Weapon of Peace

Nilay Saiya is assistant professor of public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

• Introduction: religious resurgence, repression and resistance; 1. A global view of religious repression and terrorism; 2. Minority religious discrimination and terrorism across faith traditions; 3. Majority religious cooptation, terrorism and the Arab Spring; 4. A weapon of peace; 5. Religious liberty and American foreign policy; Appendix; References; Index.

'Weapon of Peace is ​an extraordinarily refreshing and rare achievement​. Just as the early-modern 'Wars of Religion' taught generations of Europeans that schemes of religious conformity would only fuel rather than dampen sectarian violence, Saiya's ground-breaking book promises to make the causal nexus between religious persecution and religious terrorism a more central and serious subject of discussion in our own era of sanguinary religious conflict. There are many valuable studies of religion and terrorism. But Weapon of Peace is an absolute must-read for scholars and policy makers alike.' Timothy Samuel Shah, Director for International Research, Religious Freedom Research Project at the Berkley Center, Georgetown University and Senior Advisor, Religious Freedom Institute