9
Virtually all the major institutions that ran society were religious or
rooted in religion. The great professions, for example, law, physics and
universities, were originally religious institutions, where one professed
one’s knowledge to God. Most schools were originally religious founda-
tions; learning and mental activity was regarded as semi-spiritual and close
to Godliness. Thus education was religious, since all knowledge in a reli-
gious world must relate to God and his order as must its application con-
form to His order (Bossy 1985; Wallace 2012; Lewis 1994; Jewell 1998).
Clerics were the scribes (clerks) who administered the state, whilst
senior clerics, for example, bishops, often ran state offices; thus, state and
religion formed a holy bipartisanship (‘Throne and Altar’; Burleigh 2005),
making them theocratic. Here the Church morally endowed the King
(state) and legitimated his authority, making it an instrument of God.
Concurrently the state utilised its legitimate force to enforce the moral,
social, economic and political order the Church ordained. Consequently,
law was a basic religious concern—clear rules for the relations and order of
all things that affected the harmonious relations between God, ruler and
subjects. These are ideas reflected in the sociology of both Durkheim and
Weber (Lukes and Scull 2013; Freund 1972). Meanwhile, Hallaq (2014)
indicates how this creates major problems for adherents of Sharia (Islamic)
law living in the (Christian) West or vice versa: different cosmic orders and
legitimacy apply. Further, since the purpose of religion is the re-creation of

9
In the sense that it is Western values and (socio-economic and political) order that is
invading Islamic states, it may be the West that poses an existential threat to Islam.
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 19

the divine cosmic order on earth, this now provides us with an explanation
for religio-political violence. Any attack or challenge to the divine order
becomes a denial of God, and hence a threat to existence, which requires
defending.
The foregoing is reflected in the etymology of religion, from the Latin
religio—meaning bonds and relations (Turner 1991). These bonds and
relations bind us into groups and communities whose being invokes pow-
ers and forces (social and moral obligations) over the individual, reflected
in custom, tradition and law. Bonds determine and reflect what relations
should exist between men and then with nature, which become sacred.
This implies unique qualities (sacred) to those charged with determining
those relations, from property rights to family duties, to obedience to
primary groups, community or polity. From these we derive moral codes
and laws, often the basis for culture, whose aim is to cement the formal
social relations.
Traditional European states had legitimate power and force as God’s
representative on earth, ordained by the Church (or whatever; Burleigh
2005) which made it moral. And whilst both supported each other they
maintained their supremacy (Bossy 1985; Armstrong 2014; Wallace
2012). The same principle applied for most religions, making whatever
order that existed God given, hence making its violent enforcement legiti-
mate. In Islam this was even more overt, since state and religion were
never separate. As Hallaq (2014) observes, they were conflated, with no
separate state or politics as understood in the modern West. Islam, as sub-
mission (Armstrong 2001), meant simply submitting to Allah’s will and
living in the Ummah (community of the faithful, both local village and
universal community of all true believers) as ordained and ordered, as
revealed via the Prophet Mohammed. All society and polity was overtly
religious, and to be a good Muslim was to submit to its order.
Religious order applied to the economic as much as to the socio-­
political realm. In Medieval Europe guilds and trading associations were
invariably regulated by religious bodies and had their own patron saints to
further their interests. Further, the Church often exercised a moral control
over guilds and merchant companies. Priests frequently oversaw guild
activities, for example, adjudicated over standards of goods, behaviour
between members and non-members, levels of profit and financial rela-
tions. The latter was particularly important because the Church con-
demned ‘usury’ (Bossy 1985; Wallace 2012; Alder 2004), as does Islam.
But most important for the Church was to ensure good and harmonious
20 J. DINGLEY

relations within a guild or merchant company. Similarly it aimed to medi-

ate good and harmonious relations within a Kingdom and within
Christendom as a whole. In the West this changed with the Reformation,
which notably succeeded in those regions undergoing economic and legal
transformation (McCulloch 2004; Little 1969). This in turn supports
Weber’s (1976) contention about Protestantism and the spirit of
capitalism.
For the individual the Church (Mosque or Temple) was the first point
of reference for the major activities in life. The priest was often the only
(often barely) educated person in invariably small, close-knit and highly
isolated communities, based on self-sufficiency bordering on bare survival.
Survival required close communal cooperation, which required good, har-
monious relations within the community, becoming the priest’s prime
concern. Religion provided moral instruction and guidance to ensure
communal cohesion, often involving little more than arbitration in local
disputes. Religion also closely controlled those personal relations vital to
the continuation of the community over time, for example, marriage,
birth and family.
Life itself was God given; one not only existed in God’s material world
but in God’s time and space, which determined identity (Christian names,
occupation or community place names). Religion also oversaw men’s
physical development and path through life, for example, education, mar-
riage and occupation, and also one’s time itself. All time was God’s
(Wallace 2012), both in general and in one’s individual allotted span (birth
to death). Thus the hours of the day were marked by prayers and the toll-
ing of church bells; the weeks were marked from Sunday to Sunday or
saints day to holy day; the years were marked from Easter to Easter (the
UK’s financial year still is). One lived in and passed through God’s time,
which stood still; thus, ‘the world ticked to the rhythm of an inexorable
divine clock’ (Wilson 2002, p. 11). All was religious, there was no
secular.
Alder (2004) well illustrates the role of religion in his discussion of
medieval French communal life. All economic activity was regulated by
moral-religious communities, that is, religiously founded guilds, who
imposed a moral economy, not a market one. Here individual traders had
to trade within the moral compass of the guild and church teachings.
Guilds ordered and regulated their members’ activities, initially to benefit
the local community and the good of the guild. Individual traders were
not permitted to pursue self-interest—guild and community came first.
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 21

Maintaining the religiously sanctioned relations of the community and

guild took priority.
Salvation lay in maintaining the correct relations between men, God
and communal order—knowing and submitting to one’s place in the
God-ordained order of relations. This, of course, is still the ideal of the
‘Ummah’. And Islam simply means submission, to the will of Allah and his
ordained order of things (Armstrong 2001; Lewis 1993). Islam maintains
the same ideal as medieval Christendom, that is, an all-embracing under-
standing of the world and its natural (Allah-given) order. This is embraced
in a single religious concept of being and order, that is, structure of rela-
tions, social bonds and submission to them.
One reason why the European Reformation was so traumatic, leading
to over 200 years of religious wars, was the way it ruptured the bonds of
Christendom. The Roman Catholic Church, having established itself as
the sole voice of God (in Western Europe), had become unquestioningly
accepted as the sole legitimating (moral) force. It alone ordained the natu-
ral order of things, that is, feudal society, legitimately enforced by Kings
and Lords (Bossy 1985; Wallace 2012; Armstrong 2014). This maintained
a closed order, unchallenged for 1000 years.
To have this suddenly challenged, from the sixteenth to nineteenth cen-
turies, ongoing revolutions profoundly affected the authority of throne and
altar. It meant competing concepts of legitimacy and loyalty, for example,
who should rule, in whose name, making what laws, how to enforce them
and to what end (order). Who determined rights, especially individual ver-
sus communal or man versus property? All privileges, political authority
and rights were questioned as new earthly Gods and sacred (nation and
state; Hobsbawm 1992) replaced old (heavenly) Gods, creating new moral
and material claims. Such dispute was, naturally, sacrilegious to the estab-
lished Church (or Islam, which has no indigenous concept of nation-state)
and would undermine the moral authority of the established order.
These sudden and dramatic changes reflected fundamental breaks
with the past, which were highly problematic for established theologies
to cope with. They implied new concepts of how one comprehended and
interpreted the world around, both moral and cognitive understandings
of order and how to relate to it, which threatened existing theologies.
Legitimising moralities became redundant and dependent political pow-
ers undermined; even the existence of God and religion was threatened
if their cosmological orders were no longer deemed valid. New knowl-
edge, orders and relations became sacrilegious, particularly where new
22 J. DINGLEY

