Muslim Terrorism and Islam

Submitted by Abdur Rahman Abid (United States), Dec 9, 2005 at 11:48

There is a popular saying of Hilary Clinton, the New York democratic Senator at the U.S. Senate – "It needs a village to raise a child, not only parents".

In relation to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 (mostly known as 9/11) in the U.S. and the recent terrorist attack in London, the way Islamic terrorism has been focused worldwide and as a consequence, the way many western media and columnists are trying to correlate 'Islam' itself to terrorism, it's getting obvious day by day that the time has come for the Muslim leaders and scholars (Ulemas) to clarify their position in front of both the Muslim and the western world in regard to whether or not 'Islam' has anything to do with the terrorism. Because they are the bearer and carrier of Islam and they are, according to Hilary Clinton's definition, "the village" of the Islamic culture, thoughts and activities.

Urging the Muslim leaders and scholars (Ulemas) worldwide to clarify their position about Islamic terrorism, I could have ended writing my article here. However, being an educated, conscious, and a pious Muslim like many others, since I'm also concerned and am wondering about why such terrorism is happening in the name of Islam and at the same time trying to conclude a reason behind this per my own knowledge, judgment and perspective, it would be unethical for me to end my write-up here without mentioning my personal thoughts.

However, at the very beginning of my write-up, I would like to mention one thing to the readers. Although I'm a good practicing Muslim throughout my life, but today I'll write this article from a secular point of view, as if I'm a person who is neither a believer, nor an atheist. Or, let's assume that I'm a philosopher or a historian who treats religion as a part of evolution of human civilization, not as any divine thing.

Let's start with the history first. Muhammad (peace be upon him), the prophet of Islam, was a prophet as well as a ruler. Although the beginning of his prophet-hood started with preaching religion like other predecessor prophets, but later on he unified the oppressed common people and led them in carrying out 'jihad' (struggle) against the ruthless, oppressor Arab rulers and defeated them in battles and established 'law and justice' in the Arab world of the 7th century. In short, this is the history of the establishment of the religion Islam. Interesting to know that, to struggle and fight against the oppressor Arab rulers, the politics he did, the battles he fought, was not always 'Islam'. Inability to perceive and see the separating line that exists between the acts of ruler Muhammad and those of prophet Muhammad, the way a group of Muslims is trying to establish Islam through terrorism, the same way, a group of non-Muslims is trying to establish Islam as a religion of terrorism and its prophet as a terrorist.

In relation to this, a speech of a German professor can be cited here who was a guest speaker at a seminar on "Islam and terrorism" in Bangladesh that held recently where he vehemently tried to establish that Islam is a religion of terrorism and called prophet Muhammad, a terrorist. Such ignorance and radicalism of such an esteemed professor shocked many Muslims there. The people who are really secular and see all religions as a part of evolution of human civilization and not as any divine thing, most of them honestly admit that the 'jihad' or struggle that prophet Muhammad carried out against the oppressor Arab rulers or the oppressor neighboring countries by uniting the oppressed people and bringing them under the flag of Islam was nothing but an organized and united struggle of all oppressed people of that time and it was an inevitable battle in that era. And Muhammad was a very successful and just ruler during his time. The world-renowned intellectual and philosopher, George Bernard Shaw has rightly said, "If a man like Mohamed were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness."

There exists a clear distinction between preaching & establishing Islam and ruling a nation or a country based on Islamic faith and motivation. Ruling a nation or a country is a worldly thing that always changes with time, civilization and with the changes in the concept of a 'nation' or a 'country'. Whereas religious faith is an unchangeable divine thing, which has no relation with time, civilization, or with the concept of a 'nation' or a 'country'. From among his closest deputies, the four persons who ruled the Muslim world as Caliph after the holy departure of prophet Muhammad, most of the time they could not agree on the worldly matters although there is no doubt that the same Islamic faith and motivation they used to uphold and nurture in their heart. But in the administrative strategies, each of them had his own way of thinking and doing things and the way they had successes as rulers, they had failures as well. The history of Muslim ruling is mostly the history of their own blood and therefore, it's hard to find any definitive thing called 'Islamic good ruling' if the Islamic history is explored. The concept of 'Islamic ruling' has been evolved a long time after the era of the Muslim Caliph ended and there exist many arguments and debates about the introduction and advent of such a concept. However, I would not drag my discussion into those arguments in this write-up.

