Religion as a Legitimazing Instrument of Political Violence

This paper will focus on the geopolitical interpretation of religion in international relations. This dimension has historically related religion to politics and politics among nations. More specifically we will analyze the use of religion as a legitimating instrument of political violence, with special focus on the violence emanating from Islamic extremism and terrorism. History of humanity is full of cases when violence has been used for religious purposes, independently from the label accompanying the violence, sometimes as terrorism and other times as organized social violence, or state violence later on. Also, geopolitics has always been an indivisible part of religious violence, not only in ancient times, but also more lately, during medieval or modern times. This paper will use history in order to study today’s religious fundamentalism, concentrating in one of the more destabilizing factors of global geopolitics: at the religious Islamic extremism. We will use a number of case studies to illustrate our arguments, such as the cases of Iran, United States, Israel, India, and so on. This study will combine empirical analyses with theoretical one. We aim to articulate that religious violence for political purposes and with a clear strategic objective is not found only in today’s Islam, but it has been historically seen in nearly all other religions of the world.