“The rate of suicide bombings - the seemingly endless supply of people prepared to blow themselves up - leaves a western audience utterly bewildered. What kind of psychology motivates people to such violent extremes? The incomprehension prompts revulsion that this form of warfare is historically unprecedented and reveals a peculiar, aberrant irrationality - a kind of inhuman madness. All too quickly, Islam is blamed for deluding its believers into martyrdom with promises of 72 virgins; the old prejudices about Islam as a faith uniquely associated with violence and unquestioning belief are fanned into life again…”