Islam and terrorism

Islam and disquietudeismINTRODUCTIONWhen the terrorists attacked the United States on the morning of family line 11, 2001, they set in motion a rake of tied(p)ts that turn in unequivoc totally in ally the power and influence of terrorist act. Less than dickens hours of unimaginable personnel by nineteen terrorists conduct to repercussions felt around the cosmos. Beyond the decease and destruction that the terrorists ca utilise more than 3,000 great deal were slayed in the suicide attacks on the orb switch over Center and the Pentagon. They also inflicted a recently psychological hurt upon United States and the rest of the knowledge do master(prenominal).1Although the United States had experienced major terrorist attacks on its domain in the past, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal official Building in Oklahoma City, the September 11 attacks were beyond near peoples worst nightmargon. Hijacked planes crashing into U.S. land attach and live television coverage of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing images that forget likely be etched in peerlesss headspring forever.The tragedy of September 11, 2001, has revealed the roots of deep planetary contradictions that threaten the world community and indeed deportment itself on planet Earth. This act of unusual terror against thousands of innocent people ought, at last, to start valet de chambreity mentation slightly the stark incompatibility of new(a) achievements in the atomic number 18as of scientific kat onceledge, serviceman rights, and the establishment of human incorrupt standards with ideological, nationalistic, or phantasmalfanaticism in any form.Lately, virtually of the act of terrorist actseems to be ab come out of the closet Islam, and it all seems to be the same. By all accounts the nuance of jihadism looms large. Even if we susp abate the feeling for a moment and but frame aside a ll those terrorist crowds that cl betimes see secret code at all to do with the Moslem religionthe Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the FARC in Colombia and the IRA in Ireland (to fix but a few)we argon still left with a slew of seemingly similar groups all motivated by and distorting Islam to lodge their profess ends2.The anatomy of propagandaThe document found in a grip be vasting to leading September 11, 2001, terrorist Muhammed Atta except strengthens this belief. The bagful document is reproduced on a lower floor and analysed in the ensuing paragraph Pray during the previous night. Remember deity much and with complete serenity. Visualize how you go away respond if you get into trouble. analyse verses of the record book into your hands andrub them over your luggage, knife, and all yourpapers. Check your weapons, commit ablution before you leave your a representativement, and remember perfection constantly while go to the airport. Takecourage and remember the rewards w hich Godhas promised for the sufferers. 3The suitcase document is peculiar for four reasons. First, it embo murmurs a classic ascetical strategy for applying formulaic principles to think actions. Second, it shargons much in common with repetitive techniques for self-hypnosis. Third, it bears a striking simile to mainstream traditions such as Catholicism in ascetical manuals like The ghostly Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola or The Rule of St. Benedict that says, keep death daily before ones eyes. Whether or not such manuals threaten human freedom depends, of course, on the various contexts in which they have been presented. If in the wrong hands they mountain function as formulas and meditations both for indoctrination and for fighting holy wars. Fourth, the document from the suitcase directly connects ghostlyformulas and meditations with intentions to perpetrate mass murder. Practical checklists of objectives, terrifying in magnitude, are interwoven with ghostlikestatemen ts and then repeated and applied as mantras of self-indoctrination.Religion The Terrorists scoop out WeaponWhileterrorism even in the form of suicide attacks is not an Islamic phenomenon by definition, it discountnot be ignored that the lions share of terrorist acts and the more or little de bigating of them in recent years have been perpetrated in the name of Islam. This fact has sparked a fundamental debate both in the West and within the Moslem world regarding the link amid these acts and the teachings of Islam. nearly westbound analysts are hesitating to identify such acts with the bona fide teachings of one of the worlds great religions and prefer to view them as a perversion of a religion that is essentially peace-loving and tolerant. Western leaders such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair have reiterated while and again that the war againstterrorismhas nothing to do with Islam. It is a war against evil4.Modern worldwide Islamistterrorismis a natural offshoot of twe ntieth- degree centigrade Islamic fundamentalism. The Islamic Movement emerged in the Arab world and British-ruled India as a response to the dismal state of Muslim society in those countries neighborly injustice, rejection of traditionalistic mores, acceptance of foreign control and culture. It