Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is a an influential academic and counter-terrorism expert. He holds a PhD in medieval Islamic history from Harvard University.

Sudden Jihad Syndrome

"Sudden Jihad Syndrome" is a term Pipes coined to describe Muslims that suddenly or unexpectedly turn against civilized, Western society and engage in acts of terror. Pipes has argued that due to this phenomenon all Islamists must be considered potential terrorists.

Examples include:

• John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo, the so-called Washington snipers. John Allen Muhammad was a Muslim convert, but some people allege that his motivations may not have been religious.
• Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a Palestinian school teacher who engaged in a shooting rampage on top of the Empire State Building. He killed one and wounded six before taking his own life.
• Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an American Muslim born in Tehran who ran over students at the University of North Carolina to punish the United States. Taheri-azar was the first terrorist to be explicitly called an example of Sudden Jihad Syndrome by Daniel Pipes.
• Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar who shot up a movie theater in Baltimore.
• Rashid Baz, a Lebanese can driver living in New York City who shot at a van full of Orthodox Jews. In a burst of political correctness, the FBI initially refused to label this act a terrorist act.
• Sulejman Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim, open fired in a Salt Lake City mall, killing five poeple before being shot dead by police.

In another Example of Bias in Wikipedia, Wikipedia has refused to allow any article on this topic, and even refused to let an editor work on a draft for a rewrite of the article.

Further reading

• Daniel Pipes’s personal site