Riaz Hassan AM, FASSA |
ARC Australian Professorial Fellow and Emeritus Professor,
Flinders University, South Australia
RIAZ HASSAN is
an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Emeritus
Professor in the Department of Sociology, Flinders University in
Adelaide, South Australia.
In his academic career spanning over 40 years he has conducted research in a number of areas including sociology of housing, sociology of suicide, organizational culture and Muslim societies. He has recently completed a 10 year multi-country study of Muslim religiosity in which he explored key aspects of Islamic consciousness. The findings from this study have been published in, Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society and Inside Muslim Minds. He is currently conducting research on "Suicide Terrorism: The Use of Life as Weapon". MediaRecent coverage of Riaz Hassan's research on Islam and suicide terrorism.
Refugee camps a breeding ground for terror Suicide Bombers - Why Do They Do It? The trouble with being Muslim Australian
Muslims More Disadvantaged Support for terror research Legal barriers still in place Islam revealed as a tree with many branches Researcher takes a look inside Muslim minds Islam: From Heretics to Believers Suicide bombings are effective - so expect
more Suicide attacks: a grim toll set to
grow Book ban a bomb Research council hits back at critics Scholar Revises Terrorism Research
Plan Professor warned off terrorist trip Terror research under threat from Aust
law WOCMES tackles global rise in suicide attacks |
New PublicationsSuicide Bombings, Routledge, April 2011In an age when the Western world is preoccupied with worries about weapons of mass destruction in terrorist hands, terrorists across many parts of the globe are using a more basic device as a weapon - life itself. Suicide Bombings provides a short but incisive insight into this much publicized form of terrorism, and as such is an informative and engaging resource for students, academics, and indeed anyone with an interest in this topic. Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings, Routledge, August 2010 Professor Hassan's new book, Life as a Weapon, uncovers a cocktail of motivations that drive suicide bombers, and explains how their actions achieve multiple purposes - community approval, political success, liberation of the homeland, personal redemption or honour, refusal to accept subjugation, revenge, anxiety, defiance. Suicide bombing has become a weapon of choice among terrorist groups because of its lethality and ability to cause mayhem and fear. But who carries out these acts, and what motivates them? By undertaking analysis of the information in the most comprehensive suicide terrorism database in the world, Life as a Weapon seeks to question and in turn undermine the common perception that the psychopathology of suicide bombers and their religious beliefs are the principal causes. Life as a Weapon is a pivotal text in the discussion surrounding suicide bombings, and as such it is of relevance to undergraduate students, postgraduates, and researchers working in areas such as Security Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Terrorism, Criminology and Political Science.
"Hassan argues that suicide terrorism uses life as a weapon for altruistic purposes and is a global phenomenon which has seen more suicide bombings in Iraq alone since 2003, than in the whole world in the preceding 25 years. He shows this with the meticulous scholarship that has characterized his impressive scholarly work for decades."
- Adam Graycar, Professor, Rutgers University, USA
"This is a marvelous book by an extraordinary and courageous scholar. Throughout Life as a Weapon Professor Hassan challenges a number of taboos and if his data lead him that way he is ready to take politically incorrect positions." - Ivan Szelenyi, William Graham Sumner Professor of Sociology and Professor of Political Science, Yale University, USA
Recent PresentationsDefence Human Sciences Symposium, Defence Science and Technology Organization12 October 2010
Keynote Address 'Life as Weapon: Making Sense of Suicide Bombings'
2009 TASA (Sociological Association of Australia) Public Lecture, Adelaide, South Australia18 August 2009
'Suicide Bombings: Homicidal Killing or a Weapon of War?'
Read paper »
NCEIS International Conference: Challenges to Social Inclusion in Australia: The Muslim Experience, Melbourne University19-20 November 2008
Paper presented, "Social and Economic Conditions of Australian Muslims: Implications for Social Inclusion". Read paper »
First International Conference on Psychotrauma, Islamabad, Pakistan30-31 August 2008
Keynote address, "Suicide Bombings: An Analysis of Global Trends (1981-2006)"
Melbourne Writers Festival22-31 August 2008
Hanifa Deen, Arnold Zable and Riaz Hassan present "A Clash of Civilisations", a discussion on whether the tensions and fault-lines in Australian society are the result of increasingly polarised religious and cultural values. More »
Byron Bay Writers Festival25-27 July 2008
In Conversation: "People like us: inside Muslim minds". A dialogue with Waleed Aly & Riaz Hassan with Margaret Simons. More »
'Courting Controversy', Melbourne Law School Public Lecture Series20 May 2008
Professor Hassan gave the inaugural presentation, entitled 'War on the West: Changing Ideas of Jihad'.
