A Look At Islamic Terrorism Religion Essay

Introduction

There are differing sentiments with respects to Islamic terrorist act with the most cardinal of them being the function played by spiritual beliefs to actuate terrorist organisations. Are the beliefs in Islamic instructions the evidences for terrorist actions or do terrorist groups manipulate spiritual beliefs to warrant terrorist Acts of the Apostless? There are many bookmans who claim that the instructions of Islam inspire terrorist Acts of the Apostless. In this article I will non venture to analyze this facet and curtail my survey to how terrorists are able to pull strings faith to warrant their condemnable Acts of the Apostless. I will try to happen reply to the inquiry, how is Islam being used by terrorist organisations to accomplish political terminals?

Scope

I will analyze the topic under the caputs given below.

( a ) Why are the instructions of Islam being misrepresented?

( B ) How are the instructions of Islam being misrepresented?

( degree Celsius ) Jihad and suicide terrorist act.

( vitamin D ) My Jammu and Kashmir experience.

WHY ARE THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM BEING MISREPRESENTED?

Religion: Means TO GARNER PUBLIC SUPPORT. Before I deliberate on how instructions of Islam are being distorted by the terrorist groups it would be pertinent to understand the interplay of the ends of these terrorist organisations and Islam. It is of import to analyze terrorist ends because ends shape the scheme and tactics of the groups and survey of interplay between ends and faith will give an apprehension as to why and how these groups manipulate the instructions of Islam.

( a ) AL QAEDA. Al Qaeda ‘s declared end is to stop American military presence in Middle East and Arabian Peninsula, halt US support for Israel and subvert “ infidel governments ” .

( B ) ARMED ISLAMIC GROUP ( GIA ) . GIA is an Algerian group which aims to subvert the Algerian government and replace it with Islamic State.

( degree Celsius ) EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD. Its ends are to subvert the Egyptian authorities and to do Egypt an Islamic province and it besides has some anti Western and anti US involvements.

( vitamin D ) HARKAT-UL-MUJAHIDIN ( HUM ) , JAISH-E-MOHAMMED ( JEM ) , LASHKAR-E-TAYYAIBA ( LeT ) . These are Pakistani groups with declared end of unifying Kashmir with Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

I have listed few of the Islamist terrorist groups runing in assorted parts of the universe to give an thought of the sort of ends that these groups have identified for themselves. Deeper survey of Al Qaeda ‘s purpose will uncover a dream of an Islamic Caliphate widening from Europe to South East Asia. Ayatollah Khomeini has a vision of broad Shia crescent of one Iran associating Iraq and Lebanon. The above is declarative of the political aspirations of these terrorist groups and the new universe order which they aim to accomplish by juxtaposing faith with their declared aims. In order to accomplish their ends terrorist groups need public support and understanding. In the Muslim universe faith has great influence on single and society at big. The terrorists aim to earn support of this constituency by act uponing the thought in the Muslim universe that they are the last bastion of puritanical Islam. They aim to derive support for their political aspirations by pull stringsing public sentiment utilizing the vehicle of faith. They besides aim to derive support and understanding of the Muslim Ummah with their promise of recovering the lost glorification of the Muslim civilisation. Another of import issue is that of the links between the terrorist groups. Though some of these groups operate independently, nevertheless most of them have developed linkages – even if the linkages are of political orientation. Because of this, use of the instructions of Islam by one group has impact on other groups, ensuing in the manner all of them shape their scheme and tactics. Today we see misunderstanding of the instructions of Islam, without exclusion, by all Islamist terrorist groups.

Religion: Means OF COMMUNICATION. Bruce Hoffman, former Director of the RAND Corporation ‘s Washington Office argues that, terrorist ‘s message is non needfully spiritual, but he is utilizing faith to pass on it. He goes farther to state, person claiming association with an cultural group can non anticipate to acquire a batch of support beyond the bounds of that cultural group, but those claiming association with a major faith make a much wider possible constituency. Thus terrorist groups try to leverage mosques as communicating vehicles where there are confined audiences ready to listen to their positions. In the mosques, the terrorists are able to orient their message to accommodate their ends, thereby working faith for political intents.

