It is far too easy for analysts who are not Muslim to focus on the small part of the extremist threat that Muslim extremists pose to non-Muslims in the West and/or demonize one of the world's great religions, and to drift into some form of Islamophobia-blaming a faith for patterns of violence that are driven by a tiny fraction of the world's Muslims and by many other factors like population, failed governance, and weak economic development. The problem becomes much greater when the analysis attempts to deal with issues as controversial as the links between Islam, extremism, and terrorism. Putting the Links Between Islam and Violent Extremism in ContextĪny analysis of the patterns in terrorism faces major challenges simply because of the lack of reliable and comparable data, and the tendency to compartmentalize analysis to deal with given threats, nations, and regions. This analysis is entitled Islam and the Patterns in Terrorism and Violent Extremism and is available on the CSIS web site at They include a range of tables, graphs, and maps that help put the global patterns of terrorism in perspective, and that show the relationships between extremist and terrorist movements, the reject of such movements by the vast majority of Muslims, and the critical role that Muslim states play as strategic partners in the fight against such movements. The Burke Chair at CSIS has assembled a wide range of indicators that help quantify and explain these patterns, and that look beyond the crises of the moment to examine longer term trends. It is far too easy to focus on individual acts of terrorism and extremism, and ignore the global patterns in such violence.
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