The Best and Brightest Fanatics

It should come as no surprise that doctors and engineers are so often in the vanguard of Islamist violence. On the contrary, in a modernizing environment, applied scientists often assume positions of religious authority.

In Britain and Australia, several Muslim medical doctors and engineers have been arrested following a series of failed car bombings. The arrest of these well-educated professionals, together with the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role as al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, raises questions that go far beyond disaffection among Muslims and the consequences of America’s misadventures in the Middle East.

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