knowledge provided non-religious explanations based on material cause-

effect (science). The new knowledge profaned and attacked the sacred,
that is, sacrilegious.
Such sacrilegious knowledge made the Gods angry and demanded ret-
ribution, which implies sacrifices to feed, nourish and appease them to
help fend off challenges. Sacrifices (martyrs) involve emotion and trauma
to raise awareness and consciousness, reminding members of the commu-
nity of their belonging and obligation.
The shared emotional experience of sacrifice helps call a community
back together, to unite against God’s enemies in (internal) pacific har-
mony (Dingley 2010). In this sense the community is God, or His pres-
ence, and its coming together reveals the greater transcendent power that
lies in unity, all thinking and ‘feeling’ as one through the shared sacrificial
experience:

[T]he victim as surrogate, an emissary for the transfer of pollution out of an

afflicted community. Sacrifice is a commensuration of the many to the one;
it shifts collective disorder to a personified transgressor who facilitates. The
body of the sacrificial victim is the detached part that encapsulates a disor-
dered or disordering whole, and its deformation expresses the passage out of
disorder. (Feldman 1991, p. 78)

Another aspect of the disruption of unity, order and relations as an

attack on God can be identified in the break in the link between past, pres-
ent and future. This is the ‘chain of memory’ (Hervieu-Leger 2000) that
links man into a timeless order and continuum, an important aspect of
religion, linking man with a defined pathway through history, time and
being. It provides men with knowledge of where they came from, how
they got here and what comes after. This corresponds to what Giddens
(1990 and 1991) refers to as ontological security, that is, who we are and
where we come from, providing us with a meaning and a place in the cos-
mological order of being. By placing our sense of being within a defined
order, place and time, it provides life with a meaning as part of a contin-
uum and not just random chance, which has no meaning or purpose. This
applies spiritually, as in descent and creation myths, and literally, as in
churches’ recording of births, deaths and marriages. Additionally, the
dead often lived in daily life, since the graveyards were often used for rec-
reational and occupational purposes; hence, the dead lived on in daily life,
making it timeless (Bossy 1985).
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 23

Religion provides man with a past, which develops into a future, giving
reason and purpose for being here (to earn salvation and fulfil God’s pur-
pose), and an afterlife in an eternal order. Consequently it provides an
ontological security that fixes man in time and place in the cosmos, with a
sense of being and belonging in the great order of things. This provides
identity, meaning and purpose to a life otherwise bereft of them. But if the
chain is broken man finds himself cut off, isolated, adrift and faced with
intolerable loss of being and identity, leading to acute psychological anxi-
ety and insecurity.
Meanwhile, a stable, continuous community reaffirms the chain and
ontological security, satisfying men’s need for psychological security. But
if the community is disrupted, fragments or disappears, then acute onto-
logical problems may occur, leading to aggressive behaviour and violence
against perceived alien or profaning forces held responsible. Violence both
expels and repels the profane and forces the community back into itself,
united in sacrificial violence to protect the sacred (Girard 1977, 1989).
This violence becomes a sacred duty, a sacrifice to the Gods—a holy war.
This offers some explanation for violence in the name of God—it is
necessary to expel the impure which profanes the sacred (order). Until
then there will be no communal harmony; only when God is restored to
his rightful place, via blood sacrifice (the sacrificial blood nurturing the
God), will this occur. Here the community is emotionally reunited via the
sacrificial ritual with its induced and shared emotional intensity. This rein-
forces the communal bonds and closes the community to exclude profane,
external influences (Dingley and Kirk-Smith 2002).
In the literature on nationalism it is almost commonplace to observe
how much of the foregoing has now been transferred from religion to the
nation. The nation, in the West, now functions as the sacred community,
fulfilling the roles and functions of religion (Hastings 1997; Smith 2003;
Dingley 2011b)—the idea of the nation as timeless and eternal, a history
(past, present and future) into which individual nationals fit and find place,
purpose and meaning; and, of course, for which we and past generations
have made blood sacrifices and which we praise in religious services. This,
as Hallaq (2014) observes, makes nationalism disruptive of Islam’s
Ummah, since it fragments into separate political units, that is, indepen-
dent nation-states, what should ideally and religiously be a single universal
Islam. Loyalty to a nation-state cannot be squared with loyalty to Islam;
Allah and his order must take priority—something not dissimilar also con-
fronted the Roman Catholic Church after the Reformation (1517).
24 J. DINGLEY

Further, religion now sanctifies the nation in the West (but not in Islam,
which alone is sacred), performing many of the rituals and ceremonies that
make it holy (Smith 2003; Dingley 2011b). Thus, ethno-nationalist con-
flicts persist precisely where traditional religion still plays a major role, with
competing religious identities, for example, the former Yugoslavia,
Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka. It is a question of contested sacred com-
munity and whose chain of memory and ontological security should dom-
inate, in turn associated with economic, social and political rewards.
Similar problems exist with societies confronting large-scale immigra-
tion from different religions: native and immigrant find it difficult to
‘commune’ with each other, as in Anderson’s (1991) ‘imagined commu-
nity’. The problem is not just of material relations and being part of an
economic community, but of deeper ontological problems of ‘commun-
ing’ as part of the historical chain of memory (Hervieu-Leger 2000). These
are group psychological problems of relations and integrating into a new
‘moral’ community and historical memory. Here, new types of relations
emphasising new shared values, beliefs and chains of collective memory
are needed. New moral and cognitive knowledge which help men bond
(integrate ontologically; Giddens 1990, 1991) are required or, alterna-
tively, separate communities are required.
If immigrants are to enter successfully into a new imagined community
and ‘commune’ with it and become part of its chain of memory, then it
requires greater effort and thought than Western liberal values of indi-
vidualism tend to permit. Entering new orders (structures) of relations
and their associated values and norms is often difficult, especially in the
West. Here the dominant socio-economic paradigm of relations is of the
radical and free (market) individual (Gupta 2001), where change and fluc-
tuating relations have replaced a determined order and structure (Turner
1993). As the classical sociologists discovered (Nisbet 1996), industrial
society posed new problems of order in Europe because a new order
opposed to traditional religious order was being initiated, with new values,
norms and meanings. These can appear and be experienced as very threat-
ening to those used to the old (pre-industrial) order, for example, Muslims
in modern Europe, or the alienation and anomie of early industrial man.
Modern Western liberalism and tolerance works in the West because it
is built upon a new order (socio-economic, political and philosophical that
may be summarised as ‘scientific’) that all Westerners implicitly under-
stand. It has its own order (Durkheim’s ‘organic’ or Tonnies’ gesellschaft)
that Westerners are socialised into, but immigrants from a (Durkheim)
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 25