perceives the malaise of neo Muslim societies as having strayed from the straight path (as-sirat al-mustaqim) and the base to all ills in a return to the original mores of Islam. The fusss addressed may be hearty or policy-making inequality, corruption, and oppression. provided in traditional Islamand sure enough in the worldview of the Islamic fundamentalistthere is no separation between the political and thereligious. Islam is, in essence, both religion and regime (din wa-dawla) and no area of human activity is outdoors its remit. Be the nature of the problem as it may, Islam is the solution.5The fictitious character of religion of Islam needs closer examination since the maj ority of terrorists of contemporary times are practising the religion of Islam. One of the enduring questions is what religion of Islam has to do with this. shake off exclusively, does religion of Islam ca character terrorism? Could these violent acts be the fault of religion-the solving of a dark strain of religious thinking that leads to absolutism and hysteria?Is religion the problem or the victim?When one looks outside ones credence it is easier to blame religion. In the current climate of Muslim political military unit, a signifi back endt sector of the Ameri discount and European public assumes that Islam is part of the problem. The hint of this point of view is the unfortunate notion that the whole of Islam has supported acts of terrorism.Most Muslims ref apply to believe that fellow members of their faith could have been responsible for anything as uncivilized as they September 11 attacks-and hence the popular conspiracy theory in the Muslim world that somehow Isra eli secret natural law had plotted the terrible deed.Recently, and, Islam and fundamentalism are tied together so frequently in public conversation that the term has be have sex a elbow room of condemning all of Islam as a deviant branch of religion. But even in this case the use of the term fundamentalism allows for the defenders of otherwise religions to constitute comfort in the notion that their kind of non-fundamentalist religion is exempt from abandon or other extreme forms of public behaviour.6CHAPTER IIMETHODOLOGY line of reasoning of Problemterrorism has been a persistent feature of war outlying(prenominal)e and the international security environment for centuries. The magnitude and impact of terrorism has not remained consonant but rather has ebbed and flowed over the course of time. Today terrorism has emerged as one of the or so significant international and regional security issues.The terror attacks of Sep 11 have brought astir(predicate) a lasting transpose in the way contemporary society perceives the religion of Islam. The perception of the people all across the globe has been that Islam is source of military group.ScopeIslam is a vast religion and consists of various facets. The dissertation would aim to study the diachronic post of terrorism, conceptualise terrorism and then determine how religion is utilise as a motivator for terrorism before stu dying the account bookic interpretations associated with the military might and finally aim to answer the question Is there a link between Terrorism and Islam.The scope does not cover the causes and motivators of terrorism like cultural conflict, globalisation, and stinting disparity e.t.c. but is limited to investigate the general belief that Islam is associated with the terrorism.Methods of Data CollectionData for this research has been collected from the following sources Books, journals, resulticals and studies on the subject.Authenticated information from selected web sites .A bibliography of the books, periodicals and web sites referred to is appended at the end of text.Organisation Of The DissertationTopic is intend to be dealt in the sequence enumerated below IntroductionMethodologyThe Genesis of Terrorism A historical perspective.Conceptualising terrorism Definitions.How religion is use as a motivator for terrorism.Interpretations of record book and Terrorism.Conclusion Is there a link between Islam and terrorism?CHAPTER common chordTHE GENESIS OF act of terrorism A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVEIntroductionThe terrorism is as old as the human civilization. Although the use of violence has been constitutive(a) to the human beings in the entire process of evolution.Zealots of Judea. The earliest known arranging that exhibited aspects of a modern terrorist organization was the Zealots of Judea. Known to the Romans as sicarii, or dagger-men, they carried on an underground campaign of assassination of Roman occupation forces, as soundly as any Jews t hey felt had collaborated with the Romans. Eventually, the Zealot revolt became string out, and they were finally besiege and committed mass suicide at Masada fortress.The Assassins. The Assassins were the undermentioned group to turn out recognisable characteristics of terrorism, as we know it today. A set offaway faction of Shia Islam called the Nizari Ismalis adoptive the tactic of assassination of competitor leaders because the cults limited manpower prevented open combat. Their leader, Hassam-I Sabbah, ground the cult in the mountains of Northern Iran. Their tactic of