There seems to be a disparity between the ideas and goals of revolutionaries who struggle to end authoritarian rule and achieve liberty and the violent means they often use to achieve their ends. This paper first addresses how violent revolutions are positioned by secular Arab and Islamic Arab political scholars and, specifically, how they address the question of violence. It explores whether such scholars have been influenced by the French Revolution, and whether or not their thoughts derive from their own political experiences and political reality, or if they have merely been influenced by Western political experiences.