We therefore have terrorist groups beliing the instructions of Islam. First, to derive public support for their cause so, use the faith to pass on with the same people to foster their cause.

HOW ARE THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM BEING MISREPRESENTED?

The sentiment of the bookmans is divided sing how Islam is being manipulated by terrorist organisations to accomplish political terminals. There are bookmans on both sides of the divide who have strong positions on the topic. Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, USA believes that Islam does non O.K. of terrorist act. He argues that ‘there is no grounds of terrorist act in the instructions and traditions of Islam ‘ . On the other manus, Osama bin Laden quotation marks extensively from Quran and interprets poetries from the holy book to warrant many of his actions. Harmonizing to Bill Warner, Director of Centre for Study of Political Islam ( CSPI ) , USA, Islamic texts have been made hard to understand and grok. As per his survey, “ about 61 % of the contents of Koran are found to talk ailment of disbelievers or name for their violent conquering ”[ 1 ]and “ about 75 % of Muhammad ‘s life ( Sira ) consists of Jihad waged on disbelievers[ 2 ]“ . However, there are many Muslim bookmans who do non hold with his work.

Designation OF THE ENEMIES. The terrorist groups runing around the universe can be divided into two classs, the ‘secular ‘ and the groups which draw inspiration from spiritual instructions. Secular groups have been motivated by secular dockets of Vladimir Lenin, “ Che ” Guevara, Mao Zedong and so on ; while there are groups who draw inspiration from instructions of people like Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb, Palestinian theologian Abdullah Yusuf ‘Azzam ‘ , Persian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. One of import difference between the two groups is in the manner they identify their enemies. For the secular terrorist groups the enemies are the members of the governmental apparatus or certain societal economic order. For the Islamic terrorists it has much wider intension. Different terrorist groups have different ways and means to place their enemies. For illustration Sayyid Qutb, who is considered to hold influenced the political orientation of many terrorist groups including Al Qaeda says, ‘the manner to convey approximately freedom to Muslims is to contend, “ jahiliyyah ” or pre Muslim ignorance is through sermon and through physical power and jehad against organisation and authorization of jahil system[ 3 ]‘ . These sorts of beliefs are unfastened to reading and to followings of Sayyid Qutb they have justification of his apprehension of Islamic instructions to implement their belief even by the usage of force. This leaves room for deformation of Islamic instructions. We have seen that on many cases ideologists of terrorist groups have come out with their reading of spiritual Bibles to accommodate organizational political dockets.

The manner terrorist groups identify their enemies has to be seen in the visible radiation of the declared ends. My apprehension is that though the terrorist groups have a loose confederation but they aim to set up a Pan Islamic Caliphate. To accomplish their aspirations the terrorist groups are seeking to guarantee that non lone persons but the provinces and the administrative machinery of the ‘jahil ‘ system are brought to entry to their apprehension of Islam. Today Islamic Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon.

How are these groups able to warrant their terrorist Acts of the Apostless to the instructions of Islam even when their Acts of the Apostless do casualties to guiltless civilians including Muslims?

JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING OF CIVILIANS. Quran and the instructions of Islam have laid down codification of behavior sing the Torahs of war and the definition of “ battlers ” and “ non-combatants ” . Off tardily, certain terrorist groups have broadened the definition of battlers to include all civilians populating in ‘infidel lands ‘ . The ideologists of the terrorist groups ‘ have proposed their readings of Torahs of war whereby such civilians are being perceived in the same manner as soldiers contending on the battleground. Such a place endangers the lives of guiltless civilians including adult females and kids and denies them the protection under Islam from a spiritual position. ‘On 28 June 2002, 28 bookmans from the Al-Azhar Institute in Egypt determined that in carry oning jehad there is no demand to do any differentiation between soldiers and civilians. In April 2002, Sheikh Hamed al-Ali, a lector on Muslim civilization in Kuwait and one of the leaders of the extremist Salafi watercourse, clarified in a spiritual governing the fortunes in which it is permitted to kill civilians in the cause of jehad without go againsting the Prophet Muhammad ‘s bid forbiding the slaying of adult females and kids. ‘[ 4 ]It is non as if there are no antagonistic statements from respectable bookmans to such edicts, but the terrorist groups seem to disregard everything that can queer the fulfillment of their purposes.

JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING MUSLIMS. In the universe today, there are many Muslim bulk states affected by terrorist act. In fact, a big per centum of casualties due to terrorist actions are Muslims. Surely Islam does non prophesy Muslims should kill Muslims to progress the cause of the faith. So how do these terrorists justify the violent death of Muslims?

It would be worthwhile to do a comparing between the marks and modus operandi of ‘secular terrorists ‘ and Islamic terrorists. The IRA in the 1990s issued warnings, disrupted public conveyance system and bombed downtown countries on Sunday forenoons. This is in contrast to Al Qaeda which bombed the World Trade Centre towers, carries out bombardments in crowded market topographic points, suicide bombardments in mosques cognizing rather good there will be ample Muslim population. Bin Laden and the likes of him are doing differentiation between ‘good and bad Muslims ‘ and misinterpret the instructions of the faith. The secular terrorist groups may still hold some disinclination to do casualty to members of their ain racial or cultural groups but some of the spiritual orientated terrorist groups do non demo any such remorse. Anybody who opposes the political aspirations of these groups is their enemy, including Muslims. One of Sayyid Qutb ‘s thought identifies who is a true Muslim and who is non, thereby doing many of them as deserters and giving Jihadists “ a legal loophole around the prohibition of killing another Muslim, ” and besides doing “ it a spiritual duty to put to death ” the self-professed Muslim. These alleged deserters besides include leaders of Muslim states, since they have failed to implement Sharia jurisprudence.[ 5 ]

JIHAD AND SUICIDE TERRORISM

I will now try to analyze how Islamist terrorist organisations are fostering their cause through beliing the construct of Jihad and through suicide terrorist act.

JIHAD. Jihad in Arabic is a noun significance battle and in its common use means, “ nisus in the manner of Allah ” . Muslims use the word Jihad to depict three different sorts of battle.

( a ) A truster ‘s internal battle to populate out the Muslim religion every bit good as possible.

( B ) The battle to construct a good Muslim society.

( degree Celsius ) Holy war ; the battle to support Islam with force, if necessary[ 6 ].

This is how Prophet Mohammed likely wished Jihad to be. How did Saddam Hussain construe Jihad? Just before the Gulf War Saddam had threatened the United States with Jihad. Daniel Pipes in his article in the New York Post of 31 Dec 2002 says it was, “ Saddam ‘s call for legal, compulsory, communal attempt to spread out the districts ruled by Muslims at the disbursal of districts ruled by non Muslim ” . This may be one utmost position but surely there was no spiritual duty for Muslims to reply his call. Saddam likely wished to play on the spiritual sentiments of the Muslims to perpetuate his government against an at hand onslaught.

