A Look At Islamic Terrorism

A Look At Muslim terrorist act entre in that location ar differing opinions with regards to Islamic terrorism with the to the highest degree fundamental of them ara the role played by spiritual tactile sensations to motivate terrorist organizations. Are the beliefs in Islamic teachings the grounds for terrorist actions or do terrorist groups manipulate phantasmal beliefs to warrant terrorist acts? There are m some(prenominal) scholars who claim that the teachings of Islam inspire terrorist acts. In this hold I will non venture to lease this aspect and set my study to how terrorists are able to manipulate religion to justify their cruel acts. I will essay to find answer to the question, how is Islam creation use by terrorist organizations to discover semi semi governmental ends?SCOPEI will study the subject under the heads given below.(a) Why are the teachings of Islam be misshapen?(b) How are the teachings of Islam being misrepresented?(c) jihad and suicide t errorism.(d) My Jammu and Kashmir experience.WHY are THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM BEING MISREPRESENTED?RELIGION MEANS TO GARNER PUBLIC SUPPORT. in advance I deliberate on how teachings of Islam are being sieveed by the terrorist groups it would be pertinent to understand the interplay of the marks of these terrorist organizations and Islam. It is fundamental to study terrorist goals be establish goals shape the schema and tactics of the groups and study of interplay between goals and religion will give an catch as to why and how these groups manipulate the teachings of Islam.(a) AL QAEDA. Al Qaedas stated goal is to end American military presence in Middle einsteinium and Arabian Peninsula, stop US reen mashment for Israel and overthrow infidel regimens.(b) build up ISLAMIC GROUP (GIA). GIA is an Algerian group which aims to overthrow the Algerian regime and replace it with Islamic State.(c) EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD. Its goals are to overthrow the Egyptian government and to make Egypt an Islamic state and it as well as has close to anti Western and anti US interests.(d) HARKAT-UL-MUJAHIDIN (HUM), JAISH-E-MOHAMMED (JEM), LASHKAR-E-TAYYAIBA (LeT). These are Pakistani groups with say goal of uniting Kashmir with Islamic Re populace of Pakistan.I charter listed a couple of(prenominal) of the Islamist terrorist groups operating in various parts of the world to give an topic of the kind of goals that these groups reserve identified for themselves. Deeper study of Al Qaedas aim will reveal a dream of an Islamic caliphate extending from Europe to S bug outh tocopherol Asia. Ayatollah Khomeini has a vision of wide Shia crescent of wiz Iran linking Iraq and Lebanon. The preceding(prenominal) is implicative of the political ambitions of these terrorist groups and the new world order which they aim to achieve by juxtaposing religion with their stated objectives. In order to achieve their goals terrorist groups need prevalent sustentation and sympathy. In the Islamic world religion has great do work on individual and society at large. The terrorists aim to garner financial backing of this constituency by influencing the thinking in the Islamic world that they are the get going bastion of puritanical Islam. They aim to pull together support for their political ambitions by manipulating public opinion using the vehicle of religion. They overly aim to gain support and sympathy of the Muslim ummah with their promise of regaining the lost jubilate of the Muslim civilization. An opposite important issue is that of the links between the terrorist groups. though some of these groups operate independently, however most of them induce developed linkages purge if the linkages are of ideology. Be throw of this, manipulation of the teachings of Islam by one group has impact on another(prenominal) groups, resulting in the way all of them shape their strategy and tactics. immediately we see mis definition of the teachings of Islam, with out exception, by all Islamist terrorist groups.RELIGION MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. Bruce H killman, former(prenominal) Director of the RAND Corporations Washington Office argues that, terrorists message is not necessarily sacred, save he is using religion to communicate it. He goes further to say, individual claiming affiliation with an ethnic group cannot expect to get a portion out of support beyond the limits of that ethnic group, precisely those claiming affiliation with a major religion create a much wider potential constituency. Thus terrorist groups hand over to leverage mosques as parley vehicles where in that location are captive audiences brisk to listen to their views. In the mosques, the terrorists are able to tailor their message to accommodate their goals, on that pointby exploiting religion for political purposes.We thus turn in terrorist groups misrepresenting the teachings of Islam. First, to gain public support for their cause then, use the religion to communicate with the alike(p) tidy sum to further their cause.HOW ARE THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM BEING MISREPRESENTED?The opinion of the scholars is divided regarding how Islam is being manipulated by terrorist organizations to achieve political ends. There are scholars on some(prenominal) sides of the divide who have strong views on the subject. Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, USA believes that Islam does not pass of terrorism. He argues that on that point is no evidence of terrorism in the teachings and traditions of Islam. On the other hand, Osama bin Laden quotes extensively from Quran and comprises verses from the holy discussion to justify many of his actions. fit in to Bill Warner, Director of meaning for cartoon of Political Islam (CSPI), USA, Islamic texts have been made difficult to understand and comprehend. As per his study, more or less 61% of the contents of Koran are found to spill the beans ill of unbelievers or call for their violent conquest1and abo ut 75% of Muhammads biography (Sira) consists of jehad waged on unbelievers2. However, there are many Muslim scholars who do not agree with his work.IDENTIFICATION OF THE ENEMIES. The terrorist groups operating around the world can be divided into two categories, the secular and the groups which draw passion from ghostlike teachings. Secular groups have been incite by secular agendas of Vladimir Lenin, Che Guevara, monoamine oxidase Zedong and so on while there are groups who draw zeal from teachings of people like Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb, Palestinian theologizer Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. One important difference between the two groups is in the way they identify their enemies. For the secular terrorist groups the enemies are the members of the governmental setup or certain social economic order. For the Islamic terrorists it has much wider connotation. Different terrorist groups have different ways and means to identify th eir enemies. For example Sayyid Qutb, who is considered to have influenced the ideology of many terrorist groups including Al Qaeda says, the way to bring about freedom to Muslims is to force, jahiliyyah or pre Islamic ignorance is through with(predicate) preaching and through physical force play and jihad against organization and authority of jahil system3. These kinds of beliefs are open to interpretation and to fol start outs of Sayyid Qutb they have justification of his cause of Islamic teachings to enforce their belief counterbalance by the use of force. This leaves room for distortion of Islamic teachings. We have seen that on many instances ideologues of terrorist groups have make out with their interpretation of religious scriptures to suit organisational political agendas.The way terrorist groups identify their enemies has to be seen in the lightsome of the stated goals. My understanding is that though the terrorist groups have a loose union but they aim to establi sh a Pan Islamic Caliphate. To achieve their ambitions the terrorist groups are trying to ensure that not nevertheless individuals but the states and the administrative machinery of the jahil system are brought to submission to their understanding of Islam. Today Islamic Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon.How are these groups able to justify their terrorist acts to the teachings of Islam even when their acts cause casualties to innocent civilians including Muslims?JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING OF CIVILIANS. Quran and the teachings of Islam have laid rout code of conduct regarding the laws of war and the definition of combatants and non-combatants. Off late, certain terrorist groups have broadened the definition of combatants to hold all civilians living in infidel lands. The ideologues of the terrorist groups have proposed their interpretations of laws of war whereby such civilians are being perceived in the same way as soldiers fighting on the battlefield. Such a localization enda ngers the alerts of innocent civilians including women and children and denies them the protection under Islam from a religious perspective. On 28 June 2002, 28 scholars from the Al-Azhar Institute in Egypt determined that in conducting jihad there is no need to make any distinction between soldiers and civilians. In April 2002, Sheikh Hamed al-Ali, a lecturer on Islamic culture in Kuwait and one of the leaders of the extreme Salafi stream, clarified in a religious ruling the circumstances in which it is permitted to kill civilians in the cause of jihad without violating the Prophet Muhammads command prohibiting the murder of women and children.4It is not as if there are no counter arguments from respectable scholars to such edicts, but the terrorist groups reckon to ignore everything that can thwart the fulfilment of their aims.JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING MUSLIMS. In the world today, there are many Muslim majority countries impact by terrorism. In fact, a large percentage of casu alties due to terrorist actions are Muslims. Certainly Islam does not preach Muslims should kill Muslims to advance the cause of the religion. So how do these terrorists justify the killing of Muslims?It would be worthwhile to make a comparison between the targets and modus operandi of secular terrorists and Islamic terrorists. The IRA in the mid-nineties issued warnings, disrupted public transport system and bombed downtown areas on sunlight mornings. This is in contrast to Al Qaeda which bombed the World Trade Centre towers, carries out bombings in crowded market places, suicide bombings in mosques penetrative quite well there will be sizable Muslim population. Bin Laden and the likes of him are reservation distinction between mature and bad Muslims and misinterpret the teachings of the religion. The secular terrorist groups may still have some disinclination to cause casualty to members of their own racial or ethnic groups but some of the religious oriented terrorist groups d o not demo any such compunction. Anybody who opposes the political ambitions of these groups is their enemy, including Muslims. One of Sayyid Qutbs idea identifies who is a real Muslim and who is not, thereby making many of them as apostates and giving jihadists a legal loophole around the prohibition of killing another Muslim, and also making it a religious obligation to execute the self-professed Muslim. These alleged apostates also include leaders of Muslim countries, since they have failed to enforce Sharia law.5JIHAD AND self-annihilation TERRORISMI will now attempt to study how Islamist terrorist organizations are furthering their cause through misrepresenting the ideal of Jihad and through suicide terrorism.JIHAD. Jihad in Arabic is a noun meaning assay and in its common land usage means, striving in the way of Allah. Muslims use the word Jihad to describe three different kinds of shinny.