For the common people I think that’s probably true for the most part. However, I strongly suspect that many if not most of the leaders behind these violent movements are motivated exclusively by politics. Saddam Hussein was paying off the families of suicide bombers in order to encourage more people to become suicide bombers. Did the suicide bombers believe they’d also be getting goodies in Paradise as a reward? Most probably did. Did Saddam believe that? I seriously doubt it. For Saddam it was all about power, politics, and money, and manipulating the confused religious beliefs of many people in this part of the world was just a convenient means to achieve his utterly secular objectives.
Saddam is now irrelevant