‘mechanical’ or (Tonnies) gemeinschaft society, for example, most Muslim

societies, would find alien, chaotic and lacking in sacred order and
meaning.
Our liberal, ‘free’ and ‘open’ societies often threaten at a structural
level, for to enter into it requires newcomers to shed old stable relations
and bonds (religion) and enter new ones. A new sense of community,
order, values and relations is required based on flux, change and structural
re-formations, which appear sacrilegious (Gellner 1983; Dingley 2008). It
is not that industrial Western society lacks order or structure; it is just a
different kind from traditional peasant society, as classical sociology
stressed (Nisbet 1996). Modern Western communities make a God of the
individual, whereas traditional societies make a God of community. Thus,
Western order and relations pose a fundamental threat to older, non-­
Western orders and religious structures.
Western ideas of freedom and tolerance deny and undermine traditional
structures, rooted in timeless rigid relations, religious laws and customs in
an unchanging cosmos (see Hervieu-Leger’s (2000) Chain of Memory).
This becomes the crux of the problem between Islam and the West, spe-
cifically Islamic radicalism-terrorism. It is a response to Western disrup-
tions (sacrilege) of Muslims’ sacred order. This applies either to immigrants
(particularly those failing to integrate) in the West or to Western incur-
sions (social, economic, cultural or political) into Islamic lands. This makes
development a much more problematic issue than simply economics or
taking democracy to the ‘benighted’.
To integrate into the new Western order is not easy (or optional) and
involves shedding an identity and religious life structure central to one’s
sense of being. Consequently change may become part of a cosmic battle
which invites God’s warriors to arms in defence of an order and ­ontological
security under threat. A Western example of this lies in Europe’s
Reformation, which led to centuries of bloodshed. The Reformation did
not deny Christianity, but simply reinterpreted its theological legitimacy
from a traditional priestly and centralised theology to personal knowledge
and judgement. Even so, it created a cataclysmic break with the past that
caused centuries of war, the worst manifestation being the Thirty Years’
War (1618–48).
Often presented as a religious war, the war was more often about far
more prosaic things such as economic change and socio-political develop-
ment; new learning, especially science, which led to new cognitions and
interpretations of the material world; and a communications revolution
26 J. DINGLEY

based on the invention of print and voyages of discovery in the fifteenth

century. All of these implied new understandings of the natural order and
causal relations within it which were symbolically represented in religion
(Wilson 2002; MacCulloch 2004; Wallace 2012; Bossy 1985). Print was
particularly important in enabling science, since the scientific method
requires the exact replication of data, conditions, observations, results and
analysis that only print can supply. Print had a permanence and replicabil-
ity that produced a new standardised knowledge that was testable and
verifiable, thus providing a new exacting truth. Hence it led to a new
consciousness of reality, away from mystery to rational material explana-
tion, thereby laying the foundations for critiques of traditional religion
(Wilson 2002; MacCulloch 2004; Eisenstein 2005).
Ideas of truth shifted from religion to science (Shapin 1995; Gaukroger
2008; Eisenstein 1980). This in turn laid the foundations for critiques of
the traditional socio-political order religion had previously legitimated as
God’s revealed truth (order). Consequently, religious relations in
Christendom began losing their sacred status, being replaced by more
prosaic and profane ones, whilst the sacred slowly became marginalised
and sectional. Meanwhile, in Islam, print was banned within the Ottoman
Empire until the mid-nineteenth century, seriously impeding a scientific
development that had already virtually ceased to exist in Islam after the
thirteenth century. Hence it is only very recently that print and science’s
modernising impact has begun to impact on Islam’s sacred knowledge and
socio-political relations (Pagden 2009).
In the West science tended to be associated with the Reformation,
whilst Roman Catholicism and Islam were hostile to it, reflected in Islam
and Catholicism’s attachment to scholastic (Aristotelian) philosophy and
the Reformation’s dropping of it (Ferngren 2002).10 This opened the way
to greater intellectual reflection on and critique of both the natural and
the man-made order of the world, thus de-sanctifying the relations and
values central to traditional religion. In turn, this opened up radically new
ideas of earthly and cosmic orders and relations (Wilson 2002; Bossy
1985; Wallace 2012) and new ideas of truth. And whilst the Roman
Catholic Church has slowly come to terms with this (although it still
struggles; Kung 2001), Islam has not (Pagden 2009). Thus Western

10
Caution is needed here, since many Protestant denominations, especially fundamentalist
ones, also utilise a scholastic framework.
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 27

knowledge and truth attacks and undermines Islam, part of the centuries-­
old struggle against the infidel, in which jihad (struggle) becomes legiti-
mate, just as Roman Catholicism struggled against the Reformation.
Hence, one can draw comparisons between Christendom’s violent dis-
ruptions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and what the Muslim
world is experiencing today, that is, coming to terms with new truths and
order (Lewis 1993; Pratt 2005; Winfield 2007). The fall of the Ottoman
Empire, the Western colonisation of Muslim lands, Western economic and
military superiority, and Western intellectual dominance and individualism
seriously challenge Islam (Hallaq 2014). The (traditional) sacred ‘Ummah’
finds its (religious) relations and bonds under attack and its status dimin-
ished and often derided.
Further, one recalls Gellner’s (1990) observation that peasant society,
that is, pre-modern rural society (which includes most Islamic lands), lives
in a ‘single’ conceptual world. Peasant minds do not separate out discrete,
isolated concepts and deal with them individually. Instead a multiplicity of
what modern man would regard as separate concepts are conflated
together as one holistic causal and explanatory concept. Only modern sci-
entific philosophy intellectually separates out and dissects concepts into
discretely differentiated ones that demystify in the process.
Consequently peasant culture does not appreciate modern man’s sepa-
ration of religion, theology, past, present and future, science, society,
economy, politics, psychology, medicine and so on. Peasant culture con-
flates all in single holistic concepts of religion, knowledge, causality and
explanation. Only since the seventeenth century and Bacon, Descartes and
Galileo has Western man learnt to dissect into separate conceptual schema,
as he now does; previously all was religious (Bossy 1985; Wallace 2012;
Ferngren 2002), just as in much of Islam today.
The traditional Islamic ‘Ummah’ is comparable to Western, pre-­
Reformation comprehension. Both make our modern understanding of
the world appear alien and sacrilegious. It denies Allah/God his rightful,
all-powerful place as creator and definer of all, especially that most holy
of things—society or community (of which the Western individual is
anathema because he is communally disruptive). And this in turn reflects
a scholastic frame of mind and understanding of the world now made
redundant by science. Man’s very consciousness of himself, being and
future is consequently transformed, a process still ongoing in the West
and that Islamic society is only now beginning to engage with, science
and print being poorly developed in Islam (Pagden 2009; Masood 2009).
28 J. DINGLEY

This new consciousness is founded upon science, which is only possible

via effective communication technology such as print. Hence print
becomes a threat to traditional religions such as Islam.

