Terrorism and Contemporary Religious Cults: Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi

Abstract

The present study breaks new ground in the field of radical cults as it provides a contemporary insight into three cult leaders; Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This comparative analytical study will assist national and local government agencies with the identifying the relations between those leaders and their conclusions of terrorism, which in turn, had led to the mass death of cult adherents. Terrorism is a major, and growing, concern in the world today as it relates to security, safety, and the efficient operation of the most important service sectors in any state. The personalities of Jones, Asahara and Al-Baghdadi have made of them sect leaders from three very different religions: Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. Therefore, religion is not the source of radicalism/mass death as the similarities and commonalities exist among those three different groups. Eminently, this study has emphasized on the answers analytically to the research query through academic process supported by refereed articles and real-life occurrences.