This article by Jonathan Fine published in Middle East Quarterly, offers substantive analysis of terrorism and the various writings that supply the ideological underpinnings for various terrorist groups. Author Fine takes issue with those who suggest that overthrowing an occupying force is a more motivating force than religion. On terrorist texts, both secular and Islamic, note the following:
Whether secular or religious, most terrorist and guerrilla organizations hold sacred a few influential works. Among canonical works secular revolutionaries may embrace are Mao[7] and Guevara's[8] books on guerilla warfare; General Võ Nguyên Giap's Peoples Army—Peoples War,[9] Carlos Marighela's Handbook of Urban Guerrilla Warfare,[10] or Abraham Guillén's Teoría de la Violencia (The theory of violence).[11]
Islamists have supplanted these with a new canon including Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna's essays,[12] the writings of the Muslim Brotherhood's main theoretician Sayyid Qutb,[13] essays on Islamic governance by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,[14] Abdullah Yusuf ‘Azzam's Join the Caravan,[15] and bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri's Knights under the Prophet's Banner.[16] After analyzing the religious foundations of suicide bombing, David Bukay, a lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa, explains, "Suicide bombing in the Muslim world cannot be separated from religion … The ideological basis of such an interpretation has deep roots in Islamic theology, but it came to prominence with the twentieth-century rise of Muslim Brotherhood theorists such as Banna and Qutb and was further developed by their successors."[17] (more . . . )
(HT: Michael Rubin over at the The Corner)