On Print, Religion and Objectivity

Culturally, symbolically and theologically the threat to Islam is objectified
in print, so long resisted in Islam. Print objectifies as it produces: thoughts
and ideas become fixed and material, not ephemeral, subjective and ellipti-
cal, as in oral or handwritten (scribal) cultures. Print demystifies with its
standardised words, phrases, sentences, tables and formulae. Print there-
fore alters men’s awareness and consciousness as it produces thousands,
sometimes millions, of exact replicas. This objectifies knowledge and
forms set, non-personal standardised relations through its own being.
Previously most communication was by word of mouth or scribal copying.
Both defied precise replication; to memorise precisely any message and
repeat it verbally is virtually impossible—try playing Chinese whispers.
This is due to all the noise, clutter, distractions, emotional bias and distor-
tions of the listener or the scribal copier, in addition to simple memory
power. One product of this was unstandardised knowledge and truth,
which enabled a certain magical element and mystery to enter into knowl-
edge, enhancing its sense of religiosity (Ong 2002; Yates 1992).
Equally, personal relationships were removed from knowledge trans-
mission, thus reducing subjective understanding and personal commit-
ment. With print the message is fixed in hard, bold type, the same for
thousands of recipients, eternally, with precision and accuracy. This
enabled an objectivity where ideas and observations could be precisely
weighed and kept for accurate records for reference to and for fixed judge-
ments (Ong 2002; Luria 1976; Goody 1977). Thus knowledge and learn-
ing (particularly scientific) became objective and enabled men to build
forward from a stable base, and predict and speculate about the future.
The mind was freed from the onerous task of memorising knowledge to
enable greater reflection on it. Print provided fixed data for constant refer-
ral from which to build forward; that is, intellectual effort could concen-
trate on meaning and interpretation of data, not on memorising it.
Thus it enabled new future, spatial and time relations that replaced
previous references back and mystical speculation. Memory is always back-
ward; only print-based science is forward-looking and demystifying, mak-
ing it threatening to traditional (mystical) religion, where sacred knowledge
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 29

is always a past reference. But the art of memory (Yates 1992) is a great
skill in itself (mnemonics) and close to the sacred, made redundant by
print and science.

Classical Social Theory

Modern sociology tends to regard classical sociology primarily as historical
background and the latter is rarely tested against the ‘real’ or contempo-
rary world. As Skocpol (1994, p. 25) writes, ‘many pay lip service to …
classical sociology, but few indeed work in terms of its mandate’, or as
Connell observes:

First, though classical social theory has great prestige in principle, much of
sociological research ignores it in practice. The bulk of quantitative sociol-
ogy, as well as most ethnographic and life-history research, proceeds with-
out reference to canonical theory or the problems it defines. (Connell 1997,
p. 1513)

Skocpol (1994, p. 25) defines its mandate as the comparative and his-
torical perspective, the prospects for freedom, rationality and democracy
in a modernising world. This Gellner (1990 and 1992) would agree with
in his analysis of the transition from pre-modern (peasant) to modern
(industrial) society. Here he traces the origins of modern thought, ideas
and the growth of rationality and democracy from Tonnies’ gesellschaft to
modern gemeinschaft (Andersen and Kaspersen 2000). Indeed, similar
themes dominate the works of Durkheim, Marx and Weber, although
Marx tends to dismiss religion (‘opium of the masses’), which dominates
other classical sociologists’ work. However, Marx does associate such ‘opi-
ates’ with peasant society (the ‘idiocy of the countryside’; Ramet 1996),
where religion dominates small local communities.
And it is the peasant aspect that is pertinent here, since it is usually
dominated by religion, for as Skocpol has noted:

With the sole exception of the Iranian Revolution, all modern social revolu-
tions from the French Revolution onward have involved either widespread,
autonomous revolutions by peasant villages (as in France, Russia, Mexico
and Bolivia) or the mobilisation of peasants by professional revolutionaries
operating as armed guerrilla movements in the countryside (as in China,
Vietnam, Cuba and the revolutions against Portuguese colonialism in
Africa). (Skocpol 1994, p. 16)
30 J. DINGLEY

Revolutions did not occur, as Marx predicted, in industrial societies. This

merely reinforces Dingley’s point (2011a) about modern terrorism: it
invariably occurs in predominantly peasant societies where religion is an
overt feature of communal life.
Consequently one can argue that modern terrorism may be associated
with peasant communities, which conflate with a strong religious identity
whose moral and cognitive knowledge conflicts with modern values and
beliefs. Societies that typically conform to the foregoing include Ireland,
the Basque Country and much of modern Islam. In the case of Islam this
can be divided into two strands: the first is Muslim communities living in
already modern, industrialised Western society. Second are Muslim coun-
tries where the native political elites are trying to develop modern,
Western-style states.
Both face similar kinds of trauma to that of post-Reformation
Christendom in coming to terms with a new and alien world. Here the
traditional sacred community (Tonnies’ gemeinschaft, or Durkheim’s
mechanical solidarity) was being overturned and replaced by a new order—
‘society’ (Tonnies’ gesellschaft or Durkheim’s organic solidarity) (Andersen
and Kaspersen 2000; Nisbet 1996; Dingley 2008, 2015). For the great
monotheistic religions this involved the replacement of small, close-knit,
warm and psychologically comforting local communities that met all one’s
needs centred on the Church (Mosque, Temple, Synagogue). The Church
also acted as a health, welfare, education and economic centre and all
other needs’ provider and socio-economic organiser. Meanwhile, the local
priest was often the only literate man in a village and had contact with and
knowledge of the outside world.
Such communities were psychologically intense, close to nature and
dominated by it, unchanging and timeless, where custom, ritual and prac-
tice dominated and united all into a single cohesive unit. In these circum-
stances uneducated minds found it difficult to conceive of anything other
than a religious or magical explanation for events in their lives. This cre-
ated a single, simple consciousness and shared explanations in an oral cul-
ture with a mystical mindset. The culture was fatalistic, inducing group
dependence and inclusiveness that, whilst emotionally satisfying, was
exclusive and insular and tended to mystical-religion (Nisbet 1996;
Durkheim 1984; Dingley 2008, 2015).
Meanwhile, modern industrial society tends to the opposite—a world
of individuals, often isolated, sometimes alienated, with unique psychosis
and anxiety problems of status and being (Nisbet 1996; Giddens 1990;
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 31

Hughes 1961). Yet concurrently it enabled the individual as an autono-

mous agent; freely moving socially, politically, economically and geo-
graphically; a rational, independent and enquiring being making his own
way in the world. But this was a bigger world, freed from local community
ties, close-knit relations, support and consequent dependency. This world
can therefore appear chaotic and disordered in its ‘free markets’, self-­
determination and democratic liberalism. And, as Hughes (1961) observes,
it was to cope with these new ways and their consequent social and social-­
psychological problems that everything from Freudian psychiatry to clas-
sical sociology emerged.
Modernity freed men from the close ties and mutual support of com-
munities that ‘bonded’ (religio) and hence answered most of our social,
psychological and ontological needs. Men lost the religious aspect of com-
munity and the moral direction of religious leadership. Men now found
themselves adrift in a world lacking traditional religious guidance or mean-
ing, whilst facing acute new problems of isolated living. Religion had
ceased to function in the classical sociological sense of Durkheim (1984
and 1995) and disorder now reigned in men’s lives. However, both
Durkheim and Weber (1976 and 1963) agreed on the individual acquiring
a new religious mantle as sacred and the object of worship—sacrilege to
traditional religion, for example, Islam or Roman Catholicism.
For Durkheim (1970) the autonomy of the new individual could cause
great violence and damage to them and society (the new concept replacing
religion; from socio, Latin = compassion). In Suicide (Durkheim 1970),
lacking the moral guidance of belonging and membership of community
(religion), individuals violently self-destructed (suicide) and destroyed
society (anomie—lack of moral regulation, similar to Giddens’ (1990,
1991) ontological insecurity).
As Nisbet (1996) notes, the themes that dominated nineteenth-­century
classical sociology were loss of (social) order, place, regulation (moral and
physical) and belonging. These declined as the old feudal order of close-­
knit, communal rural life fragmented in the face of rapid socio-economic
and political change, industrialisation, unplanned urbanisation, science
and progress (another new concept) took off. Nisbet identifies five key
themes that dominated classical sociology: community, authority, status,
the sacred and alienation, all of which relate directly to religion, as defined
above, and problems of order (earthly and cosmological). Simultaneously
this was an (other) age of terrorism (Crenshaw 1996), revolutions and
extremes (Gildea 1987; Hobsbawm 1973, 1995). Nationalist revolutions
32 J. DINGLEY

