ABSTRACT
This paper deals specifically with radicalization of Muslims. It argues that this phenomenon is not so much a response to the individual’s own sense of grievance but to the inconsistency between two world views in which he lives which are totally and diametrically opposed. The key drivers to radicalization in Muslim societies are therefore not an individual rebellious response to dissatisfaction in society by rejection of any authority, but rather a replacement of the “compromising” authority of parents, teachers and Imams with alternative-militant, uncompromising, and seemingly pristinely Islamic authority. In this sense, the Muslim radical is, in fact, a conformist. The toolbox for countering Islamic radicalism, must therefore take this into account.