sending a lone assassin to successfully kill a key enemy leader at the certain sacrifice of his own life (the killers waited next to their victims to be killed or captured) inspired fearful awe in their enemies.The Zealots of Judea and the Assassins were forerunners of modern terrorists in aspects of motivation, organisation, targeting, and goals. Although both were crowning(prenominal) failures, the fact t hat they are remembered hundreds of years later, demonstrates the deep psychological impact they caused.The period between 14th and 18th century was of relative calm. From the time of the Assassins (late 13th century) to the1700s, terror and barbarism were widely used in warfare and conflict, but key ingredients for terrorism were lacking. Until the rise of the modern nation state after the Treaty of Westphalia8 in 1648, the sort of cardinal role and cohesive society that terrorism attempts to influence barely existed.communications were inadequate and controlled, and the causes that might inspire terrorism (religious schism, insurrection, ethnic strife) typically led to open warfare. By the time kingdoms and principalities became nations, they had sufficient gist to enforce their authority and suppress activities such as terrorism.The French variation. The French Revolution provided the starting signal uses of the words Terrorist and Terrorism. Use of the word terrorism began in 1795 in reference to the Reign of Terror initiated by the Revolutionary government. The agents of the Committee of Public rubber eraser and the National Convention that enforced the policies of The Terror were referred to as Terrorists. The French Revolution provided an voice to future states in oppressing their populations. It also inspired a response by royalists and other opponents of the Revolution who employed terrorist tactics such as assassination and intimidation in resistance to the Revolutionary agents. The Parisian mobs contend a critical role at key points before, during, and after the Revolution. such extra-legal activities as killing prominent officials and aristocrats in gruesome spectacles started long before the guillotine was first used.The 19th CenturyNarodnya Volya. The terrorist group from this period that serves as a model in many ways for what was to come was the Russian Narodnya Volya ( populations Will). They differed in some ways from modern terrori sts, particularly in that they would sometimes call off attacks that might endanger individuals other than their intended target. Other than this, they showed many of the traits of terrorism for the first time. These traits included clandestine tactics, cellular organisation, impatience and inability for the task of organising the constituents they claim to represent and a inclination to increase the level of violence as pressures on the group mount.internationalization of TerrorismModern Terrorism. The age of modern terrorism might be said to have begun in 1968 when the Popular Front for the Liberation of nirvana (PFLP) hijacked an El Al airliner en route from Tel Aviv to Rome. While hijackings of airliners had occurred before, this was the first time that the nationality of the carrier (Israeli) and its symbolic value was a specific operational aim. withal a first was the deliberate use of the passengers as hostages for demands made in public against the Israeli government. The combination of these unique events, added to the international scope of the operation, gained significant media attention. The go of PFLP, Dr. George Habash observed that the level of coverage was tremendously greater than battles with Israeli soldiers in their previous area of operations. At least the world is talking about us now.9Cooperation. Another aspect of this internationalisation is the cooperation between extremist organizations in conducting terrorist operations. Cooperative training between Palestinian groups and European radicals started as early as 1970, and joint operations between the PFLP and the Japanese Red military (JRA) began in 1974. Since then international terrorist cooperation in training, operations, and support has continued to grow, and continues to this day. Motives range from the ideological, such as the 1980s alliance of the Western European Marxist-oriented groups, to financial, as when the IRA exported its expertise in bomb making as far afield as Colombia.Current State of TerrorismThe roots of todays terrorism began to grow in 1990s. The largest act of international terrorism occurred on September 11, 2001 in set of coordinated attacks on the United States of America where Islamic terrorists hijacked noncombatant airliners and used them to attack the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. After September 11, it is very wakeful to be nostalgic about the 1990s. In fact, the post Cold state of war decade was a very chaotic period. Americans were absorbed by domestic issues and lulled by the fact that the Cold War was over10.SummaryThere were deuce great forces at work through and through the 1990s. First, there were the forces of integration, including global economical growth, cross-b tell apart development, the communications revolution and the spreading of democracy. The power of