and terrorism have dominated the last 150 years—attempts to oppose,

tame or impel modern industrial society (Smith 1998). Even Fascism,
which institutionalised violence, exemplifies this fear of communal loss,
with its glorification of community, conformity, traditional values and the
noble peasant (Paxton 2004; Eatwell 2003; Lipset 1983).
Classical sociology was dominated by the demise of traditional com-
munity, the rise of society, the decline of traditional religion, and the rise
of the individual and its consequent problems—in particular, the yearning
for order and security (ontological and physical), place and belonging
(much of Fascism’s appeal; Paxton 2004; Eatwell 2003). Ideas such as
alienation (Marx) and anomie (Durkheim) dominated classical sociology
and the search for meaning and purpose in life. This was partly met by
nationalism—a new religion, providing a new sense of community, place,
purpose and meaning. But this one made greater allowance for ideas of
individualism and movement to contain the self-destructive forces of free-
dom and autonomy.
The nation, as Giddens (1987) and Dingley (2008 and 2015) note, was
also coterminous with the new concept of society, that is, national society,
a new communal integration. The nation became a way of integrating and
bonding total strangers who would never meet into a single, relatively
cohesive ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1991). This provided simple
answers to complex ontological problems, a shared place in the cosmos
and universal order of nations to replace the traditional order of
Christendom with its complex of isolated, tiny village communities.
Christendom now equates with the Ummah, fragmenting due to rapid
and highly disorientating change undermining its order of primarily small,
self-contained, tight-knit communities. And whereas in the West such
change was mostly self-generated, in Islam its source is external, alien
forces profaning the sacred (Ummah). So whilst Westerners turned on
each other, as Protestants and Roman Catholics do, so do Muslims on the
West and Westerners. Equally they turn on fellow Muslims who do ‘con-
vert’ to Western ways (apostates), since all Muslims must conform to pre-
serve the sacredness of the order. This can apply equally to immigrant
Muslim communities in Western countries or Muslim countries disrupted
by Western incursions (economic, political or cultural).
Where individuals successfully enter the new order there are few prob-
lems, but many cannot or may not be able to. They either lack the eco-
nomic, technical and cultural skills for entry or fail to develop the emotional
and moral ties that enable them to bond into and become part of the new
 CLASSICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE UNDERSTANDING… 33

community. They then transfer the blame for this from themselves to
Western ‘society’. This follows an old pattern of historical analysis of many
rebels and revolutionaries defined as ‘losers’. They lack the skills and
knowledge to successfully enter a society or be rewarded according to
their own estimation, particularly when they feel their social status is
demeaned and their life appears disordered and chaotic (Mayer 1975;
O’Boyle 1970; Greenfeld 1993). One is back to an old problem.

Conclusion
Probably few sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Christians (or modern
Nazis, Irish or Basque terrorists) thought consciously about sociological
problems whilst merrily slaughtering each other. Thus few Muslims prob-
ably rationalise it either. Scientifically rationalising human behaviour is a
modern trait, where social science and psychiatry replace the priest. But
the drive to violence and the moral and psychological imperatives to it lie
deep in man’s consciousness. This was the whole point of Taylor’s (1999)
analysis of the Rwandan massacre. What may flip an individual’s mind to
perform specific acts, such as in the case of the Nice lorry driver (July
201611), may be quite prosaic, but it often ignites a subconscious chain of
things which relate to our social being and environment. It was this that
classical sociology was acutely aware of and should commend its works to
us as more than historical curiosity.
Classical sociology fully appreciated that man is social, of and for soci-
ety. Society shapes our being and identity; consequently, man needs the
constant social references in which to operate and survive. And this applies
especially to ideas of time and existence, which relate to ontological secu-
rity. Remove familiar relations and orders, with known place, being, role
and purpose, and all men are vulnerable, leading to anxiety, frustration
and anger, which can then lead to violence. The relevant order and legiti-
macy was provided by religion, and it was the demise or disruption of the
regulative role of religion that caused much anguish and violence. As such
the key social theory lesson would seem to be that the West poses an exis-
tential and ontological threat to traditional religion, especially Islam. This

11
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36801671. A Muslim drove a lorry into a crowd
of pedestrians in Nice.
34 J. DINGLEY

lies not just in the physically violent incursions of the West into Islamic
lands, but also in the social and cultural violence it does to Islam.
Viewing religion in Durkheimian terms as symbolically representational
of social relations, or in Weberian terms as reflecting core social values, one
can view Western Christian society as an existential threat to Islam—this,
in the same way that the Reformation was to traditional (Roman Catholic)
Christendom. Viewed in this fashion one now has a better way of under-
standing not just Islamic but also much Western terrorism, as a revolt
against change. This puts terrorism into a better perspective from which to
judge its potency and efficacy, and also how to develop not just an under-
standing of what we are dealing with but also some insights into how to
respond and deal with it. Sudden change causes great ruptures; therefore,
the need for slower, more modulated and subtle change; better change
strategies that work with rather than against existing cultures and reli-
gions; the importance of integration for immigrants and supportive, well-
planned integration policies; and even knowing when not to force change,
for example, Afghanistan and Iraq. All the above now start to acquire sig-
nificance in responding to religious violence and terrorism in particular.
Equally, understanding the causes behind political violence should bet-
ter inform us how not to react, the importance of knowing our history and
the direct relevance of classical social science and getting things in perspec-
tive. Radicals are nothing new and only radical from a particular perspec-
tive. In addition, even ‘our’ radical can now be cast as normal; that is, it
reflects a normal reaction of certain categories of people in a particular
situation, consequently guiding our reactions to ‘radical’ behaviour based
on past experience. The very scientific method that poses such an existen-
tial threat to mystical (traditional) religion enables us to comprehend reli-
gious violence and respond accordingly. Such knowledge helps take the
terror out of terrorism; it enables us to hone and direct our counter-terror
policies, especially defining terrorism, and (hopefully) helps reduce the
massive costs (civil liberties and economic) of counter-terrorism.

