Judeo-Christian culture has to do with guilt and redemption. In Eastern cultures, with no concept of original sin, the idea of redemption from it doesn't make sense. Instead, the moral poles of the culture have to do with honor and shame.

The idea of dishonor, of some kind of real or perceived humiliation, can drive people to desperate acts.

Interestingly, in researching Shalimar, one of the things I discovered was a kind of bizarre class differential between the warriors and the suicide bombers. Strapping on a suicide belt is looked down upon by some who think it is more manly to kill face to face with a knife. Fighting is manly. Suicide bombing is cheap.

Those drawn into the act of suicide are malleable personalities. Hezbollah, for example, has developed a quite detailed psychological profile of the kind of person who can be persuaded to be a suicide bomber. You have to be a weak personality to be a suicide bomber. You have to accept the abnegation of the self. If your father or sister needs a medical operation, the handlers will say, "You do this, and we'll take care of that." There are a whole range of appeals, few of which have to do with ideology.

Gardels: Certainly, though, what drives the jihadist movement is the perception of collective humiliation and dishonor of Islamic culture at the hands of the West. As V.S. Naipaul has written, they blame their failure on the success of another civilization.

Rushdie: The birth of Islamic radicalism is relatively new. Fifty years ago, during decolonization and the early post-colonial days, Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt or the (National Liberation) Front in Algeria, for example, were completely non-religious phenomena. Some movements were led by Marxists. The cause was national liberation from imperialism.[..]