Religion in the war on terror

This chapter examines the role of religion in the war on terror. With al-Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 and the Bush administration’s subsequent invasion of Iraq, the world was confronted by a situation in which both sides claimed to be acting in self-defence. It is argued that each side employed an expansive conception of self-defence that was ultimately informed by broadly religious factors. While religion was used, on both sides, in service of an expansive and more permissive conceptualization of just cause for war, so too was religion mobilized in opposition to such expansionism, as religious figures in the west and in Islam re-articulated the proper, and more limited, boundaries of the legitimate right of self-defence.