Terrorism & Muslims Today (Part one)

by Dr Sulaiman Rifai

(December 19, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The primary objective of this research paper is to categorically stress that there is no any affinity and affirmation between notion of terrorism and Islam but rather I could argue that there is a strong antipathy between notion of terrorism and fundamental teachings of Islam. There is no way that one could relate notion of terrorism, violence, aggression with pure teachings of Islam and its theological doctrines. But there may some relevance between terrorism and some elements of Muslim extremists who justify their terrorists activities as only viable mean to challenge aggression and invasion. However, it can be categorically said that more than 90% of Muslim population in the world disapprove terrorism as a viable mechanism to meet Muslim aspirations all over the world. Yet, Muslims are portrayed, depicted as violent, brutal, and aggressive people in the world by bias mass media and press. At outset, I strongly condemn and abhor all sorts of terrorist activities and attacks in the name of beautiful religion of Islam.

There is no way that we could justify barbaric attacks on innocent people in the name of Islam. At the same time, we vehemently reject and refute superficial arguments and contentions of some western scholars that violence, terror, and aggression are inherently connected to this peaceful religion of Islam. Such claim is unfounded and it is my intention here to refute and repulse such bias and prejudicial arguments. I will refute and repulse these unfounded arguments rationally and logically with substantiated evidences from historical and legal presidents of Islamic sources.

In fact, Islam is the most misunderstood, misinterpreted and misperceived religion today in the world. A greater numbers of academics, politicians, journalists, professionals, policy makers, religious dignitaries, and military intelligentsia particularly in western countries have dreadfully misunderstood the central theme of Islamic teaching and its doctrines. Some of these people still regard peaceful religion of Islam as a religion of hatred, resentment, and violence. Why is this discriminative and prejudicial misperception about Islam particularly in western countries. This is despite the fact that Islam reaffirms and reconfirms some of the fundamental teaching of Christianity and Judaism in many parts the Holy Quran. Who is responsible for this misperception. Is it Westerners themselves? or Is it Muslims themselves? Or is it bias Western media, politicians and academics who misinterpret, miscarriage, and dilute the meaning and peaceful message of Islam. I will compare and contrast arguments of some Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars on these issues and make some clarification, evaluation and analysis to establish that real peace and tranquillity is enshrined the pure teaching of Islam.

Since 9/11 the subject matter of terrorism has been the main focus of mass media and the central theme of political and intellectual debates and contentions more importantly in the western countries: since the cold war era is over now the world attention has been on the challenges of so called war on terror campaign. Some even argue that terrorists threat is the most important issue that our modern world faces today. This subject has been the talk of the town in each and every country in our modern world: Special centres, institutes, departments are established purely for the study of terrorism. Billions of pounds are spent on different projects to examine the extent of terrorists threats: Al most all countries in the world enforce anti-terrorist laws & take counter-terrorism measures to curtail any terrorist threat. Politicians & laymen, clergies & atheists, teachers & students, men & women, young & old, rich & poor and all sort of people concern and worry about this new menace. The phobia of this menace occupies minds & hearts of most people in today’s world: Now, world leaders and politicians are very much keen and determined to completely eradicate this menace form the surface of this world: However, one wonders even if all world leaders united on this task, if they could completely wipe out the threat of terrorism for ever.? This question preoccupies minds of politicians, security personals, and policy makers in the most of countries. There is a strong voice that demands the political leadership in the western countries to engage in negotiation with extremists and terrorists in order to find a peaceful and amicable solution to the challenges of terrorism and extremism. We will endeavours to assess such question in this article.

A cursory examination on contemporary Muslim world reveals some shocking statistics about Muslim nations’ backwardness in education, economy, science, technology and other fields of developments and Muslims are most deprived people economically educationally, militarily and politically in contemporary world and yet, Muslims have been a target of media and military onslaught of Western nations in our contemporary world: Muslims nations are daily being attacked and Muslims are humiliated and the prophet of Islam has been maligned in modern media and press and Muslim sacred religious book has been mocked and Muslim religious sites are attacked all over the world. With media hype and onslaught every day on Muslims, anti Muslim sentiment and resentment have reach high level of racism and prejudice against Muslims all over the world: Consequently, this anti Muslim sentiment in the western countries has generated anti western reactionary feeling and sentiment among Muslims in the Muslims countries: The majority of Muslim public hate western foreign policies on Muslims countries and they feel that Muslims are targeted by western onslaught just because of their identical religious principles and practices.

