MARTIN AMIS: For them, death is not death and life is not life either. And the suicide bomber, I think we should call them suicide mass murderers myself. The suicide bomber is the martyr, is the only Islamic soul who can expect completely expeditious entry into paradise. Everyone else has to molder in the grave for centuries and then get kicked awake by furious angels and interrogated on the day of judgment. The suicide mass murderer doesn't do that. He doesn't have to do it.
It's a monstrous distortion of the Koran and a monstrous sort of theological moral deformity that they've made central to their new ideologies. And you'd find all sorts of people saying that using their bodies is what people do because they don't have F-16s and tanks and so on. Well, would you like them to have F-16s and tanks is one question. But the other one is that it's not what people do. They talk about it as if it's an eternal ruse de guerre. That this is what people have always done. It's not what people have always done. It's an innovation, and it's an Islamist innovation.
BILL MOYERS: Islamist. Help us to understand the distinction you make between Islam and Islamism.
MARTIN AMIS: Well, Islam is the great religion that has been the donor of countless benefits to mankind, that led the world in civilization throughout the Middle Ages, gave us algebra and all kinds of intellectual breakthroughs of all kinds, plus an example of tolerance that nowhere else in the world could offer at that time. A level of tolerance and respect for justice. That is Islam.
Islamism started after the First World War when the last empire was lost, the Ottoman sided with Germany in First World War. And then, you know, if you can stand way back from it all. You can imagine Islam very much reduced. It's coming towards modernity. And instead of advancing down that road, it turned round and the great leap backwards began. That's Islamism. But when Islamism got going instead of saying, "Okay, to come into modernity, we need to put slightly less emphasis on Islam." And the great leap backwards said, "No, we would need total emphasis on Islam."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/print/faithandreason106_print.html