(a) A believers internal struggle to live out the Muslim faith as well as possible .(b) The struggle to build a good Muslim society.(c) Holy war the struggle to defend Islam with force, if necessary6.This is how Prophet Mohammed probably wished Jihad to be. How did Saddam Hussain interpret Jihad? Just before the Gulf War Saddam had exist the joined States with Jihad. Daniel Pipes in his article in the New York Post of 31 Dec 2002 says it was, Saddams call for legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non Muslim. This may be one extreme view but certainly there was no religious obligation for Muslims to answer his call. Saddam probably wished to play on the religious sentiments of the Muslims to perpetuate his regime against an imminent attack.Many of the terrorist groups perpetrate ferocity in the name of Jihad and many a times even without enunciating demands. There are numerous cases all over the world of bombs going off in market places and on trains which have puzzled authorities abou t the motives of these acts. There can be no religious justification for these acts. These acts are possibly committed due to terrorists personal grievances, cultural reasons or to commute the existing political order. Many scholars of Islamic write up argue that the c at one timept of Jihad is dynamic and has been constantly evolving. This has led to the modern day Jihadists to distort the master concept to help them achieve their aims including political aims. Kaisa Schreck, editor of the international Relations and Security Network (ISN) is of the view that, perceived decline of Islamic culture and power, coupled with oppression by secular dictators, gave rise to radical Islamist agenda in Sayyid Qutb which is centered on the concept of violent Jihad. The original concept of Jihad as enunciated by Prophet was distorted by the likes of Qutb who preached, human society had become tainted by a pre Islamic barbarism. Muslims who did not see this reality were ignorant non believer s and therefore legitimate targets in a holy battle. Modern day Jihad got a bonus in the 1980s when thousands of Jihadists were factory produced by the CIA and the ISI in madrassas of Pakistan using the Saudi-Arabian money. The Islamist guerrillas initially fought the Soviet army and today they fight everywhere from Philippines to Kashmir to Iraq and the United States. Theological credentials of the product of these madrassas, run under the patronage of any the intelligence agencies or by groups having pol religious ambitions, has never been a source of debate. The products of these madrassas are mercenaries who are fighting for political order in the name of Jihad and religion.SUICIDE TERRORISM. Study of suicide terrorism has throw up conflicting results. There is a school of thought for whom suicide terrorism has been sanctified by the Quranic verses and the Sunnah while for the other group, religious teachings have a minor role in suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terror ists. It is actually a means to achieve political aims. The studies carried out on the subject have thrown up evoke results with regards to education level, background and principle motivation for undertaking such attacks.According to Charles A Kimball, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, USA there is only one verse in the Quran that contains a phrase associate to suicide, verse 429 of the Quran. It reads, O you who believe Do not consume your wealth in the wrong way earlier through trade mutually agreed to and do not kill yourself. for certain God is merciful towards you. Islam strictly prohibits suicide and murders. However, Al Qaeda, Hamas and some other terrorist organizations give religious sanctity to such acts. For many of the suicide terrorists calf 9 Ultimatum, Verse 111 from the Quran preaches the followers of the religion to undertake this venture. For these groups there is sufficient justification in the Quran which assures a place in paradise if a perso n dies advancing the cause of Islam. But the count question is, are the terrorist groups advancing the cause of Islam or some politico religious agenda?The other school of thought believes that there are multifarious reasons, other than religious, which motivates people to carry out suicide missions. For them there are Muslim youths in the West who feel a hotshot of discrimination and alienation because of cultural differences. Some of the Muslims are outraged by what they feel as injustice being meted out to Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For others it is pecuniary factor which is the cause of recruitment and still for others it could be revenge, ideology, tribal loyalties or the indoctrination carried out in the madrassas. According to Professor Dipak Gupta, San Diego State University the driving force behind terrorist actions tends to be the desire to be an important member of the group. So is suicide terrorism a case of leader inculcating a spirit of achievement in the terrorists and justifying the act in the name of Islam? Fahana Ali, international insurance policy analyst at the RAND Corporation says for, women jihadist collective identity is more important than the individual identity, and its members are willing to do anything for