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
me ube con vn gentil mançebo
mercader y el pago que le di.
Miçilo.—¡O mi eloquentissimo
gallo! que ya no mi sieruo sino mi
señor te puedo llamar, pues en
tienpos[493] de tu buena fortuna
no solamente çapateros miseros
como yo, pero tuuiste debajo de
tu mando reyes y Cesares de
gran valor. Dime agora, yo te
ruego, eso que propones, que con
affecto te deseo oyr.
Gallo.—Pues tú sabras que yo
fue hija de vn pobre perayre en
aquella çiudad de Toledo, que
ganaua de comer pobremente
con el trabajo contino de vnas
cardas y peynes; que ya sabes
que se hazen en aquella çiudad
muchos paños y bonetes; y mi
madre por el consiguiente viuia
hylando lana; y otras vezes
labando paños en casa de
hombres ricos mercaderes y otros
çiudadanos.
Miçilo.—Semejantes mujeres
salen de tales padres: que pocas
vezes se crian bagasas de padres
nobles.
Gallo.—Eramos vn hermano y
yo pequeños, que él auia doze
años y yo diez; ni mi madre nunca
tubo mas; y yo era mochacha
bonica y de buen donayre y
çiertamente cobdiçiosa de
pareçer a todos bien; y ansi como
fue creçiendo de cada dia más
me preçiaua de mi y me yua
apegando a los honbres; y ansi
avn en aquella poca edad
qualquiera que podia me daua vn
alcançe, o empellon, de qual que
pellizco en el braço, o trauarme
de la oreja o de la barua. De
manera que pareçia que todos
trabajauan por me madurar, como
quien dize a pulgaradas, y yo me
vine saboreando y tascando en
aquellos saynetes que me sabian
como miel; y ansi vn moço del
cardenal Fray Françisco Ximenez
de Çisneros, que viuia junto a
nosotros me dio vnos zarçicos de
plata y vnas calças y seruillas con
que me començé a pulir y a pisar
de puntillas. Alçaua la cofia sobre
las orejas y traya la saya corta por
mostrarlo todo; y ansi començé yo
a gallear, andar y mirar con
donayre, el cuello erguido, y no
me dexaua tanbien hollar de mi
madre; que por qualquiera cosa
que me dixesse la haçia rostro
rezongando a la contina y
murmurando entre dientes, y
cuando me enojaua luego la
amenaçaua con aquel cantar
diziendo: Pues bien, para esta;
que agora veniran los soldados
de la guerra, madre mia, y
lleuarme han; y ansi suçedió
como yo quería. Que en aquél
tienpo determinó el cardenal Fray
Françisco de Çisneros emprender
la conquista de Oran en Africa, y
haziendo gente todos me
combidauan si queria yo yr allá, y
acosaronme tanto que me
hizieron dezir que si, y ansi aquel
moço de casa del Cardenal dió
notiçia de mí a vn gentil honbre
de casa que era su amo, que se
llamaua Françisco de Vaena que
yua por Capitan; el qual sobre
çiertas conueniençias y capitulos
que comigo firmó, y en mi ombligo
selló, se encargó de me llenar, y
porque era mochacha pareçiole
que yria yo en el habito de paje
con menos pesadunbre; y ansi
me vistió muy graçiosamente
sayo y jubon de raso de colores y
calças con sus tafetanes, y me
puso en vna muy graçiosa
acanea, y como la partida estuuo
a punto, dando cantonada a mis
padres, me fue con él. Aqui te
quisiera dezir cosas marauillosas
que passauan entre sí los
soldados, pero porque avn abrá
tiempo y proposito quiero
proseguir en lo que començé.
Aqui supe yo mil auisos y
donayres y gentilezas; las cuales
aprendí porque otras muchas
mugeres que yuan en la
compañia las tratauan y hablauan
con el alferez, sargento y caporal
y con otros offiçiales y gentiles
honbres delante de mí, pensando
que era yo varon. En fin yo
amaestrada deseaua boluer ya
acá para viuir por mi y tratar a mi
plazer con mas libertad; porque
no podia hablar todo lo que queria
en aquel habito que me vistió; que
por ser zeloso el capitan no me
dexaua momento de junto a si, y
mandóme que sopena de muerte
a ninguno descubriesse ser
muger. Pues suçedió que en vna
escaramuça que se dio a los
moros fue mal herido el capitan, y
mandandome quanto tenia murio;
y por dudar el suçeso de la guerra
y pensando que avnque los
nuestros huuiessen vitoria y
diessen la çiudad a saco más
tenia yo ya saqueado que podia
saquear, me determiné boluer a
España antes que fuesse de
algun soldado entendida; y ansi
me concerté con vn mercader que
en vna carauela lleuava de
España al real prouision, que me
huuiesse de passar; y ansi cogido
mi fato, lo mas secretamente que
pude me passé, y con la mayor
priessa que pude me bolui a mi
Toledo, donde en llegando supe
que mi padre era muerto; y como
mi madre me vió me reçibió con
plazer, porque vió que yo venia
razonablemente proueyda: que de
más de las ropas de seda muchas
y muy buenas que hube del
Capitan, traya yo doçientos
ducados que me dixo que tenia
en vna bolsa secreta al tienpo de
su muerte. De lo qual todo me
vestí bien de todo genero de
ropas de dama al vso y tiempo
muy gallardas y costosas, y por
tener ojo a ganar con aquello
más. Hize vasquiñas, saboyanas,
verdugados, saltaenbarca,
nazarena, reboçiños, faldrillas,
briales, manteos, y otras ropas de
paseo, de por casa, de raso, de
tafetan y de chamelote; y quando
lo tube a punto nos fuemos todos
tres a Salamanca, que ya era my
hermano buen moço y de buena
dispusiçion, y en aquella çiudad
tomamos una buena casa en la
calle del Prior. Donde llamandome
doña Hieronima de Sandoual, en
dos meses que allí estuue gané
horros çien ducados entre
estudiantes generosos y
caualleros naturales del pueblo; y
como supe que la corte era
venida a Valladolid enbié a mi
hermano que en vna calle de
conversaçion me tomasse vna
buena posada, y él me la alquiló
de buen reçebimiento y
cunplimiento en el barrio de San
Miguel. Donde como llegamos
fuemos reçebidos de vna
huespeda honrrada con buena
voluntad. Aqui mi madre me
recató mucho de todos quantos
auia en casa, diçiendo que ella
era vna bibda de Salamanca,
muger de vn cauallero defunto, y
que venia en vn gran pleyto por
sacar diez mil ducados que auia
de auer para mi de docte, de la
legitima de mi padre que tenia
vsurpado un tio mío que suçedió
en el mayorazgo; y yo ansi me
recogi y me escondi con gran
recatamiento que ninguno me
pudiesse ver sino en açecho y
asalto; y ansi la huespeda
començo a publicar que estaua
alli vna linda donzella, hija de vna
viuda de Salamanca, muy rica y
hermosa a marauilla, proçediendo
con quantos hablaua en el cuento
de mi venida y estado; y tanbien
ayudó a lo publicar vna moça que
para nuestro seruiçio tomamos; y
yo en vna ventana baja de vna
sala que salia a la calle hize vna
muy graçiosa y vistosa zelosía,
por donde a la contina azechaua
mostrandome y escondiendome,
dando a entender que a todos
queria huyr y que no me viessen.
[494] Con lo qual a todos quantos
cortesanos passauan daua
ocasion que de mi estado y
persona procurassen saber; y
algunas vezes parandome muy
atauiada a vna ventana grande,
con mi mirar y aparato, a las
vezes haziendo que queria huyr, y
a las[495] vezes queriendome
mostrar fingiendo algunos
descuydos, ponia a todos
más[496] deseo de me ver.
Andaua ya gran multitud de
seruidores, caualleros y señores
de salua enbiando presentes y
seruiçios y ofreçimientos, y a
todos mi madre despedia diziendo
que su hija era donzella y que no
eramos mugeres de palaçio y
passatiempo, que se sufria herrar;
que se fuessen con dios. Entre
todos quantos en mi picaron se
adelantó más vn mançebo
mercader estrangero rico, gentil
honbre y de gran aparato: era en
fin como le deseaua yo. Este más
que ninguno otro se arriscó, a se
me ofrecer trabajando todo lo
posible porque yo le diesse
audiençia; y como la moça le
inportunaua sobre muchos
mensajes, musicas y seruiçios y
contino pasearme la puerta,
alcançó de mi que yo le huuiesse
de oyr, y sobre tienpos tasados y
aplazados le falté mas de veynte
vezes diziendo que mi madre no
lo auia de sauer; y en el
entretanto ningun mensaje le
reçebia que no me lo pagaua con
el doblo: que çamarro, saboyana,
pieza de terciopelo, joyel, sortixa:
de manera que ya que vna noche
a la hora de maytines le vine a
hablar por entre las puertas de la
calle sin le abrir, me auia dado
joyas de mas de doçientos
ducados. En aquella vez que allí
le hablé yo le dixe que en la
verdad yo era desposada con un
cauallero en Salamanca, y que
agora esperaua auer la sentencia
de los diez mil ducados de mi
docte, y que aguardaua a mi
esposo que auia de venir a me
uer: por lo qual le rogaua yo
mucho que no me infamasse, que
daria ocasion de gran mal; y el
pobre mançebo desesperado de
salud lloraua y maldeziase con
gran cuyta, suplicandome puesto
de rodillas en el suelo ante las
puertas çerradas que le diesse
liçençia como vn dia se viesse
delante de mi, que le pareçia no
desear otra beatitud; y yo
mostrandome algo piadosa y
como por su gran importunidad le
dixe: Señor, no penseis ni
espereis de mí, que por todos los
tesoros del mundo haria cosa que
menoscabasse mi honrra y
honestidad; pero eso que me
pedis alcançadlo vos de mi
señora, que podra[497] ser que lo
haga yo. Con esta palabra se
consoló en tanta manera que
pareçió entonces de nueuo[498]
resucitar, porque entendio della
dezirla yo con alguna parte de
affiçion sino que ser yo donzella y
niña me causaua tener sienpre
aquel desden, y no me atreuer a
más liberalidad; y ansi me
despedi dexandole a la puerta
sollozcando y sospirando, y sin
ninguna[499] pena ni cuydado me
fue a dormir, y porque estuuiesse
mi madre auisada de lo que se
deuia hazer le conté lo que la
noche passó. Luego por el dia
proueyo mi seruidor para mi casa
todo lo que fue menester,
enbiando a suplicar a mi madre le
diesse liçençia para la venir a
visitar, y ella le enbió a dezir que
viniesse pero que fuesse con
tanto auiso y miramiento que no
peligrasse nuestra honrra, y que
antes ella le deseaua hablar por
aduertirle de lo que nos conuenia,
y que ansi le encomendaua
viniesse cuando fuesse
anocheçido, y que la huespeda no
le[500] sintiesse; y ansi él vino
anocheçiendo y entró con tanto
recatamiento como si escalara la
casa del rey.
Miçilo.—Dime, gallo, ¿porqué te
detenías tanto y hazias tantos
encareçimientos?
Gallo.—Poco sabes deste
menester. Todo esto que yo hazia
era para ençenderle más el
apetito; para que le supiesse más
el bocado de la manzana que le
esperaua dar. Que avn mucho
más se le encareçí como verás.
Pues como mi madre le reçibió se
sentó en la sala con él diziendole:
señor, yo os he deseado hablar
por pediros de merçed que pues
publicais que teneis affiçion a mi
hija doña María, no la hagais
obras que sean su destruiçion.
Porque ya creo que, señor,
sabreis, y sino quiero os lo dezir,
que yo fue muger de vn valeroso
cauallero de Salamanca de los
mejores Maldonados; del qual me
quedó vn hijo y esta hija que es la
lunbre de mys ojos; y sabed que
mi marido poseyó vn cuento de
renta mientra viuio; porque su
padre dispuso en su testamento
que le poseyesse él por su vida
por ser mayor; y que siendo él
muerto suçediesse el hijo menor,
hermano de my marido[501], con
tal condiçion que diesse a cada
vno de los hijos que quedassen al
mayor çinco mil ducados; y sino
se los quisiese dar que
suçediesse en ello el hijo mayor
adelante en su linea; y ansi el
hermano de mi marido se ha
metido en el mayorazgo y no
quiere dar los diez mil ducados
que deue a mis dos hijos; y ansi
ha dos años que pleyteo con él,
donde espero la segunda
sentençia que es final en esta
causa, que se dará antes de diez
dias. En cuya confiança yo
desposé a mi hija con vn
cauallero muy prinçipal de aquella
çiudad, mandandole los diez mil
ducados en docte porque mi hijo
le[502] haze donaçión de los suyos
si yo le diese agora
quinientos [503] ducados, porque
va a Rodas por la
encomienda[504] de San Juan, y
está todo el despacho hecho del
Rey y de su informaçion. Agora,
señor hijo, yo os he querido
hablar por dos cosas. Lo primero
suplicaros que os tenpleis en
vuestro ruar; porque cada dia
esperamos al esposo de doña
Maria; y si él venido tomasse
sospecha de vos seria tomar vn
siniestro que la echassedes a
perder; y lo segundo que os
quiero suplicar es que hagais esta
buena obra a doña Maria mi hija,
pues todo es para su remedio y
bien, que nos presteis estos
quinientos[505] ducados para con
que enbiemos mi hijo de aqui: que
yo os haré vna cédula de os los
pagar auida agora la sentençia y
execuçion; y en lo demas mi hija y
yo estamos aqui para os lo servir;
que no será ella tan ingrata que
visto el bien que la hazeis no
huelgue de os hazer el plazer que
querreis; y diciendo esto le tomó
mi madre por la mano y me le
metio a vna camara donde yo
estaua con una vela rezando en
vnas Horas, y la verdad que te
diga estaua rogando al demonio
açertase mi madre en su petiçion;
y como le[506] vi entrar fingi
alguna alteraçion[507], y mirando
bien le reçebí con mi mesura; y él
mostró quererme[508] bessar el
pie, y auiendo algo hablado en
cosas uniuersales de la corte, del
Rey, de las damas y caualleros,
traxes y galanes, saliendose mi
madre me dexó sola con él. El
qual se fue luego para mí
trabajando por me bessar, pero yo
me defendí por gran pieza hasta
que mi madre entró y le sacó
afuera diziendo que le queria
hablar, y él se le quexó mucho de
mi desabrimiento y desamor
jurando que me daria toda su
hazienda si le quisiesse
complazer. Mira, Miçilo, si el
detenerme como tú antes me
reprehendias si me aprouechó.
Miçilo.—Por çierto, artifiçial
maestra estauas ya.
Gallo.—Pues mira mi madre
como acudió, que luego le dixo:
Señor es niña y teme a su
esposo, y nunca en tal se vio. Ella
me obedeçera si le mando que se
meta en vna cama con vos. Pues
echandose á los pies de mi madre
le dixo: hazedlo vos, Señora, por
las plagas de Dios, que yo os
daré quanto querais, y ansi fueron
luego entre si conçertados que él
le daria los quinientos ducados, y
que mi madre le hiziesse la
çedula de se los pagar dentro de
vn mes; y que ella hiziesse que yo
dormiesse vna noche con él, y
ansi quedó que para la noche
siguiente se truxiessen los
dineros y hecha la çedula me
diessen en rehenes a mi, y ansi
en ese otro dia entendimos en
aparejar lo que se deuia de hazer.
Que pagamos la huespeda y
despedimos la casa diçiendo que
en anocheçiendo nos auiamos de
yr, y comprando mi hermano vn
par de mulas le auisamos de todo
lo que auia de hazer. Pues luego
venida la noche vino el mercader
a lo conçertado que avn no se le
coçia el pan, y nos dió luego los
quinientos[509] ducados y mi
madre le hizo la çedula a su
contento[510] de se los pagar
dentro de vn, mes, y luego se
aparejó la çena qual el nouio la
proueyó; la qual acabada con
mucho contento suyo nos metió
mi madre en mi camara y çerró
por defuera, y el se desnudó
suplicandome que me acostasse
con él, y yo dezia llorando con
lagrimas que no haria a mi
esposo tan gran traiçion, y él se
leuantó y asiendo de mi se mostró
enojar a porfia[511] conmigo, y yo
por ninguna fuerça le quise
obedeçer, pero lloraua muy vivas
lágrimas, y él tomando a
requerirme por bien; y yo ni por
bien ni por mal, y ansi auiendo
pasado alguna parte de la noche
en esta porfia oymos llamar a la
puerta de la calle con furia,
sintiendo gran huella de
caualgaduras, y era mi hermano
que traya las mulas en que
auiamos de partir, y entonçes
mostrando alteraçion dixele que
estuuiesse atento. Estando ansi
hyrio mi madre a la puerta de la
camara con furia y entrando dixo:
¡ay hija! que tu esposo es venido
y preguntando por ti sube a te[512]
ver, y diziendo esto tomamos
ambas a mi seruidor, y ansi en
camisa con vna espada en la
mano le hezimos salir por vna
recamara a un corredor que para
este caso auiamos quitado unas
tablas del suelo, y como él entró
por alli con intinçion de se recoger
hasta ver el suçeso, al primer
passo cayó en vn corral, de
donde no podia salir por estar
çerrado al rededor; y luego yo
vestiendome de todos los
vestidos de mi galan, que me
conoçian ya porque en ellos me
crié, y despedidos de la huespeda
los vnos a los otros no nos vimos
mas hasta oy. De aqui nos
fuemos a Seuilla y a Valençia,
donde hize lançes de grande
admiraçion.
Miçilo.—Espantado me tienes ¡o
gallo! con tu osadia y atreuimiento
con que acometias semejantes
hazañas. Que la flaqueza de ser
muger no te encogia el animo a
temer el[513] gran peligro en que
ponias tu persona?
Gallo.—¿Qué diçes, Miçilo,
flaqueza y encogimiento de
animo? Pues más de veras te
espantaras de mi quando yo fue
Cleopatra: si me vieras con
quanto estado y magestad me
presenté ante Julio Cesar quando
vino en Egipto en seguimiento de
Pompeo, y[514] vieras vn
vanquete que le hize alli para le
coger[515] la voluntad, y que si me
vieras en vna vatalla que di a
Octauiano Çesar junto al
promontorio de Leucadia, donde
estuuo la fortuna en punto de
poner en mi poder a Roma. En la
qual mostre bien con mi ardid y
desemboltura varonil la voluntad y
ánimo que tuue de vençer las
vanderas Romanas y lleuar
delante de mi trihunfo a[516] Çesar
vençido. Todo esto quiero dexar
para otro tiempo en que
tengamos mas lugar; y agora
quiero te dezir de quando fue
monja, lo qual por ser ya venido el
dia en el canto que se sigue
proseguiré.
Fin del séptimo canto del gallo.
 NOTAS:
[480] Tachado: Siguesse el septimo canto del Gallo de Luçiano
orador griego, contrahecho en el castellano por el mesmo autor.
[481] G., nillados.
[482] G., marchito.
[483] G., miseros.
[484] G., dexaua.
[485] G., a.
[486] G., escape.
[487] G., los seglares teneis.
[488] G., por mi qual por ti.
[489] G., esta tu historia.
[490] G., sieruo sclauo.
[491] G., canto.
[492] G., vltimo.
[493] G., tienpo.
[494] que ninguno me viesse.
[495] G., otras.
[496] G., gran.
[497] G., podría.
[498] G., muerto.
[499] G., alguna.
[500] G., lo.
[501] G., y que si al tiempo de su muerte fuesse viuo vn otro
hermano que era menor, que suçediese en el.
[502] G., la.
[503] G., quatroçientos.
[504] G., a tomar el habito.
[505] G., quatroçientos.
[506] G., la.
[507] G., algún subito espanto.
[508] G., querer bessarme.
[509] G., quatroçientos.
[510] G., a mi madre, la cual le hizo vna çedula.
[511] G., enojado porfiando.
[512] G., por te.
[513] G., tener temor al.
[514] G., si.
[515] G., ganar.
 ARGUMENTO
DEL OCTAUO
CANTO DEL
GALLO