these forces was captured in the popular wording, The block off of History. Thats what seemed to be happening after the fall of the Berlin Wall and all of the other great events that were affecting world history. But there was also a guerilla set of equally powerful forces-the forces of disintegration-including religious and ethnic conflict, an ever-widening North-South gap, religious fundamentalism (Islamic and otherwise) and terrorism. The power of these forces was captured in the phrase, the Clash of Civilizations. While I disagree with the ultimate conclusion of Samuel Huntington, the author of that phrase, that the clash is inevitable, Huntingtons words nonetheless capture the significance of the forces that were producing post-Cold War conflicts.CHAPTER IVCONCEPTUALISING TERRORISM A few terms that are all important(predicate) to the study of violence in Islam are terrorism, religious terrorism and Islamic terrorism. A discussion of these terms will permit a comprehensive analysis on the way in which the use of violence sanctioned by the Quran and its interpretations a mounts to Islamic terrorism.TerrorismTerrorism is a non-political act of aggression in which the extent of violence used is outside the realm of normative behavior11. Terrorists use or threaten to use this violence against combatants and non-combatants to achieve political, social, economical or religious change within a given community. These reforms appeal to the terrorists and do not represent popular view of the society from which terrorism arises and terrorists are no respecters of borders12.frankincense Omar Abdullah, the Chief curate of Jammu and Kashmir says that there are no well defined or internationally accepted criteria to designate an organization as terrorist. However the UN Security Council has, on occasion, adopted resolutions putting in place specific sanctions and measures against individual countries orcertain terrorist organizations13. gibe to Kofi Annan the Ex Secretary General of the United Nations, the manifestations of terrorism are limitless. The except common denominator among different variants of terrorism is the calculated use of deadly violence against civilians14.Terrorists are those who violate the right to life, liberty and security15 vested in each civilian by the UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights Resolution 217 A (III). Thus the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the United Kingdom defines terrorism as a movement in which terrorists directly challenge the authority of democratically elected governments to manage their countrys affairs peacefully, according to the rule of law and internationally accepted fundamentals of human rights16, to satisfy their own liking.Religious TerrorismReligious terrorism occurs when the use of terrorism is systematized by an ideological and fanatic interpretation of a religious text. Religious terrorist groups functioning in the absence of this pretext, create junk terrorism17.According to Charles Kimball, religious terrorism functions on the buns of five essential principl es. These are means justify the end, holy war, invention obedience, absolute impartiality claims and the ideal times. Kimball explains that truth claims are essential points in a religion at which divergent interpretations arise18. Extreme interpretations of truth claims turn on the ideology upon which religious terrorism is based. However the authentic religious truth claims are never as inflexible and exclusive as glowing adherents insist19. The staunch truth claims professed by religious terrorists, allow them to use religious structures and doctrinesalmost like weapons20 for their movement.In the process, religious convictions that become locked into absolute truths can tardily lead people to see themselves as Gods agents. People so encourage are capable of violent and destructive behaviour in the name of religion21. This conviction creates fanatical interpretations and ideologies that give rise to religious terrorism. Nancy Connors Biggos22, states that foreign observers are unfamiliar with the extreme interpretations of religious terrorists. Thus scholars often dismiss the cajolery of religious terrorism as one that is devoid of any strategical motivation. This creates a dearth of quantifiable info that can be used to assess religious terrorism. However Biggo explains that the lack of understanding(a) or data cannot dismiss the fact that religious terrorism is systematized by extreme interpretations of a religious text. Therefore Wener Ruf, states, where God was pronounced dead all notions of righteousness have been turned into nihilism23.Islamic TerrorismIslamic terrorism is a movement in which the violence caused by terrorism is derived from and used to obey extreme interpretations of the Quran, in an Islamic community. An in-depth discussion of the how Islamic terrorism is invoked from the Quran, will be discussed in a separate chapter. However, preliminarily speaking Islamic terrorism exists where there is a controversy over sacred space24 or a Kuranic teaching has been violated. Participants of this movement call for unquestioned devotion and blind obedience25 to the word of God in order to