As Muslims, we completely condemn these attacks and offer our condolences to the American people.
In this article, we will explain that Islam is by no means the source of this violence and that violence has no place in Islam.
One point that should be stressed at the outset is that the identities of the perpetrators of the acts of terrorism which targeted the United States are not yet determined. There is a chance that these horrible attackers are linked to quite different centres. It may well be a communist organisation harbouring rage and hatred against American values, a fascist organisation opposing federal administration or a secret faction in another state. Even though the hijackers have Muslim identities, the questions regarding by whom and for what purposes these people were used will remain to be a mystery.
The fact remains however, that even if the terrorists have Muslim identities, the terror they perpetrated cannot be labelled "Islamic terror", just as it would not be called "Jewish terror" if the perpetrators were Jews or "Christian terror" if they were Christians.
That is because, as we will examine in the following pages, murdering innocent people in the name of religion is unacceptable. We need to keep in mind that, among those who were killed in Washington or New York, there were people who loved Jesus (Christians), Prophet Moses (Jews) and Muslims. Unless forgiven by God, murdering innocent people is a great sin that brings torment in Hell.
Thus, a religious person who has fear of God can never commit such an act.
The aggressors can commit such violence only with the intention of attacking religion itself. It may well be that they carried out this violence to present religion as evil in the eyes of people, to divorce people from religion and to generate hatred and reaction against pious people. Consequently, every attack having a "religious" facade on American citizens or other innocent people is actually an attack made against religion.
The Values of The Qur'an Demand Goodness, Justice And Peace
Terror, in its broadest sense, is violence committed against non-military targets for political purposes. To put it in another way, the targets of terror are entirely innocent civilians whose only crime is, in the eyes of terrorists, to represent "the other side".
Terror means subjecting innocent people to violence, which is an act bereft of any moral justification. This, as in the case of murders committed by Hitler or Stalin, is a crime committed against "mankind".
The Qur'an is a Book revealed to people as a guide to the true path and in this Book, God commands man to adopt good morals. This morality is based upon concepts such as love, compassion, tolerance and mercy. God calls all people to Islamic morals through which compassion, mercy, peace and tolerance can be experienced all over the world.
This being the case, it is obvious what great sins are the murders, massacres and, attacks, popularly known as "suicide attacks", committed by terrorists are. God informs us how this cruel face of terrorism will be punished in the hereafter in the following verse:
What has been examined so far reveals that it is not possible to talk about an "Islamic" terror. Indeed, a closer look at the characteristics of the perpetrators explicitly reveals that this terror is not a religious but a social phenomenon.
The true message of a religion or another system of belief can be at times exposed to distortion by its pseudo-adherents. The Crusaders, who constitute a dark episode of Christian history, set a good example of this.
Crusaders were European Christians who undertook the expeditions at the end of the 11th century to recover the Holy Land (the area around Palestine) from the Muslims. They set out with a so-called religious goal, yet they laid waste each acre of land they entered with fear and violence. They subjected civilians to mass executions and plundered many villages and towns.
Their conquest of Jerusalem, where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived under Islamic rule in peace, became the scene of immense bloodshed. They violently killed all Muslims and Jews by striking their necks. The Crusaders' barbarism was so excessive that, during the Fourth Crusade, they plundered Istanbul, also a Christian city, and stole the golden objects from the churches.
While Christianity is a religion based on love that accommodates no violence, how did Christian Crusaders carry out the most violent acts of history? The major reason for this is that, Crusaders were mainly made up of ignorant people who could better be defined as "rabble". These masses, who knew almost nothing about their religion, who had never read or even seen the Bible once in their lifetime, and who were therefore completely unaware of the moral values of the Bible, were led into barbarism under the conditioning of Crusaders' slogans which presented this violence as "God's Will".
It is worth mentioning that in that period, Eastern Christians-the people of Byzantium, for instance-who were culturally far ahead of Western Christians, espoused more humane values. Both before and after the Crusaders' conquests, Orthodox Christians managed to live together with Muslims. According to Terry Johns, the BBC commentator, with the withdrawal of the Crusaders from Middle East, "civilized life started again and members of the three monotheistic faith returned to peaceful coexistence."1 The example of the Crusaders is indicative of a general phenomenon: The more the adherents of an ideology are uncivilised, intellectually underdeveloped and "ignorant", the more likely they are to resort to violence. This also holds true for ideologies that have nothing to do with religion. All communist movements around the world are prone to violence. Yet the most savage and blood-thirsty of them was the Red Khmers in Cambodia. That is because they were the most ignorant.
Just as ignorant people may take a violence-ridden opinion to the point of insanity, so they may confuse violence with an opinion against violence (or to religion). The Islamic world also experienced such cases.
In the period of our Prophet, there existed two basic social structures in Arabia. City-dwellers and Bedouins (Desert Arabs). A sophisticated culture prevailed in Arab towns. Commercial relations linked the towns to the outer world, which contributed to the formation of "good manners" among Arabs dwelling in cities. They had refined aesthetic values, enjoyed literature and, especially poetry. Desert Arabs, on the other hand, were the nomad tribes living in the desert who had a very crude culture. Utterly unaware of arts and literature, they developed an unrefined character.
Islam was born and developed among the inhabitants of Mecca, the most important city of the peninsula. However, as Islam spread to the peninsula, all tribes in Arabia embraced it. Among these tribes were also Desert Arabs, who were somehow problematic: Their poor intellectual and cultural background prevented them from grasping the profundity and noble spirit of Islam. Of this God states the following in a verse:
In latter periods, "Hashashis", another brutal organisation, emerged; this was a "terrorist organisation" made up of ignorant and fanatical militants bereft of a profound understanding of the essence of Islam and thus who could be readily influenced by simple slogans and promises.
In other words, just as the Crusaders distorted and misinterpreted Christianity as a teaching of brutality, some perverted groups emerging in the Islamic world misinterpreted Islam and resorted to brutality. What is common to this sect and the Crusaders was their "Bedouin" nature. That is, they were ignorant, unrefined, uncultivated, vulgar, and isolated people. The violence they resorted resulted from this social structure, rather than the religion to which they claimed to adhere.
These examples from history are enlightening for a better understanding of the phenomenon, the so-called "Islamic terror", which is nowadays on the top of the international agenda. That is because those who emerge and carry out acts of terrorism in the name of Islam or those who back such acts-these people, no doubt, represent a minority in the world of Islam-stem from this "character peculiar to Bedouins", not from Islam. Failing to understand the essence of Islam, they try to make Islam, essentially a religion of peace and justice, a tool of barbarism, which is simply an outcome of their social and cultural structure. The origin of this barbarism, which may well be called the "Third World Fanaticism", is the benighted initiatives of people who are devoid of love for humans.
It is a fact that, for the last few centuries, Muslims in all corners of the Islamic world, are being subjected to violence by Western forces and their affiliates. The colonialist European states, local oppressive regimes or colonialists backed by the West (Israel, for instance) caused great suffering for Muslims at large. However, for Muslims, this is a situation that has to be approached and responded to from a purely Qur'anic stance.
In no part of the Qur'an does God command believers to "respond to violence with violence". On the contrary, God commands Muslims to "respond to evil with goodness":
| Carrying out terrorist acts against the innocent people of other nations under the pretence of "representing the innocent nations in the world", is by no means compatible with Islam. |
Another indication that Third World Fanaticism has nothing to do with Islam is that, until recently, this fanaticism has been identified with communist ideology. As is known, similar anti-West acts of terror were carried out in 1960s and 70s by USSR-backed communist organisations. As the impact of the communist ideology faded, some of the social structures which gave birth to communist organisations have turned their attention to Islam. This "brutality presented under the guise of religion", which is formulated by the incorporation of some Islamic concepts and symbols into the former communist literature are entirely against the moral values constituting the essence of Islam.
A last remark about this issue is that Islam is not peculiar to a particular nation or geography. Contrary to the dominant Western perception, Islam is not an "Eastern culture". Islam is the last religion revealed to mankind as a guide to the true path that recommends itself to all humanity. Muslims are responsible for communicating the true religion they believe in to all people of all nations and cultures and making them feel closer to Islam.
Consequently, there is a unique solution for people and groups who, in the name of Islam, resort to terror, form oppressive regimes and turn this world into a dreadful place instead of beautifying it: revealing the true Islam and communicating it so that the masses can understand and live by it.
Today, the Western world is concerned about the organisations that use terror under the guise of Islam and this concern is not misplaced. It is obvious that those carrying out terror and their supporters should be punished according to international judicial criteria. However, a more important point to consider is the long-term strategies that have to be pursued for viable solutions to these problems.
The assessments above reveal that terror has no place in Islam and that it is a crime committed against humanity. They further show the inherently contradictory nature of the concept of "Islamic terror". This provides us with an important vantage point:
1) The Western world, especially the United States, will surely take the most dissuasive measures to cope with terror and it has the right to do that. However, it has to state explicitly that this is not a war waged against Islam and Muslims but, on the contrary, a measure serving the best interests of Islam. The "Clash of civilisations", the dangerous scenario envisioned in the 90's should be at all costs prevented.
2) Support should be provided for the spread of "True Islam", which is a religion of love, friendship, peace and brotherhood, and for its true understanding by Islamic societies. The solution for radical factions in Islamic countries should not be "compulsory secularisation". On the contrary, such a policy will incite more reaction from the masses. The solution is the dissemination of true Islam and the appearance of a Muslim role-model who embraces Qur'anic values such as human rights, democracy, freedom, good morals, science and aesthetics, and who offers happiness and bliss to humanity.
3) The source of terrorism is ignorance and bigotry and the solution to terrorism is education. To the circles who feel sympathy with terror, it should be said that terror is utterly against Islam, that terror only does harm to Islam, Muslims and to humanity at large. Besides, these people have to be provided with education in order to be purified of this barbarism. The United States' support to such an education policy will yield very positive results.
Our hope is that these measures will help to the world get rid of terrorism and all other bigoted, brutal, barbarous structures. With its Christian-dominated population, the United States, that defines itself as "a country under God's protection", is in fact a real friend of the Muslims. In the Qur'an, God draws attention to this fact and informs us that Christians are those who are "most affectionate to those who believe". (Surat al-Ma'ida: 82)
In history, some ignorant people (for instance, Crusaders) failed to understand this fact and caused conflicts between these two religions. To prevent the repetition of this scenario, true Christians and Muslims need to come together and co-operate.
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