Religion and terrorism: Evidence from Ramadan fasting
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221145641 |
| Author | Roland Hodler,Paul A Raschky,Anthony Strittmatter |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221145641
Journal of Peace Research
2024, Vol. 61(3) 351 –365
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221145641
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433221145641Journal of Peace ResearchHodler et al.
research-article2023
Regular Article
Religion and terrorism: Evidence
from Ramadan fasting
Roland Hodler
Department of Economics, University of St Gallen; CEPR; CESifo
Paul A Raschky
Department of Economics, SoDa Labs, Monash University
Anthony Strittmatter
CREST-ENSAE, Institut Polytechnique de Paris; College of Business and Economics, University
of Johannesburg; CESifo
Abstract
Do intense religious experiences increase or decrease terrorism? We argue that fasting during the month of Ramadan
offers an ideal setting for studying this question empirically. Reasons are twofold: first, daily fasting from dawn to
sunset during Ramadan is considered mandatory for most Muslims. Second, the Islamic Hijri calendar is not
synchronized with the solar cycle. Therefore, the daily fasting duration during Ramadan is exogenous once we
control for latitude and the seasonality of Ramadan, which we can do by using district and country-year fixed effects.
Focusing on predominantly Muslim countries, we document three main findings: first, longer and more intense
Ramadan fasting has a robust negative effect on the likelihood of local terrorist events and terror deaths over the next
year. Second, this negative effect is particularly pronounced for operationally more difficult attack types, which are
more dependent on public support for terrorism. Third, using survey data, we show that longer and more intense
Ramadan fasting lowers the share of respondents who consider religiously motivated violence to be justified. These
findings imply that intense religious experiences may not be a breeding ground for terrorism. Quite the opposite,
they can decrease public support for terrorism and, consequently, terrorist attacks.
Keywords
Ramadan fasting, religion, suicide attack, terrorism
Introduction
Terrorist groups have long been using religion as
a justification for their actions and as a vehicle to gain public
support. Terrorism has been further on the rise since the
September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent US-led
military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This increase
has mainly been driven by terrorist groups with Islamist
ideologies, with most victims being civilians in predomi-
nantly Muslim countries (as discussed in the data section).
This surge in terrorist attacks has made the question about
the relation between religion and terrorism ever more salient.
In this article, we study the effect of intense religious
experiences on terrorism by focusing on the daily fasting
during the month of Ramadan in predominantly Mus-
lim countries. For this purpose, Ramadan and Ramadan
fasting have three intriguing characteristics. First, Rama-
dan is one of the five pillars of Islam and seen as man-
datory for adult Muslims until they lose their good
health or sanity in older age.
1
Table I presents survey
Corresponding author:
anthony.strittmatter@ensae.fr.
1
People who are sick, nursing or traveling are exempt from fasting
during Ramadan, but must do so later.
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