Research Suggests Militant Jihadists Are Inspired By Night Dreams

"This is the conclusion of a study of the reported dreams of many of the best-known al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders carried out by Dr Iain Edgar a social anthropologist at Durham University.
Edgar identified four key themes from his research:

* Militant jihadists are inspired by night dreams
* Militant jihadists legitimize their actions partly on the basis of night dreams
* The inspirational night dream can be more 'real' than reality, connecting the individual to a mythical past
* Militant Jihadism can be directly authorized by dream content"

Medical News Today, 09 Jun 2008

Interesting, and slightly worrying, but after a quick search in the hadith it doesn't seem like such a big surprise after all.
Check out this link to the USC-MSA hadith collection and do a search for "Dream" in all four hadith collections, and you will get approximately 170 hits.

Here's one from the Bukhari collection:

"Volume 1, Book 5, Number 260: Narrated Maimuna:
The Prophet took the bath of Janaba. (sexual relation or wet dream). He first cleaned his private parts with his hand, and then rubbed it(that hand) on the wall (earth) and washed it. Then he performed ablution like that for the prayer, and after the bath he washed his feet. "

Study Shows Integration Problems Among Germany's Muslims

"A study looking at the integration of Muslims in Germany has revealed that a high percentage of Islamic inhabitants harbor fundamentalist attitudes.
The survey, which was commissioned by Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and carried out by the Institute of Criminology at the University of Hamburg, concluded that 40 percent of Muslims in Germany would justify the use of violence in the event of Islam being threatened by the West.
According to the study, more than 44 percent of Muslims also believe that they will be granted entry to paradise if they die defending their religion.

[...]

Schiffauer added that the social exclusion of Muslims was a problem. "Third generation young Muslims living in Germany are considered foreigners. They feel like Germans, but they are still marginalized," he said, adding that many consequently turn to Islam."

Deutsche Welle, 20.12.2007

Survey finds young and old Moroccans differ on religion

"In the survey, 28.9% of respondents said religion should guide personal life, while 44.8% remain undecided. On the relationship between religion and politics, the results are broadly similar: 24.9% considered that religion becomes dangerous when mixed with politics and 26.1% felt the opposite.
Despite an overall decline in the role of religion in daily life, there is a significant proportion of Moroccans who support political Islam and Jihadist movements. In fact, the survey shows that 17.6% of the population answered "yes" when asked: "Are you in agreement with Jihadist movements?"
The survey found that the younger the respondents, the more they say they agree with Jihadist movements. "The survey shows that 21.8% of people aged 18 to 24 agree with Jihadist movements, compared with 9.7% among the 60-plus age group," said Mohamed Sghir Janjar, director of Prologue magazine."

Magharebia, 14/12/07

I guess this is both good and bad news. As for the young age of extremists, it's to be expected as young people always tend to be more radical either way and will most likely diminsh over time. The good thing is of course that only 28.9% said that religion should guide life.

If 'Islamist' is out, what do we call them?

"If it were proved that highly qualified, ambitious doctors were Islamist mass-murder plotters, it would put a hole through another comforting theory - that this is "all about" under-employed young men of low self-esteem and educational attainments.

[...]

On Start the Week on Monday, all the distinguished guests, including the philosopher John Gray and the historian Eric Hobsbawm, vehemently agreed that the word "Islamist", which I have used at the top of this column, was wrong and dangerous. It implied a strong link to Islam, which was unfair. I thought the distinction between "Islamic" and "Islamist" was enough: but if we need a new and more accurate word for extremist Muslims, what is it?"

Andrew Marr, Daily Telegraph, 04/07/2007

More:

Terror-spooked EU: 'Don't say Muslims'
Gordon Brown's ban on the word "Muslim" in relation to terrorism can be blamed on the EU. The prime minister has told Cabinet members not to mention "Muslim" and "terrorism" in the same breath. It comes after the European Commission issued a guide for government spokesmen to avoid offence by ruling out the words such as "jihad", "Islamic" or "fundamentalist" in statements about terrorist attacks.

Daily Mail, 4th July 2007

But being a reasonable fellow, I decided to look up "muslim" at Thesaurus.com to see the alternatives: