Countering Violent Extremism – Muslim Ulema and Custodians of Faith Must Avert a Potential Holocaust
By Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam
19 May, 2015
(Co-author (Jointly with AshfaqueUllah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA, 2009)
This article follows up on a series of articles on the theme posted over the recent months on this website [1] and aims at bringing across the potentially deadly religious, political and civilisational repercussions of ideologically driven terrorism as championed by the Violent Extremists of Islam. The object is to fully convince the Muslim Ulema and scholars to declare the terror outfits as the modern version of Kharijites- renegade-apostates of Islam, who have lost any claim to the faith as expounded in the first of the referenced articles [1].
First, with the availability of highly advanced explosives, remote control devices and automatic portable weapons and the advent of suicide bombing, the terror outfits of the day can cause colossal death and destruction by engaging barely a few hands. Thus recalling some of the terror attacks fresh in memory:
A few Taliban gunmen attacked Park Palace Guest House in Kabul killing 14 people mostly foreigners. (May 14, 2015).
Six gunmen attacked a public bus in Karachi killing some 45 bus passengers – all from Ismaili Shia community (May 12, 2015)
Four Al Shabab gunmen killed 147 students at Garissa University Kenya. (April 2015).
Six Talibans (TTP) gunmen killed 145 people in Army Public School in Peshawar. (December 2014)
Four Al-Shabab gunmen killed 67 shoppers in Water Gate shopping mall in Nairobi (Sep. 2013)
Two Suicide bombers killed 127 people in All Saints Church, Peshawar (Sep. 2013)
Remote control Car bomb at centuries old Qissa Khawny Bazar in Rawalpindi killed 41 shoppers, mostly Muslim women and children, including 16 from the same family. (Sep. 2013)
Remote control blast in a govt. bus on the outskirts of Peshawar killed 19 people mostly govt. Officials. (Sep.13)
Two Chechen brothers carried out the Boston Marathon bombing killing 3 and injuring 264, though there could have been potentially a hundred dead. (April 2013)
The intention is not to make a catalogue of the terror attacks as the world knows this well enough through live TV coverage, but to bring across the following most alarming, contagious and latent aspects of the ISIS brand of terrorism:
1. Their distinctly visible religiosity gives a totally distorted impression to a Muslim as well as non-Muslim, not aware of the fundamentals of the Qur’anic message, that murder, rape, slave trade, forced conversion, land grabbing, looting, extortion, and all kinds of heinous crimes are permissible in Islam.
2. Only one or barely a few terrorist (s) can upset peace and harmony of their society such as by carrying out a terror attack or suicide bombing in any public place, killing scores of people and injuring and crippling many more in the name of Islam.
3. The terror outfits are using common Muslims as shield in their ideological war which has a clearly laid out strategy to grabbing power: Kill people as massively, indiscriminately and mercilessly as possible and sometimes selectively (only non-Muslims, Christians or Shi’ites) to make others hostile to common Muslims, who are, however, as detached from the terrorists and as helpless to confront them as the others
4. They are giving a bloody dimension to the sectarian divide between the Sunnis and Shias. By invoking antiquated rulings, which must have been either forged or distorted during transmission or specific to their era and have no religious or legal value for all times.
5. They are virtually set to create a new barbaric sect like the Kharijites of early Islam, drawing on the worst rulings of the jurists and Imams of Islam of the past era, the worst reports in Islamic secondary sources, and the worst reading of the Qur’an such as by applying universal dimension to its verses relating to fighting, which were obviously specific to the era, or taking divine exclamations in a literal sense.
6. As their supremacist, triumphalist, exclusivist, divisive and pan-Islamic aspirations overlap with the cumulative Sharia rulings of Islam – the so called Sharia Law, they have latent allies among the ‘Islamists’ – proponents of political Islam in most Muslim and even non-Muslim/ Western countries.
These are most ominous issues for the global Muslim community and are designed to sustain terrorism, demonize Islam and dehumanize the Muslims and thus isolate them from the others and divide the world on religious lines. They are also tailored to create anarchy in the traditional Muslim lands including Afghanistan and Pakistan and pave the way for the Violent Extremists’ military foray into these lands which already have their sleeping sympathizers (6 above) ready to join ranks with them and help their consolidation of power. They have already overrun a vast swath of territory in Syria and Iraq and are virtually cleansing the land they occupy of Christians and religious minorities. They are also indoctrinating the young Muslim population of robbed lands to join their ranks as Islamic fighters, thereby creating a growing army of terrorists, each ready to lay down his life for their unholy cause. They create an ideologically connected but otherwise detached pool of unidentifiable, invisible terror actors or cells giving rise to homegrown terrorism which they venerate as “the most beautiful obligation that Allah, the Exalted Has Ordained for the Muslims.”[2]
These terror outfits, which in historical synergy are nothing but the counterparts of the early Kharijites [3] justify not only en-masse killing of civilians by terror attacks but also perpetrating acts of mass destruction such as “opening the dams of rivers and lakes,” “releasing snakes and scorpions on the enemy even if women and children are also mixed with the men,” “demolishing their buildings, spreading poison and smoke” [4]
It is indeed true that the actual number of Muslim youths who have taken part in terror attacks may be one in a hundred thousand (arbitrary figure) or thereabout – leaving aside the hard core tribal members of the terror groups. But unless the 99.99% common Muslim youths are counter-indoctrinated against terrorism and fully convinced of the disconnect between the pristine message of Islam and its distorted projected or claimed message, the impressionable youth may succumb to radicalization – especially the students of Classical religious schools called madrasas, where Islamic secondary sources and Sharia law are often taught as core subjects.
It is therefore time that Islamic narrative focuses on the best aspects of the Qur’anic message as it commands the Muslims to follow -its emphasis on mercy, kindness, forgiveness, justice, equality its unqualified prohibition and condemnation of terrorism, sedition and anarchy, and its vision of the brotherhood of humanity “that will allow people of diverse faith, culture, color and language to live together, to know each other and assist each other, to make life easy and peaceful for all human beings.” [5]
To wind up this call, let me recapitulate the following conclusive remarks of my last referenced article,
The Muslims of the world must show no sympathy to the ISIS and its likes, as their heinous activities in the name of Islam are calculated to malign Islam and bring shame to the peace loving Muslims of the world; their Imams must warn their devotees that terrorism is antithetic to Islamic message and those who commit barbaric crimes under the banner of Islam want to reduce Islam to a cult of terror and bring the wrath of the others on the mainstream Muslim societies, which, in any case, the terror groups regard as infidels. Their emphasis must be on preaching all the noble values as encapsulated in the Qur’an.
Notes:
[1]
[2]
[3] Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publication, Maryland, USA 2009. Pg. 364
[4]Refutation of Sheikh Yousuf Al-Abeeri's fatwa appearing in English translation in New Age Islam website supporting wanton killing of innocent civilians under special circumstances and thus justifying the 9/11 attacks – Part-8.
[5] Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publication, Maryland, USA 2009. p. 96
Muhammad Yunus, a Chemical Engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, and a retired corporate executive has been engaged in an in-depth study of the Qur’an since early 90’s, focusing on its core message. He has co-authored the referred exegetic work, which received the approval of al-Azhar al-Sharif, Cairo in 2002, and following restructuring and refinement was endorsed and authenticated by Dr. KhaledAbou El Fadl of UCLA, and published by Amana Publications, Maryland, USA, 2009.
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/muslim-ulema-holocaust-faith-extremism/d/103021