From Artaxerxes to Abu Ghraib: on religion and the pornography of imperial violence

Authors

• Bruce Lincoln University of Chicago

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67310

Keywords:

Power (Religion), Terrorism, Violence, Fundamentalism

Abstract

In the wake of September 11, 2001, much has been written about religious groups commonly called ‘terrorist’, building on an older literature whose equally tendentious buzzwords were ‘cult’ and ‘fundamentalism’. In general, the conclusions advanced within such works tilt sometimes in the direction of alarm, and sometimes in that of reassurance. The amount of academic attention devoted to a given threat ought reflect its seriousness, based on calculations of the likelihood that threat will be realized and the destruction it can unleash. Among the most dangerous of situations is that in which an extremely powerful state bent on conquest finds and deploys religious arguments that encourage its aggressive tendencies and imperial ambitions. Believing that it may be useful to consider data sufficiently removed from the present to afford some critical distance, I have devoted much of my research in recent years to the role played by religion in Achaemenid Persia (550–330 bce), the largest, wealthiest, most powerful empire of antiquity before the emergence of Rome. As a convenient summary of that research, I propose to discuss two Achaemenian data, each of which can assume emblematic status. Only after that exercise will I return to contemporary materials and issues.