Many of the terrorist groups perpetrate force in the name of Jihad and many a times even without pronouncing demands. There are legion instances all over the universe of bombs traveling off in market topographic points and on trains which have puzzled governments about the motivations of these Acts of the Apostless. There can be no spiritual justification for these Acts of the Apostless. These Acts of the Apostless are perchance committed due to terrorists ‘ personal grudges, cultural grounds or to alter the bing political order. Many bookmans of Islamic history argue that the construct of Jihad is dynamic and has been invariably germinating. This has led to the modern twenty-four hours Jihadists to falsify the original construct to assist them accomplish their purposes including political purposes. Kaisa Schreck, editor of the International Relations and Security Network ( ISN ) is of the position that, “ perceived diminution of Muslim civilization and power, coupled with subjugation by secular dictators, gave rise to extremist Islamist docket in Sayyid Qutb which is centered on the construct of violent Jihad ” . The original construct of Jihad as enunciated by Prophet was distorted by the likes of Qutb who preached, ‘human society had become tainted by a pre Islamic brutality. Moslems who did non see this world were nescient non trusters and hence legitimate marks in a holy conflict ‘ . Modern twenty-four hours Jihad got a bonus in the 1980s when 1000s of Jihadists were ‘factory produced ‘ by the CIA and the ISI in madrassas of Pakistan utilizing the Saudi money. The Islamist guerillas ab initio fought the Soviet ground forces and today they fight everyplace from Philippines to Kashmir to Iraq and the United States. Theological certificates of the merchandise of these madrassas, run under the backing of either the intelligence bureaus or by groups holding politico spiritual aspirations, has ne’er been a beginning of argument. The merchandises of these madrassas are soldier of fortunes who are contending for political order in the name of Jihad and faith.

SUICIDE TERRORISM. Study of suicide terrorist act has thrown up conflicting consequences. There is a school of idea for whom suicide terrorist act has been sanctified by the Quranic poetries and the Sunnah while for the other group, spiritual instructions have a minor function in suicide onslaughts carried out by Islamic terrorists. It is really a agency to accomplish political purposes. The surveies carried out on the topic have thrown up interesting consequences with respects to education degree, background and rule motive for set abouting such onslaughts.

Harmonizing to Charles A Kimball, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, USA “ there is merely one poetry in the Quran that contains a phrase related to suicide, ” verse 4:29 of the Quran. It reads, “ O you who believe! Do non devour your wealth in the incorrect manner – instead through trade reciprocally agreed to and make non kill yourself. Surely God is merciful towards you. ” Islam purely prohibits self-destruction and slayings. However, Al Qaeda, Hamas and some other terrorist organisations give spiritual holiness to such Acts of the Apostless. For many of the self-destruction terrorists Sura 9 Ultimatum, Verse 111 from the Quran preaches the followings of the faith to set about this venture. For these groups there is sufficient justification in the Quran which assures a topographic point in Eden if a individual dies progressing the cause of Islam. But the moot inquiry is, are the terrorist groups progressing the cause of Islam or some politico spiritual docket?

The other school of idea believes that there are many-sided grounds, other than spiritual, which motivates people to transport out suicide missions. For them there are Muslim young persons in the West who feel a sense of favoritism and disaffection because of cultural differences. Some of the Muslims are outraged by what they feel as unfairness being meted out to Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For others it is fiscal factor which is the cause of enlisting and still for others it could be retaliation, political orientation, tribal truenesss or the indoctrination carried out in the madrassas. Harmonizing to Professor Dipak Gupta, San Diego State University the drive force behind terrorist actions tends to be the desire to be an of import member of the group. So is suicide terrorist act a instance of leader instilling a sense of accomplishment in the terrorists and warranting the act in the name of Islam? Fahana Ali, international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation says for, “ adult females jihadist corporate individuality is more of import than the single individuality, and its members are willing to make anything for a magnetic leader ” . Other grounds for these adult females to set about terrorist activities could be revenge for lost hubby or a close relation, addition regard of the other members of the group and in the society.

From the above it is clear that the grounds for set abouting suicide terrorist act are many. However, as seen earlier in the article terrorist groups try to misinterpret faith to earn support of the Muslim universe for their Acts of the Apostless and besides enroll suicide terrorists. Cloak of religionism is provided to pass on with fleeceable subdivision of the Muslim community and gain their support for their actions.

RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION Vs STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS

During the class of my survey I did come across statements forwarded by many bookmans who felt stressing strategic and political considerations for terrorist Acts of the Apostless by Islamist groups and understating spiritual inspiration for terrorist act was unsafe and inaccurate. Consequences of many surveies on the topic have concluded that Islamic terrorist groups undertake terrorist Acts of the Apostless for strategic and political considerations. Some of these surveies suggest that political relations and grudges ( of Muslim community ) are the cause of force and spiritual rhetoric. It is besides of import to analyze change by reversal relationship that is, the possibility of spiritual instructions determining political positions. Prudence demands we should non be dismissive of such an thought ; nevertheless, the function of Islamic instructions in actuating terrorists ‘ organisations is a capable itself and is beyond the range of the article.

MY JAMMU AND KASHMIR ( J & A ; K ) Experience

In my over 20 old ages of commissioned service I have been posted to J & A ; K on five occasions, of that four times for antagonistic terrorist operations. There were certain issues which stood in the face manner back in 1993 and my positions got reinforced over the old ages in my many interactions with terrorists, surrendered and apprehended, their sympathisers and the common adult male. Many of the terrorists and over land workers I came across were non practicing and neither were their households really spiritual. These terrorists took on the facade of religionism once they were indoctrinated or forced to fall in the terrorist groups. In my interactions with them I got a sense of what they passed on as spiritual cognition was superficial apprehension of Quran, other spiritual Bibles and patterns. When some of them would cite Bibles they would expose ignorance of existent cognition and the context for what they were stating. The above strengthened my belief that these persons became extremist because of deficiency of cognition of Islam instead than being knowing about it. My apprehension of terrorist groups, at least of the lower round, is that the groups do non hold any sort of political orientation even political. Religion is being manipulated to make full that nothingness unnaturally. The common adult male in J & A ; K is politically discerning and wake up to the land worlds of the sub continent. The terrorist groups are besides alive to this facet and are besides cognizant that their demands are unequal to pull broad followers ; therefore it is a calculated effort on their portion to hide their political demands in the cloak of religionism. Another dramatic facet of this narrative is the ground why persons get motivated for the terrorists cause. In J & A ; K, in many of the instances it has been societal cause besides friendly relationship, affinity, chumminess, sense of escapade, easy money which has been a actuating factor instead than spiritual political orientation and this is consistent with my statements in the article.

My interaction with some of the foreign terrorists besides threw up similar interesting aspects of terrorists ‘ preparation including ideological preparation. These terrorists were indoctrinated with hatred addresss, trained to do devastations and to do slaying, but even they could non progress any convincing theological principle for their Acts of the Apostless. Possibly their trainers are cognizant that ordinary ‘Jihadists ‘ in Pakistan are besides non good versed with the indepth apprehension of Islamic instructions, therefore the indoctrination of the terrorists by their animal trainers in Pakistan is intensely political. They play on the mind of Muslims who are concerned with the ‘plight of their Kashmiri brothers ‘ . They have been indoctrinated on the subject of humiliation and agony of the Muslims at the custodies of Hindus. For them Muslims are being oppressed and humiliated by non Muslims and the lone manner to support the award is through Jihad guaranting release of Kashmir and its amalgamation with Pakistan. This judicious mixture of battle for award and political aspiration offered on spiritual mantle is most effectual.

Decision

The issue of Islamic terrorist act has spiritual overtone but faith is non everything about Islamic terrorist act. Muslimism does hold a history of force associated with it since its early yearss but so so do many other faiths in the universe. The aggression of the Islamist terrorist groups that we see today does emanate in parts from misinterpreting the instructions of Islam and in portion is the result of political thoughts, hence it has to be defeated through learning right spiritual patterns and by political tools. The scheme being followed by Government of India in J & A ; K viz political activism, winning Black Marias and heads of the people and military action against the terrorists coupled with maintaining communicating channels even with dissenters unfastened is portion of the attack to the job of spiritual terrorist act. A conjunct attempt has to be made to expose terrorist groups of the mode in which they misrepresent Islam. More of import facet is to do citizens of the state in general and Muslims in peculiar aware of the true spiritual patterns and instructions of Islam.