Examining Demographic Behavioural Differences among Malaysian-Muslims’ Resilience to the Religiously-Based Terrorism: A Quantitative Approach

Abstract

The concept of Terrorism has started since 19^th Century, however it has been getting utmost attention around the world since last two decades. Several devastating terrorism occurrences had happened in last decades including nine-eleven. Since then, this concept grabs researcher’s intention across the world. The level of terrorism activities differs from region to region; country to country. Perception toward terrorism has significantly different among the demographics. There is substantial lack in this domain. Due to many restrictions from government and collecting data, research in this area becomes extremely difficult. Despite these limitations, researchers in this area strongly suggested to conduct research, especially to understand the people’s perception toward the terrorism. Hence, the objective of this study is to understand the people’s behavioural differences toward the religiously based terrorism. A comprehensive literature review has conducted by this study to understand the people’s perception toward the religiously based terrorism across the world. A web based structured questionnaire was developed and distributed among the Malaysian from different states. 816 valid responses were obtained which had been emerged by six months effort. Purposive sampling strategy was applied to obtained these responses and several statistical methods were used to comprehend the Malaysian Muslim’s behaviour toward religious based terrorism. Results indicated that there are significant behavioural differences among the different demographic attributes toward religious based terrorism in Malaysia. This study is one of the limited studies that estimate and investigate the people’s behavioural difference with different demographic attributes. Moreover, this study would be the one of the few studies in Malaysia that comprehend Muslims’ perception toward the religious based terrorism.