Abstract
This study aims at analysis and explanation of the phenomenon of the Islamic terrorism from a cultural perspective; i.e. a cultural reading of the religious violence phenomenon, and how the cultural systems would view the religion-induced use of violence at various levels. Generally, the unique nature of a culture sustains as well as revitalizes certain variants of extremism and terrorism.In the present study, the hypothesis was that the prevalent sociopolitical culture dominating the thinking of the majority of Arab Muslims, which is originally inspired by the religious and historical repertoire, was one of the most effective mechanisms producing extremisms and terrorism. Hence, to stand up to terrorism most effectively, the overall thinking shall be revolutionized towards a civic culture drawing on which to establish the critical mindset based upon novel social values that are capable to interaction with the most recent breakthroughs of the contemporary civilization of the globe.The researcher, as a consequence, recommends reproduction of the current Muslims' culture by employing the educational and media institutions to disseminate an open-minded civic culture that tolerates with others, and accepts multiculturalism and diversity. To that end, the researcher adopted the Content Analysis approach to analyze the content of the dominating culture and its relation to the production of terrorism and ways of confrontation.
Highlights
The reason is that the "culture" embraced by major part of the Arab communities, which defining their ways of thinking, belongs to the "Medieval Period" of the history, lagging behind the "intellectually" enlightened ages, and defies emancipation from that historical moment; while the use of critical mind and free thinking stigmatizes both the Arab culture and Islam as a religion (Alaiddin, 2016)
The culture dominating the thinking of most Arab Muslims that is mostly a "traditional culture" originally emanated from fundamentalist Islam and an idealized Islamic history, which is most frequently reemphasized at home, school, college, mosque and other media channels
Pedagogy and socialization that based on cultural haughtiness portrayed by bigot religious discourse derived from misrepresentation of Islam is another reason that if intermixed with poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, would inescapably create an environment that is averse to the culture of accepting diversity, tolerance, acceptance of others, and multiculturalism (Issa, n.d.)
Summary
The widely noted observation that the today's Arab communities live in a state of miserable "intellectual backwardness "; and the recent spread out of religion-driven terrorist and extremist acts are undeniable. The culture dominating the thinking of most Arab Muslims that (forms their visions, life standards and political ideologies) is mostly a "traditional culture" originally emanated from fundamentalist Islam and an idealized Islamic history, which is most frequently reemphasized at home, school, college, mosque and other media channels This traditional culture interacts with an extremist and politicized religious discourse, delivered by a group of mediators in the community, that conceptualize the difficult problems encountering the Islamic Arab communities, both internally and externally, relying on a historical and religion-driven explanation that form a catalyst environment precipitating religious extremism among young people, who suddenly, find themselves amid the vicious circle of terrorism (Ben Nabi, 2002). The message heralded by the terrorist and extremist groups strictly aligns with the culture dominating major part of the Arab communities, and not different from the pedagogical content being learned by students at schools, universities, and Faculties of Sharia in the Arab and Islamic countries (Gharaibeh, n.d.)
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