The Missing Martyrs

The Missing Martyrs: Why Are There So Few Muslim Terrorists?
By Charles Kurzman

Published by Oxford University Press, 2011;
second edition, updated for the age of ISIS, 2019.

Promotional video

“The rental car rolled onto the sidewalk behind the registrar’s office and drove slowly down the brick path between a dining hall and the English Department, a few steps from my office. ‘Beyond Time,’ an upbeat German dance song, played in the car’s stereo. The driver, Mohammad Taheri-Azar, had just graduated from the University of North Carolina three months earlier, so he knew the campus well. Beyond the dining hall was a plaza known as the Pit, where students were hanging out at lunchtime on a warm winter day in early 2006. Taheri-Azar planned to kill as many of them as possible.” More (from Oxford University Press)…

Interview on the Building Bridges Podcast, Georgetown University, March 1, 2019.

Reviews:

Eva Sajoo, Victoria Beacon, October 3, 2011: “This provocative book provides compelling evidence for a re-evaluation of the ‘War on Terror’. Kurzman’s combination of rigorous scholarship and political engagement make this a vital contribution to public debate, and a welcome corrective to collective paranoia.” More…

Richard Cimino, Religioscope, August 31, 2011: “Kurzman’s book is unique among the steady stream of books on terrorism and Islam in devoting most of its pages to how Islamic extremists have been most ineffective and unpopular in their attacks both against the West and fellow Muslim societies. He builds his case by conducting and examining survey research, interviewing Muslims (both those sympathetic and against extremism), and studying extremist internal documents and websites.” More…

Terry McDermott, The Washington Post, August 18, 2011: “Kurzman, who is a noted scholar of radical Shia Islam, writes in non-academic prose that is sometimes striking for its casual tone. He titles one chapter ‘Radical Sheik,’ another ‘Thoroughly Modern Mujahidin.’ He cites public opinion polling, chat rooms and Pakistani pop singers among his sources. He is making a serious argument, but seems to be trying too hard to be accessible.” More…

Aaron Ross, Mother Jones, August 1, 2011: “Kurzman’s hard-headed empirical approach to an issue so often locked in emotion-fueled back and forth makes The Missing Martyrs (or at least most of it) a must-read. Early on, he states his aim: ‘to reduce the panic by examining evidence about Islamist terrorism—the actual scale of it and the reasons it is not more widespread.’ It’s an important goal—perhaps more so now than at any point in recent memory—and Kurzman has made a valuable contribution.” More…

Publishers Weekly, June 13, 2011: “Impeccably researched, tightly organized, and enriched by his personal experiences in the Middle East, Kurzman’s work is a useful primer on the state of the modern Muslim world as well as a solid argument for re-evaluating the threat of terrorism today and our reactions to it.” More…

Jonathan Alter, The Daily Beast, March 10, 2011: “as a forthcoming book from Oxford University Press suggests, the coverage of the rise of Muslim terrorism has it exactly backward. Charles Kurzman’s book, to be published this summer, is called The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists. So few.” More…

Bryan Le Beau, Leavenworth Times, March 18, 2011: “His goal is to help Americans understand this threat, keep it in perspective, and not overreact so as to alter the way of life we seek to defend and deny the rights and privileges we cherish to those among us we fear without cause. It is a timely message.” More…

Q & A with media and readers…