ameliorate un-Islamic conditions.Islamic terrorism is itself a disputable phrase, although its usage is widespread throughout the English-speaking world. Ordinary Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism find it reprehensible because it forces upon them a label simply because they, too, are believers of Islam. In fact, the common Muslim believes that you are making him a racial hate target by using the word Islam with terrorism. Bernard Lewisbelieves that the phrase Islamic terrorism is apt, because although Islam, as a religion is not especially conducive to terrorism or even tolerant of terrorism. In his own wordsIslam has had an essentially political character from its very foundation to the present day. An intimate association between religion and political relation, between power and cult, marks a principal distinct ion between Islam and other religions. In traditional Islam and therefore also in resurgent fundamentalist Islam, God is the sole source of sovereignty. God is the head of the state. The state is Gods state. The army is Gods army. The treasury is Gods treasury, and the enemy, of course, is Gods enemy.CHAPTER VRELIGION AS A MOTIVATOR FOR TERRORISMThe overwhelming problem in the world today, everyone knows, is terrorism, where people in the name of religion kill each other, kill others just to go to heaven, and thinking only they will go to heaven. .Introduction. The dynamics whereby religion becomes a motivator for terrorism is thickening but highly understandable. What terrorists groups using this dynamic have begun to understand is that most ordinary citizens are not highly interested in politics nor dedicated to working for social change. Many ordinary citizens are however interested in religion as it relates to their personal lives and morals and because of this they can be em otionally manipulated when they learn of social injustices particularly if they view them through the lens of religious elaborateness. This is specifically true in todays world of instantaneous news coverage where it is possible to whip up political and religious outrage over events that are seen to be bordering on religious threshold. This is certainly true in the case of al Qaeda and its loosely associate groups within what is now commonly referred to as the global salafi jihadist movement26.Religious Brainwash. hobby the Afghan war in which Islamic peoples from many nations came together to successfully throw out the Russian infidel, Osama bin Laden and similar groups have successfully managed to continue to widen their global appeal by showcasing social injustices against Muslims. This helps to create within a wide group of otherwise less connected Muslim ethnic groups identification with the victims and with each other as a caring and responsive community for their Muslim br others. Typically, these groups make use of the human rights abuses occurring within the Israeli/Palestinian and Russian/Chechen conflicts and now also include the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.The making of a Terrorist. While instantaneous and repetitive satellite coverage of worldwide events is enough to show injustices and to even create identification with victims sharing similar ethnic or religious backgrounds it is not sufficiently enough to fuel terrorism. However, with the addition of religious rhetoric it is transformed into a potent mix. This transformation is achieved via the following means- broad Moral Wrong. First the event is presented as a great moral wrong, a threat to religious morality or purity and as one that must be corrected. The message, which is crafted for unhappy persons, social outcasts or those who are already suffering from religious guilt, is framed as one of frank and evil and the listener is admonished to be on the side of good.Mind of God. Th e second tactic in which religion is used to motivate terrorism is convince the person that it is possible to know the fountainhead of God. For this purpose scriptures are used, and misused, to all the way identify the social wrongs as evil, immoral or impure. Once determine as threats to morality, this tactic is used to squander it a step further with additional scriptures that are used to justify violence in order to destroy the evil. In this way religion is co-opted as the means to morally justify violence in the pursuit of social change. While the world debated about the first strike in the Iraq War (to be carried out by the U.S., Great Britain and their coalition forces), moralists all over the world debated about the doctrine of just wars, thereby holding forth about the mind of God on these matters.Overcoming Guilt. Thirdly, because nearly all religions hold human life as sacred and forbid murder the scriptures are used to break muckle these prohibitions against taking innocent human lives. Islamic rhetoric for example refers to the infidels, nonbelievers, defiled, impure, outsiders, and sinners. In this manner the intended terrorist act in ways that take innocent human lives without suffering guilt for having done so.Common puzzle Fourthly, by using religion as a motivator the terrorist group creates a sense of cohesion and belonging to a higher cause. They work upon