The Proud Boys are an opportunistic hate group whose message of white male chauvinism is infused with religious and nationalist symbols. They fit into the global trend of religious nationalism in that they are driven by a reaction to religious pluralism, entertain atavistic yearnings, and celebrate a founding hero, Donald Trump. Enthralled with fistfighting, in both their initiatory rituals and their engagements with antifa groups, they delight in offending the genteel sensibilities they associate with the “white liberal elite.” They are proudly anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and anti-feminist, but their list of enemies appears to be ever shifting, suggesting a toxic virility run amuck. While they are but one expression of an enduring European-American chauvinism, their celebration of masculinity resembles the masculinism and misogyny that arose in response to the Victorian era in the US.

Religion and violence are both ambiguous categories but in the cultural mosaic that pits human against human, religion is a reoccurring justifier. There is no religion exempt from this tendency toward violence. Further, based on Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments with students who were convinced that it was necessary to inflict torture on subjects for the greater good, it is apparent that ordinary people may commit heinous acts, given a sense of overarching emergency. Examples of religiously justified atrocities and violent rhetoric are summarized in this essay. In each case there is the mindset that violence is justified due to an extraordinary set of circumstances which require the suspension of behavioral norms.

Religious sites are often at the center of confrontation. Groups frequently clash over the structures and the historical narratives surrounding sacred spaces. Religious sites encompass deeply entrenched meanings for groups of all backgrounds. These spaces represent identity, tradition, history, family, and belief systems. For minority groups, their religious sites can help provide a sense of belonging and serve as a monument to their history in the community. Due to their symbolic importance, religious sites are also vulnerable to violence by outside groups. Destructive acts targeting religious architecture and symbols are common throughout the world, but are especially frequent in identity-based conflicts, such as in Bosnia. However, the study of these attacks and their relationship to nationalist movements, particularly in Asia, has not been adequately studied. This article examines the destruction of Islamic sites in three distinct countries and contexts: India, Myanmar, and Xinjiang, China. In each case, Muslims are religious minorities and face varying levels of persecution. This article argues that the destruction of religious spaces and symbols has been used both literally and symbolically to claim a space for the dominant group and assert a right to the associated territory. The elimination of Muslim sites is part of a broader attempt to engage in a historical revisionism that diminishes or vilifies Muslims belonging in the region.

The article attempts to understand the phenomenon of the neo-patriotic group Kyrk Choro in Kyrgyzstan, and focuses on issues such as the activities of the group and the conditions for its emergence. The confusion of ideological orientations in the country has led to the fragmentation of the Kyrgyz society. The emergence and popularity of Kyrk Choro are reflections of the aggravating contradictions between westernization and attempts to keep Kyrgyz values.

A widespread assumption in research on prejudice and hate crime is that Islamophobia and antisemitism are analogous phenomena: both travel easily across national and cultural boundaries and adapt to new contexts. This article argues that this assumption is incorrect. Islamophobia works well in very different cultural contexts and shows highly diverse localized expressions. Antisemitism is linked to Christian theology even when expressed in Muslim societies and is not global to nearly the same extent as Islamophobia. The key question is this: how can we understand the cultural conditions for the globalization of antisemitism and Islamophobia? To answer this the article looks briefly at Islamophobia and antisemitism in Chinese and Hindu civilizations and then moves on to introduce the theory of cultural models. Islamophobia is a family of more or less similar cultural models belonging to a range of different cultures across time and space. This is the general answer to the question of why Islamophobia is an intensely globalizing prejudice. Islamophobia should be conceptualized as a number of overlapping cultural models found in various societies. Today, local varieties of Islamophobia seem to come into closer contact, to converge and sometimes to exchange elements as a result of intensifying transnational and global communication.

There is considerable evidence that many translations of the Quran constitute fertile ground for the radicalization of a large number of Western Muslims, particularly those who do not speak Arabic as their mother tongue. While a handful of previous studies have addressed the factors engendering terrorism, more remains to be said regarding the roots thereof. Therefore, this article employs the narrative theory of translation studies (TS) to highlight how these texts are manipulated through their translation, in order to deceive and brainwash young Muslims in the West. It argues that terrorist groups are successful in creating a radicalized discourse by injecting their violent ideology into Quran translations and by framing the facts to serve their objectives. This discourse is masked by the holiness of the Quran that is not questionable for Muslims. The article concludes that many translations of the Quran are dangerous and instantiate a supportive tool for terrorist groups in their attempts to brainwash Muslims and secure recruits within Western communities. The article recommends the engagement of Western governments in monitoring the circulation of Quran translations and even in undertaking a role in institutionalizing the process of translation, rather than leaving it in the hands of unqualified individuals.

Anandamath, or The Sacred Brotherhood (hereinafter “Anandamath”) is a political novel. In this literary work, Vaishnavism, one of the major forms of modern Hinduism, lays the foundation of the Bengali Vaishnava nation and provides the Children with a moral justification for resorting to violence under the auspices of state-seeking nationalism, which is a sociopolitical phenomenon in which members of a nation try to attain “a certain amount of sovereignty” or “political autonomy” (Guichard 2010: 15). To justify militant nationalism, Bankimacandra Chatterji (hereinafter “Bankim”) creates a code which is considerably different from Lord Chaitanya’s Vaishnava code and depicts a Dharma Yuddha along the thematic lines of the Mahabharata. Since the Vaishnava Order aims to restore the lost glory of the Mother, it demands complete dedication and commitment from the Children, who, otherwise, are to pay a heavy price. Even the caste system, which divides Hindus into four main categories—Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras—is negated to fulfil the Rashtra Dharma (national duty). The narrative is wreathed in the Indian religious and ethical values, supernaturalism, and mysticism in the epic tradition, and it upholds the principle of moral conscience, a central theme of the Bhagavad-gita (the Gita). The novelist presents Vaishnava nationalism as a Dharmic movement and the ideology of the Bengali Vaishnavas.