No matter when the concept of 'Islamic ruling' was invented or introduced, the religion based political parties that exist today in the Muslim populated countries all over the world have a common goal of how to capture the power and thereby establish 'Islamic ruling' in those countries. No matter how they differ from each other in their political belief or strategies, they have one thing that is common to all of them - 'they are radical', maybe more, maybe less.

Few days back, being invited, I attended a religious seminar in South Jersey organized by 'Muslim Ummah of North America' (MUNA), the North America based faction of 'Jamaate Islami', a religious political party in Bangladesh. The speaker was a top-level member of MUNA who migrated in the U.S. several years back by wining the U.S. diversity lottery visa. At a point during his speech, he praised the present Bangladeshi government for its great act of including the religious political parties in the present government and then while trying to mention about the opposition in Bangladesh as well as about American policy, he referred to the verses of the Koran and hadith and said, "The extent to which our prophet was soft and merciful to the Muslim believers, to the same extent he was stern and merciless to the non-believers. The way conspiracy has started to destroy Islam in Bangladesh and as well as all over the world, the time has come for us to become stern and merciless against the enemies of Islam". Not to mention, the sparkle, the zeal, the fierceness that I saw on his face while he was telling these words, was extremely scary.

Who is his enemy – the Christianity believing Americans who brought him and his poor family from poor Bangladesh and let him lead a financially well off, free, and religious life in the U.S., or is it I who, out of rational reasons, oppose to many of the policies and strategies of the present Bangladeshi government? It does not take any long for me to perceive how a person can turn himself into a living dynamite to destroy many innocent lives.

But that person was just an ordinary person like me who left his motherland for better living and is struggling to death to ensure financial solvency for his family here and back home in Bangladesh. It's really a matter of great wonder that simply by manipulating the religious feeling, the brain of such an ordinary person has been washed such a way that he brought along with him the poisonous gasp of hatred up to here and even living for a long time in an open, broad society like the U.S. couldn't bring any touch of religious tolerance and broadness onto him.

There are many Muslims like him in the Muslim and the western world who, knowingly or unknowingly, are nurturing the poisonous grasp of hatred and fierceness in their heart in the name of religion and it's a teaching, a culture that has been injected slowly in their brain very calculatingly by their 'high commands' and unfortunately there is no quick remedy to this mind setup. To remedy this poisonous gasp, it needs Hilary Clinton's 'village' – the combined teachings of the Muslim leaders and the scholars (Ulemas), which will remove the grasp of religious hatred and fierceness from their heart and will establish religious tolerance and broadness, which was the real teaching of Islam and the real preaching of peace and equality of the prophet of Islam.

It wouldn't have been bad if I could end my write-up here since the ending seemed to have a bit smell of "dramatic end". However, not clarifying about the 'high command' to which I referred to in the last part of my write-up would probably make my write-up little bit 'incomplete'.

So far what I have said in my write-up up to this point, there can be some readers who may not agree with that. But, there is one thing on which all the readers will agree with me, I believe: to the more extent and among the more people a problem is spread, the more it will be difficult to identify the problem and its solution will be more difficult as well.

The 'Tamil problem' in Sri Lanka is a political problem of Sri Lanka and India; it's an ethnic problem of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, not a religious problem. Likewise, in Tibet or in Ireland, the problems with the 'separation groups' are also political and ethnic problems. Israeli occupation of Palestine and turning the Palestinian people into refugee on their own land is an extreme violation of human rights and therefore, every conscious person in today's world is opposed to Israel. The Israel-Palestine problem is a problem of Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and as a whole a political and geographic problem of the Arab worlds to which the U.S. is also related because of its own interest and tactics; this is not a Muslim problem and it never was.