individuals who are alienated and disenfranchised. When these individuals find a cause to belong to, especially when it espouses religious rhetoric of brotherhood, love and hope for the future life they can become powerfully motivated to act in behalf of the group simply for the sense of identity.27Heroic Martyrdom. The One of the ultimate uses of religion to motivate terrorism is to hold forth a view of the afterlife, promising rewards in the afterlife for sacrificing oneself in the here and now. This is a particularly potent tactic used with those who feel guilty about their ac tions in this life and uncertain of their standing with God, and with those marginal members of society who suddenly find themselves centered in a group with a purpose. The Muslim interpretation of afterlife while dying for jihad states that the Prophet will be waiting to welcome the martyr with thousands of virgins lined up for his pleasure. Referring to afterlife one martyr also states, I will have God welcome me with open arms. I will be a true hero in the sky.28Between the two recent wars in Chechnya (1994-96 and 1999) similar means were used to convince indefensible Chechen individuals to sign on the new Chechen jihad which began making use of suicide terrorism in 2000. During this time period terrorist sponsored schools used were opened in the capital Grozny which recruited young boys and girls who lost their fathers in the Russian/Chechen conflicts promising their widowed mothers a good education for their sons and daughters. outlander to their families these vulnerable yo ung students were indoctrinated into militant Islamic ideas foreign to Chechen experiences of Sufi Islam and some became convinced that the price of belonging to higher glory is to be willing to sacrifice oneself for the group. In the words of a hostage who conversed with one of the Chechen terrorists -He explained to me that while his greatest dream was to continue his education and go to university and that while he wished to live, even more important for him was to die a martyr. He had become totally convinced that martyrdom was his highest career in life.29Conclusion. Religion has always been used as a means of constructing social justice, expiating wrongdoing or sins, and of modulating emotional states. These means however can also be used to manipulate vulnerable individuals into taking social actions that they might otherwise never have considered or consented to take part in. For instance a colleague in Chechnya reports that the children who attended terrorist based schools were taught to jolt and chant repeating Koranic verses that invoke jihad, ideas that their masters consider important to instil. This practice can easily make use of inducing a suggestive hypnotic state a light trance in which susceptible children who have already reason to want to avenge a murdered parent might be induced to do so. People interacting with such persons mentioned that these young terrorists were brainwashed, rocking, singing and praying often, and readily embracing death.30CHAPTER VIQURANIC INTERPRETATIONS AND TERRORISMApproximately fourteen hundred years ago, Prophet Muhammad, the last in the line of the prophets of Islam, received revelation from God known as the Quran, which is the terminal Testament. He came with a message of peace and reconciliation, mercy and compassion. Yet, ever since the stemma of the call of Islam, its image and that of Muslims has been subject to distortion, misconceptions, and misinterpretations. This chapter aims at establishing the link between Quran and the distortions in its interpretation which has manifested itself in the form of jihad or the holy-war.Quran and Sanction of ViolenceThe Quran permits violence as an act of defense team waged to protect the Shariat in an Islamic community. The Shariat can be explained as a system of ordinances outlined in the Quran and Hadis31 through which God lays down for mankind the rules of conduct32. The Shariat is the guidance for all walks of life individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international33.Muslims are advised to closely follow the Shariat to pick out the well being that God has envisioned for the Islamic community. Preservation of the Shariat is an cartel of every able-bodied individual34. Oppression, despotism, injustice and criminal abuse of power35 of the Shariat by Muslims or non-Muslims36, must be punished.Quran and JihadThe Quran identifies three main kinds of Jihad that can be used for t he punishment of oppression and injustice. These are internal37, impertinent38 and inter-communal39. The Quran permits the use of violence as an optional method for all three forms of Jihad but it limits the use of violence in internal40 and external Jihad. It expands on its doctrine of Jihad and violence, mainly in the context of inter-communal conflicts. In these cases, Muslims can individually determine the nature and extent of Jihad based on the freedom of interpretations, and the geopolitical conditions in which the conflict arises. However the most essential prerequisite in the Qurans discourse on violence is that, force should be used only when the Shariat has been violated and needs to be persevered as the very