Once the late priminister of Malaysia Dr Mahahir bin Mohammad said that “never in the 1, 400-year history of religion has Islam and its followers been so humiliated, denigrated and oppressed as they are today”. This is despite of the fact the rich natural resources of Muslim nations are being fully exploited by these western nations. That is why many Muslims question hidden motive of this so called war on terror. Is it just mere war to exploit more natural resources of Muslim lands or is it an ideological war on Islam & its followers based on the footstep of previous crusades. Even some academics argue that western hatred and hostile image Islam and Muslims goes back Muslim and Christian relation in the medieval age and this old hostile image has been renewed with new dimensions with pretext of war on terror after Cold War era. Just one wonder if this anti Muslim trends and tendencies of Western nation are mixed up with political and religious objectives of Western countries:What is puzzling more is the degree of fear and phobia that Western nations have about Islamic threat? Why do they have to concern and worry too much about Islamic renaisance in modern world?

Moreover, it is well recorded in the European literatures that Islamic civilization greatly contributed to the development and progress of western civilization in many fields and Indeed, since the time of the prophet until now Muslims have been providing safety and security for Christian and Jewish minorities under Muslim rules: Jews and Christians in Muslims Spain were protected by Muslim rulers in Spain and throughout ottoman empire rulings. This was due to the fact that providing life protection and safeguarding religious freedom for non-Muslim minority is enshrined in the divine instruction in Islam: It is a religious duty of Muslim rulers to do so. Islam has given protected status for the people Book in Islam. This protected status has been maintained throughout Islamic history, yet, In return for this protection provided by Muslim rulers in the past, what Muslims get back from Christian dominated western countries today is that a barrage of onslaught on innocent Muslims populations for crimes they have not done. This in the name of so called war on terror: More revealing irony of this so called war on terror is that these so called terrorist organisations and agents are initially created and fed by Western Intelligent agents in its war against soviet unions. Thus, challenges and problems of modern terrorism are more complex and complicated and these issues are needed more clarification and elaboration from different perspectives and this is humble attempt to share some thought on this issue from an Islamic perspective:

I will try my best to present simple arguments and use simple terms and terminologies as much as possible away from academic jargons and technical terminologies. This is because this article is primarily written for public readership so that public will know the truth all about this peaceful religion of Islam and so that I believe that I could remove some of the misconceptions and misperceptions from the minds and hearts of some of these people. I will try my best to substantiate my points of view with solid rational and logical justification and with historical evidences. The subject matter of our discussion is terrorism and Muslims today. Indeed, I know well that this is a more general and broad subject for any concise research project and for the fact that terrorism is a timely needed subject matter and it is allegedly associated with Islam in general and with Muslims in particular. I perfectly know that this subject is too general and broader for any precise piece of an academic research. Yet, I have chosen this title deliberately so that I have leverage to cover various subtitles in relation to terrorism and Muslims: Moreover, I do not expect any academic credit in writing this long article but my only intention is to reach out to public as many as people possible. More importantly, to reach out to Non-Muslims as much as pursuable so that they will have an opportunity to know and understand the true nature of our religion. This subject could be discussed and examined from different perspectives and under many subtitles. Yet, I have intentionally chosen this broader topic to draw attention of our readers.

I think that ignorance is our number one enemy in any subject mater particularly ignorance about Islam is more dangerous today than ever before. This is my humble attempt to venture on this task of removing some of already prevailing misconceptions and misunderstanding. I will try my best to present an objective study on this subject however, it will be a daunting task to maintain the objectivity in the study of terrorism in our contemporary world as definition to the notion of terrorism dramatically differs people to people and region to region. We will cover different subtitles on these series of our writings: some of our subtitles are as follow:

1) definition of terrorism:

2) An Islamic perspective on the notion of terrorism and extremism:

3) The root causes of terrorism in modern world

4) An Islamic perspective on suicide attacks

5). European response to Muslim terrorism

6) Islamic Response to the notion of terrorism

7) The impacts of terrorism on Muslim communities in the Western countries

8) War and Peace in Islam

9) Religious freedom and mutual tolerance in Islam:

10) The concept of unconditional justice in Islam: - Sri Lanka Guardian