Introduction

Abstract

The attacks on the Twin Towers New York City and the ensuing ones in Washington and Pennsylvania by Osama Bin Laden’s religiously motivated Al-Qaeda organization seemingly caught the Western world by surprise. What was particularly surprising to the West is that religious phenomena could have such an impact in the heart of the Western world. That this surprise occurred is itself surprising given earlier indications of the growing phenomenon of religiously motivated conflicts in the international scene. These include previous terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda, the tensions between India and Pakistan, the ongoing sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, the successful religious revolutions in Iran and Afghanistan, the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel, stopping a peace process of almost a decade, and a score of other local conflicts of this type around the globe.