a charismatic leader. different reasons for these women to undertake terrorist activities could be revenge for lost husband or a close relative, gain respect of the other members of the group and in the society.From the above it is clear that the reasons for undertaking suicide terrorism are many. However, as seen precedent in the article terrorist groups try to misinterpret religion to garner support of the Muslim world for their acts and also recruit suicide terrorists. Cloak of pietism is provided to communicate with gullible section of the Muslim community and earn their support for their actions.RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION Vs STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONSDuring the course of my study I did come across arguments forwarded by many scholars who felt emphasizing strategic and political considerations for terrorist acts by Islamist groups and downplaying religious inspiration for terrorism was dangerous and inaccurate. Results of many studies on the subject have concluded that Islamic terrorist groups undertake terrorist acts for strategic and political considerations. Some of these studies suggest that politics and grievances (of Muslim community) are the cause of violence and religious rhetoric. It is also important to study reverse relationship that is, the possible action of religious teachings shaping political views. Prudence demands we should not be uninterested of such an idea however, the role of Islamic teachings in motivating terrorists organizations is a subject itself and is beyond the scope of the article.MY JAMMU AND KASHMIR (JK) EXPERIENCEIn my over 20 years of commissioned service I have been posted to JK on five occasions, of that four times for counter terrorist operation s. There were certain issues which stood in the face way back in 1993 and my views got reinforced over the years in my many interactions with terrorists, surrendered and apprehended, their sympathizers and the common man. Many of the terrorists and over ground workers I came across were non practicing and neither were their families very religious. These terrorists took on the faade of religiosity once they were indoctrinated or forced to join the terrorist groups. In my interactions with them I got a mind of what they passed on as religious knowledge was superficial understanding of Quran, other religious scriptures and practices. When some of them would quote scriptures they would display ignorance of real knowledge and the stage setting for what they were saying. The above strengthened my belief that these individuals became radical because of lack of knowledge of Islam rather than being knowledgeable about it. My understanding of terrorist groups, at least of the lower rung, i s that the groups do not have any kind of ideology even political. Religion is being manipulated to fill that void artificially. The common man in JK is politically discerning and awake to the ground realities of the sub continent. The terrorist groups are also alive to this aspect and are also aware that their demands are poor to attract wide following therefore it is a deliberate attempt on their part to shroud their political demands in the cloak of religiosity. other striking aspect of this story is the reason why individuals get motivated for the terrorists cause. In JK, in many of the cases it has been social cause besides friendship, kinship, camaraderie, aesthesis of adventure, easy money which has been a motivating factor rather than religious ideology and this is consistent with my arguments in the article.My interaction with some of the foreign terrorists also threw up similar interesting facets of terrorists training including ideological training. These terrorists we re indoctrinated with hate speeches, teach to cause destructions and to cause murder, but even they could not advance any convincing theological rationale for their acts. Perhaps their trainers are aware that ordinary bicycle Jihadists in Pakistan are also not well versed with the indepth understanding of Islamic teachings, hence the indoctrination of the terrorists by their handlers in Pakistan is intensely political. They play on the psyche of Muslims who are concerned with the plight of their Kashmiri brothers. They have been indoctrinated on the theme of humiliation and suffering of the Muslims at the hands of Hindus. For them Muslims are being oppressed and humiliated by non Muslims and the only way to defend the comply is through Jihad ensuring liberation of Kashmir and its merger with Pakistan. This heady concoction of fight for honor and political ambition offered on religious mantle is most effective.CONCLUSIONThe issue of Islamic terrorism has religious overtone but reli gion is not everything about Islamic terrorism. Islam does have a history of violence associated with it since its early days but then so do many other religions in the world. The aggression of the Islamist terrorist groups that we see today does issue in portions from misinterpreting the teachings of Islam and in part is the outcome of political ideas, hence it has to be defeated through teaching correct religious practices and by political tools. The strategy being followed by Government of India in JK viz political activism, pleasing hearts and minds of the people and military action against the terrorists coupled with keeping communication channels even with dissidents open is part of the approach to the problem of religious terrorism. A concerted effort has to be made to expose terrorist groups of the look in which they misrepresent Islam. More important aspect is to make citizens of the soil in general and Muslims in particular aware of the true religious practices and tea chings of Islam.