En el octauo canto que se sigue

el auctor se finge hauer sido
monja, por notarles algunos
intereses que en daño de sus
conçiençias tienen. Concluye
con vna batalla de ranas en
imitaçion de Homero[517].

Gallo.—Si despertasse Miçilo

holgariale entretener en el trabajo
gustando él de mi cantar; porque
la pobreza çiertamente nos fatiga
tanto que con dificultad nos
podemos mantener, y no sé si le
soy ya algo odioso, porque
algunas mañanas le he
despertado algo más tenprano
que él acostunbraua, por lo qual
padeçiamos mucha más hanbre,
y agora porque esta maçilenta
loba no nos acabe de tragar
tomóme por ocasion para atraerle
al trabajo contarle mi vida
miserable; donde pareçe que ha
tomado hasta agora algun sabor,
y plega a Dios que no le enhade
mi dezir; porque avnque sea a
costa de mi cabeza quiera él
trabajar y ambos tengamos que
comer.
Miçilo.—¿Qué dizes, gallo; qué
hablas entre ti? No me has
prometido de me despertar cada
mañana, y con tu graçioso cantar
ayudarme en mi trabajo
contandome tu vida?
Gallo.—Y ansi lo quiero yo,
Miçilo, hazer; que no quiero yo
por ninguna ocassion quebrantar
la palabra que te di.
Miçilo.—Pues di, que colgado
estoy de tu habla y graçioso
cantar.
Gallo.—Yo me proferi ayer de te
dezir lo que siendo monja passé,
y solo quiero reseruar para mí de
qué orden fue, porque no me
saques por rastro. Pero noramala
se diga, quiero que sepas que
este es el genero de gente más
vano y más perdido y de menos
seso que en el mundo ay. No
entra en cuento de los otros
estados y maneras de viuir;