ABSTRACT
Matters which cannot be unambiguously described and expressed in words often prove to be the most important for humanity. Such is the case with religion, which eludes research and precise definitions. At the beginning of the last century, it was acknowledged to be a “relic” gradually disappearing from the life of society under the pressure of modernization. This approach began to change by the end of the 1970s. The “return” of religion to politics first drew attention in the Middle East, where after the so-called Six-Day War (1967), members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization more and more frequently stressed the religious dimension of their fight against Israel and began to call the suicide bombers religious martyrs (shahids). Another important signal was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as a result of which Shahanshah Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and Shiite clergy took power, transforming Iran into a theocratic state. Religion also figured in the war in Afghanistan (1979-89), where the conflict with the Soviet Union took on the tone of an international jihad and the final withdrawal of the USSR’s armed forces was perceived by the Islamic world as a symbolic victory of the faith-fighters (mujahedin) over what was at the time a superpower. Gilles Kepel called this clear manifestation of the religious factor in international relations “the revenge of God”, who returned to politics in defiance of proclamations of the inevitable end of religious influences. At the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury, fewer and fewer political scientists, sociologists and specialists in religious studies question the growing importance of the religious factor in politics – both as a premise of decisions undertaken by states, as well as an instrument used by them.
