Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 6/5/2007
Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War
April 2007
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract
In 42 religious civil wars from 1940 to 2000, incumbent governments and rebels who identified with Islam were involved in 34 (81 percent), far more than those identifying with other religions, such as Christianity (21, or 50 percent) or Hinduism (7, or 16 percent). In addition, civil wars in which key actors identify as Islamic are more likely to escalate into religious civil wars than civil wars in which key actors identify with other religions.
In this article I argue that overlapping historical, geographical, and, in particular, structural factors account for Islam’s higher representation in religious civil wars. Together, the historical absence of an internecine religious war similar to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618–48), the geographic proximity of Islam’s holiest sites to Israel and large petroleum reserves, and jihad—a structural feature of Islam—explain why so many civil wars include Islamic participants. When political elites come under immediate threat, they will work to reframe issues of contention as religious issues, essentially attempting to out-bid each other in an effort to establish religious credibility and thus attract domestic and external support.
