By Satya@gt
Published: June 24, 2007
Updated: August 3, 2008
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A majority of today's terrorist organizations are Islamic, they either claim to be fighting for their rights (i.e. Independent homeland etc) or their goal is to spread Islam all across the world (e.g. Al Qaeda). They don’t care how many innocent people they kill in achieving their goal, many are even committed to kill themselves to achieve their objectives. It makes one wonder; Why are most terrorist organizations operating under the banner of Islam? What is that drives them to such fanaticism?

 

I have come across an article by some scholars at CSPI (Center for Study of Political Islam). According to them the answer lies in Islam’s founding texts i.e. the Koran, the Sira (Life of Prophet Mohammed) and the Hadith (Traditions of Prophet Mohammed written by Bukhari). The answer is the dualistic nature of the founding texts.

 

In Islam everything has a dual meaning, like Jihad (Holy War) for example. All of us have seen the inhuman and violent effects of the so-called holy war these Islamic terrorist organizations carry out. So is Jihad a war against all unbelievers as the terrorists claim or is it, as some moderate scholars put it, a spiritual war that one conducts against his/her inner temptations?

 

In Islam’s Holy Scriptures there are many references to Jihad, of which the maximum are about physical war against the unbelievers (kafirs). According to CSPI scholars, Islam does not have a single, unified rule for treating both believers and unbelievers alike. There are instances where the Koran says do not harm unbelievers and instances where it says killing unbelievers is justified if it advances Islam.

 

For example:

(Koran of Mecca) 73:10: Listen to what they [unbelievers] say with patience, and leave them with dignity.

 

(Koran of Medina) 8:12: Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, “I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!”

 

It is this dualistic logic makes it impossible to arrive at a definitive conclusion about what exactly is Jihad. Is it a violent concept? Yes. Is it a non-violent concept? Also the answer is Yes. Islam is not only a Religion but also a Political institution. In which there are rules laid down about how to spread the religion, how to treat non-Muslims. Prophet Mohammed preached Islam in Mecca for 13 years and garnered only 150 followers. But when he immigrated to Medina and turned to politics and war, in 10 years time he became the first ruler of Arabia by averaging an event of violence every 7 weeks for 9 years. His success did not come as a religious leader, but as a political leader. Even Hell is political. There are 146 references to Hell in the Koran. Only 6% of those in Hell are there for moral failings—murder, theft, etc. The other 94% of the reasons for being in Hell are for the intellectual sin of disagreeing with Mohammed, a political crime. Hence, Islamic Hell is a political prison for those who speak against Islam.

 

In history, Islamic empires are among those that expanded most rapidly. In only a couple of centuries since the death of Mohammed they reached their zeniths; in fact covering most of the Middle East and reaching as far India. In their story of expansion there are some of examples of great magnanimity and kindness towards non believers but many are about how they destroyed the non believers with sword. So Islam spread because of the numerous conquests carried out under its banner. It says in the Koran itself, that it is justified to wage war against an unbeliever just because he is an unbeliever, it says by waging war and converting unbelievers to Islam, Muslims are actually helping the unbeliever attain heaven.

 

All the Islamic terrorist organizations of the world use the Koran to justify their actions, recruit more people and expand their violent tentacles. That is why wherever there is a freedom movement or political insurgency involving a majority Muslim population it quickly takes a violent turn; Often resulting in the ethnic cleansing, forceful conversions, and destruction of people of other religious minorities. This is quite evident from the plight of thousands of Kashmiri pandits who were forcefully evicted from their beloved home, stripped of all their property, dignity and made refugees in their own home country.

 

Do governments like India; have an effective way of combating this sort of terrorism based on religious/political doctrine? Are our policy makers, defense and security personnel aware of the intricacies and declarations in Islam’s scriptures? I feel that the solution is not as simple as 1) just being diplomatic and peaceful with the terrorists and the countries that support them or 2) going after them with full military might. I personally don’t know what the solution could be, but may be it could be found through knowing more about these terrorists and terrorist nations’ doctrine better i.e. reading and learning more about it, training our defense and intelligence people about such stuff will be helpful.

 

For the complete CSPI article on political Islam go to the below link, It is a very interesting article.

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26769

 

June 20^th is the World Refugee Day, to know more the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, thousands of them are refugees in their own country, please visit the blog:

 

http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com/

** Some ideas in this article were taken verbatim from the original interview in the above link and complete Credit for those goes to the original interviewee Bill Warner and interviewer Jamie Glazov**

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