But interesting to notice that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan, out of their own interest, have successfully conveyed this problem to every single Muslim house in Asia, Europe, America, and Australia and today to the extent we, the Muslims hate Israel and America is not out of humanity, but out of our religious mind set.

The same is true for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. To continue and ensure the draining of petroleum oil in the U.S. at a cheap price, to contain the presence of Europe in the Middle East, and to flourish further in their weapon business, through combined conspiracy with the Arab kings and emperors, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the name of selling 'democracy' is greatly hated by every conscious human being living in every corner of the world. However, the difference is, a European or an American non-Muslim hates the U.S. invasion of Iraq out of his/her humanity and we, the Muslims hate this out of our religious mind setup. Here lies the success of the 'high commands', who deliberately turned the geographic, political, ethnic, and personal problems into Muslim problems decades after decades and successfully conveyed those problems to every single Muslim house all over the world; the proof of which is the incident of 7/7 in Britain where there isn't a single Arabs amongst the four suicide bombers and none of the countries of their forefathers have had any relation or enmity with Iraq, America, Britain, Israel or Palestine.

The U.S., the richest country of the present world has the largest economy, 8% of which is comprised of the personal wealth and money of the Saudi King family alone. Next comes the kings/emperors of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain,......... Under any circumstances and whatever it takes, these Arab kings and emperors desperately want to maintain their financial relationship and dependence on the U.S. continuous, certain and risk free. They desperately want to keep the kingdoms in their countries so that the democracy-seeking citizens will never be able to taste the democracy, which will remove them from the power. For this, with the huge flow of petro-dollars provided by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, thousands of Madrasas (Islamic religious school) have been established in the Muslim populated developing countries where all sort of fundamentalism including hatred for the Jews are methodically taught so that every single madrasa student will become a fervent 'jihadi soldier'. The rest of the work is very easy. Through the incitement of the 'high commands' and for the enticement of heavenly success, they carry out suicide bombings, kill innocent people, and brutally behead innocent human beings .

The 'Al-Jazeera' media of the Middle East and many partisan American media fervently broadcast this news repeatedly and continuously. It, in the sight of a non-Muslim, turns Islam into a religion of terrorism, turns every Muslim into a terror; hatred for Islam and Muslims spreads from the East to the West; suffered by religious hatred and discrimination, many modernly educated sensible Muslim youths turn into radical Muslim youths; surrender themselves to the evil intention of the 'high commands' who are hiding behind the curtail. The Islamic terrorism increases; the methodical propagation and broadcasting of this increase even more, which spreads more hatred against Islam and the Muslims worldwide, and which turns more moderate Muslim youths into extreme Muslims youths. It's as if a cyclic rotation, which makes the extent of the Islamic terrorism problem to grow even bigger. And thereby, it keeps drawing the eyes of the Muslim world as well as the non-Muslim world toward Islamic terrorism, which keeps their i.e. the Arab king's/emperor's crown safe and keeps their financial relationship and dependence on America continuous, certain and risk free.

Religion is an essential part of human civilization. Religion itself was never been a problem for anybody. But the problem is that, when religion is used in the politics; religious feeling of common people is meanly used to grab the power; to safeguard the crown and personal interests, the political or geographic problems are artificially turned into religious problems. Today's Islamic terrorism is nothing but an artificially created problem, which, like all other problems, has solutions. However, the long planned methodical setup that it has in the macro level (high command level) cannot be broken in a day. But in the micro level, by educating us, the common Muslims, and at the same time by educating our 'village' (Muslim Ulemas) about this and by creating awareness about religion and religious politics among us, with time it's possible to create breaches in the macro level setup; it's possible to bring the changes.

That's our battle. To uphold the fame and dignity of Islam, for every single peace-loving Muslim living at every corner of the world, that's our 'jihad' till we die, that's our struggle till we live.

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