On 24th of September of the world's most influential and eloquent Palestinian Arab writer, Edward Said, died of Leukemia.

Said’s death should give us pause to think upon new manifestations of the phenomenon he so often discussed: 'mystifications' that are inserted into our cultural imagination.

The most recent example of mystification is the concept of 'Islamic terrorism' and its associated terms ('Muslim terrorists', 'militant Islam', and so on). I claim this is a 'mystification' in two senses. First, it either intentionally or unintentionally confuses analytically unrelated ideas - Islam and terrorism - enabling their conflation, and thus the unreflective creation of a new concept that in fact bears upon no real entity. The concept, which suggests an entire religion and by implication it followers are essentially connected to certain acts of terrorism, is profoundly misleading.

If we accept that a religion is characterised by its 'holy' writings (and this seems a reasonable enough assumption), then 'Islamic terrorism' is a straight forward contradiction; it is akin to speaking of 'polytheistic Judaism or 'atheistic Christianity'. Why? Because the simple, boring fact is that the Qu'raan does NOT sanction terrorism. It doesn't even sanction unprovoked military assaults, as per the United States' invasions of Vietnam, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq. A disinterested reading of the entire Qu'raan makes this abundantly and undeniably clear.

This, however, is not to say the Qu'raan doesn't ever sanction violence - it's no pacifist tract. But it is important to note under what conditions violence is acceptable. First, it sanctions only physical DEFENCE - that is, someone must be the subject of physical attack before violent reaction is allowed. Second, the 'someone' can be almost anyone; not only does this include fellow Muslims, but also includes anyone who believes in God, prays and is a morally good person. (Indeed, in an oft-neglected passage, the Qu'raan explicitly requires that Muslims protect Jews and Christians, and their temples and churches, from attack by others.) Third, the rules of engagement are strikingly similar to the modern rules of war set out by the United Nations: one can only engage with identifiable 'fighters'; women, children, the weak, the elderly and clerics must never be harmed, and property such as buildings must not be destroyed.

So, not only is there no essential connection between terrorist acts and the religion of Islam, but the Qu'raan, but explicit implication, disallows it. The concept of 'Islamic terrorism' can only arise through the ignorant conflation of 'terrorism conducted by people who claim to be Muslim' with 'being Muslim'. The conflation is absurdly wrong because the latter is a negation of the former; formally, it requires the belief that 'A is B' where 'B is not-A'.

The second sense in which the term 'Islamic terrorism' is a mystification is in that it allows the systematic mis-identification of the cause of terrorism. 'Islamic terrorism' suggests the cause of, the driving force behind, the nature of a particular terrorist act is the religion of Islam itself. One sees the underlying idea in Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations - a book so laughably absurd that one wonders how any intelligent and knowledgeable person would entertain its bizarre, bigoted thesis. The thesis in a nutshell is that the world can be divided into different civilizations; one is 'The West' (enlightened liberal democratic capitalism) and the other is 'The East' (unenlightened dogmatic religion which is unstable and shades into fanatical and violent Islam). These two civilizations are so fundamentally different that they cannot co-exist and will ultimately clash violently in a cataclysmic struggle between good and evil.

Why is the thesis absurd? (1) It assumes that Islam constitutes an entire culture. If we have learned nothing else about Afghanistan, it's that this is false even within one tiny country. It only becomes more untenable as more examples are added: can any rational person seriously suggest that the Javanese and the Nigerians share identical cultures? And to suggest it is true world-wide is an example of either the height of ignorance or lying on a grand scale. (2) It assumes 'The West' is characterised by a single culture too. So where does Cuba fit? It is not an Islamic state, but nor it is capitalist. And what of Indonesia and Malaysia? They are liberal democratic states and also predominantly Islamic. And what of Chile under Pinochet? It was capitalist, not Muslim, but also not a liberal democracy. (3) Even if we accept the gross and grotesque generalisation about there being two civilizations, if anything there is underlying CONTINUITY between them. Religiously, Islam is continuous with Judaism and Christianity (it was and is a practical attempt to meld the two). Culturally, Western civilization owes its very origins to the Islamic Empire of the middle ages (they preserved the essential raw materials of the European Enlightenment: geometry and mathematics, classical philosophy), not to mention soap! Politically, ideal (theoretical) Islamic states espouse the principles of equality, democracy and social justice; and in practice, Islamic states were continuous with the opposite traditions of monarchism and patriarchy found in Europe.

Anyway, none of this really explains terrorism. Religious explanations of and justifications for terrorism always overlook the more basic forces at work. Sure, people like Usama bin Laden clothe their reasoning in religious rhetoric, and yes, this 'pushes the right buttons' of some people, but we should look more carefully at both the details of bin Laden's rants and the conditions under which his rants 'make sense' to his supporters for clues as to underlying forces. Bin Laden's two open letters to the US make it clear that he believed the US was 'invading' the Saudi Arabian Peninsula to extract oil, and that it was supporting the oppression of the Palestinian people. Those who support bin Laden almost always come from situations where they feel they are being oppressed by some external influence from which there is no escape. It is these people who are likely to become terrorists. It has nothing to do with their religion; indeed, they are willing to CAST ASIDE the teachings of their religion to engage in acts of terror as their only means of fighting against those they see as their oppressors. The root cause of terrorism, then, would appear to be oppression (either perceived or real). Still not convinced? Think of it this way: what do the Jewish terrorists in Israel the late 1940s, the French resistance terrorists in France during WW2, the ANC terrorists in South Africa in the 1970s, the IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, the Chechin terrorists in Russia now, and the Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip now, have in common? Obviously not Islam, and not even so kind of generalised 'religious motivation'. The only thing they have in common is a real sense of oppression, and no perceived alternative means of struggle other than acts of terror.