Synopsis » Read paper »
National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies Australia (NCEIS) Public Lecture Series, University of Melbourne8 May 2008
Professor Hassan discusses the findings of his new book, Inside Muslim Minds.
"Security, State and Subject Formation" Conference, University of Alberta26-27 October 2007
Professor Hassan conducted a workshop entitled "Islamism: The Rise of a New Enemy?".
20th Annual ANZSOC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia24 September 2007
Professor Hassan was a keynote speaker at the 2007 Australian and New Zealand Society
of Criminology (ANZSOC) Conference in Adelaide. He delivered a
paper, "Suicide Attacks: Homicidal Killing or a Weapon of War?" in
which he addressed the neglected but important question of whether
suicide terrorist attacks are homicidal killing or a weapon of war.
Using ethnographic studies about the nature of war and homicide, his
paper concludes that suicide terrorist attacks could be regarded as
a weapon of war but given that they are characterised by the wilful
killing of civilians they could be regarded as 'War Crimes' under
the Fourth Geneva Convention.
ICT 7th International Conference, Herzliya, Israel8-11 September 2007 At the
International Institute for Counter Terrorism's 2007 International
Conference in September, Professor Hassan gave a paper entitled
"Observations on the Sunni-Shia divide and its global implications".
Adelaide Festival of Ideas5-8 July 2007 Professor Hassan was
a guest speaker at the 2007 Adelaide Festival of Ideas, where he
delivered a well attended public lecture entitled "Islamism: The
Rise of a New Enemy?". Professor Hassan argues that the genisis of
modern Islamism is located in the historical, social, political and
material conditions of Muslim countries and the imperialistic
policies of Western nations.
Lahore School of Economics International Conference on Globalization and Governance23 April 2007
At the International Conference on Globalization and Governance Professor Hassan gave a
paper entitled "Religion and Governance in a Globalizing World: A comparitive study of Muslim countries".
Press & Journal ArticlesWhy Do Terrorists Blow Themselves Up?Nine years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the world shares a perception that suicide attacks are unusual acts committed by the poor, the psychologically impaired, the morally deficient, the uneducated or the religious fanatics. Yet analysis of more than 1500 suicide attacks between 1981 and 2008 by author Riaz Hassan reveals far more complex motivations. Yale Global, September 9, 2010
What Motivates the Suicide Bombers?
The Reality of Religious Labels: A Study of Muslim Religiosity
Global Rise of Suicide Terrorism: An Overview
Cracks appear in the monolith
Interrupting a History of Tolerance - Part
II Interrupting a History of Tolerance - Part
I The Jihad and the West - Part I Islamic thinking in limbo Suicide Attacks - Life as a Weapon Globalization's Challenge to Islam Terrorists and Their Tools - Part I
The Ethical, Social and Legal Implications of the Human Genome Project Social consequences of manufactured
longevity The euthanasia debate
|
Suicide Bombings
Routledge 2011
Life as a Weapon - The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings
Routledge 2010
Müslüman Zihinler
(Turkish Translation of Inside Muslim Minds)
Dogan Kitapçilik 2010
Inside Muslim Minds
Melbourne University Press 2008
Keragaman Iman: Studi Komparatif Masyarakat Muslim
(Indonesian Translation of Faithlines)
PT RajaGrafindo Persada 2006
Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society
Oxford University Press 2002
The Cambridge Handbook of Social Sciences in Australia
Ian McAllister, Steve Dowrick, (Eds) Cambridge University Press 2003
Local and Global: Social Transformation in Southeast Asia
Leiden, Brill 2005
Suicide Explained: The Australian Experience
Melbourne University Press 1995
A Way of Dying: Suicide in Singapore
Oxford University Press 1983
Ethnicity, Culture & Fertility: An exploratory study of fertility behaviour and sexual beliefs
Chopmen 1980
Families in Flats
Singapore University Press 1977
Singapore: Society in Transition
Oxford University Press 1976
|
Listen: Riaz Hassan talks to Anthony Frangi on ABC Radio about his new book