The Motivation behind Islamic Terrorism

Abstract

This paper revolves around the concept of Islamic radicalism. Specifically, it focuses on the motivations behind participating in that radicalism, addressing the question “Why do so many Muslim people choose to join ISIS?” It is one thing to commit acts of terrorism, but it is something else entirely to commit that terrorism when you follow a peaceful religion that goes against it; a religion like Islam. Overall, this paper will present a hypothesis related to why many Muslims choose to join ISIS, discuss important theories and concepts related to that hypothesis, and present and analyze relevant literature in order to either prove or disprove the hypothesis.