ISLAM is not the source ofterrorism, but its solution (1-2) [Archives:2003/670/Culture]

By Harun Yahya
www.harunyahya.com
[email protected]
For the Yemen Times
During the last two decades in particular, the concept of “Islamic terror” has been often discussed. After the September 11 terrorist attacks on targets in New York and Washington which caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, this concept has once again returned to the top of the international agenda.
As Muslims, we completely condemn these attacks and offer our condolences to the American people. In this report, 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.
Religion commands love, mercy and peace. Terror, on the other hand, is the opposite of religion; it is cruel, merciless and it demands bloodshed and misery. This being the case, while looking for the perpetrators of a terrorist act, its origins should be sought in disbelief rather than in religion. People with a fascist, communist, racist or materialist outlook on life should be suspected as potential perpetrators. The name or the identity of the triggerman is not important. If he can kill innocent people without blinking an eye, then he is a disbeliever, not a believer. He is a murderer with no fear of God, whose main ambition is to shed blood and to give harm. For this reason, “Islamic terror” is quite an erroneous concept which contradicts Islam's message. That is because; the religion of Islam can by no means concur with terror. On the contrary, “terror” (i.e. murders committed against innocent people) in Islam is a great sin and Muslims are responsible for preventing these acts and bringing peace and justice to the world.

The Values of the Qur'an Demands 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.
You who believe! Enter absolutely into peace (Islam). Do not follow in the footsteps of Satan. He is an outright enemy to you. (Surat al-Baqara: 168)
The values of the Qur'an hold a Muslim responsible for treating all people, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, kindly and justly, protecting the needy and the innocent and preventing the “dissemination of mischief”. Mischief comprises all forms of anarchy and terror that remove security, comfort and peace. As God says in a verse, “God does not love mischief makers”. (Surat al-Qasas: 77)
Murdering a person for no reason is one of the most obvious examples of mischief. God repeats in the Qur'an a command He formerly revealed to Jews in the Old Testament thus:
So we decreed for the tribe of Israel that if someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all mankind. Our Messengers came to them with Clear Signs but even after that many of them committed outrages in the earth. (Surat al-Ma'ida: 32)
As the verse suggests, a person who kills even a single man, “unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth”, commits a crime as if he had murdered all mankind on earth.
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:
There are only grounds against those who wrong people and act as tyrants in the earth without any right to do so. Such people will have a painful punishment. (Surat ash-Shura: 42)
All these reveal that organising acts of terror against innocent people is utterly against Islam and it is unlikely that any Muslim could ever commit such crime. On the contrary, Muslims are responsible for stopping these people, removing “mischief on earth” and bringing peace and security to all people all over the world. Being a Muslim cannot be reconciled with terror. Just the contrary, it is the solution and prevention of terror.
This being the case, how did the popular term “Islamic terror” emerge?
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.

Crusaders: Barbarians Who Trampled Their Own Religion
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.
No doubt, all this barbarism was utterly against Christian political doctrine. That is because, Christianity, in the words of the Bible, is a “message of love”. In the Gospel according to Matthew, it is said that Jesus said “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” to his followers (Matthew, 5/44) In the Gospel according to Luke, it is said that Jesus said “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Luke, 6/29) No doubt, in no part of the Gospels, is there reference to the legitimacy of violence; murdering innocent people, on the other hand, is unimaginable. You can find the concept of “murdering the innocent” in the Bible; yet, only in the cruel Jewish King Herod's attempt to kill Jesus while he was a baby.
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 faiths 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.

To be continued next issue
——
[archive-e:670-v:13-y:2003-d:2003-09-22-p:culture]