Islam and Terrorism (22 page)
The worldwide media was instrumental in helping al Qaeda achieve its goal of spreading fear and shaking the West’s national security, especially that of the United States.
Sayyid Qutb envisioned this in his writings—Muslims moving the battleground to the infidel’s homeland and ruling the world by the fear of Islam. This is what Sheikh Abdel Rahman started and Osama bin Laden continued.
Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the experience of Egyptians in al Qaeda, especially his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others. You can see a lot of similarity between the technique used by the Egyptian al-Jihad in their attempt to take over the government and al Qaeda’s methods against the United States. The Egyptian al-Jihad stole from Christians and used an Egyptian soldier trained by the government to use a military weapon to assassinate President Sadat. Al Qaeda stole from the United States (four aircraft) and used them to attack its targets.
The innocent Christians in cities all over Egypt (Nagh Hamadi, Abo Karacas, Al Minya, Dyroot, Malawi, Asyut, and others) were the cheap sacrifice for the Islamic terrorists’ game, as were the Americans in New York and Washington, DC and the planes’ passengers and flight crews.
Killing innocent people in the name of Allah is a continual practice of Islam worldwide. It is going on with millions of Christians in the south Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, and other countries.
A good example is what happened in January 2000 in Al-Kosheh, a village in southern Egypt. Twenty-one men, women, and children were set on fire with torches and
burned to death during an attack on their village. Their bodies were split open vertically from the throat down so their attackers could watch their organs pulsate; others were set on fire while still alive. The perpetrators cut opposite arms and legs off to send back to their village to spread fear.
1
Where do militant Muslims get the ideas for their cruelty? From the Quran.
The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite sides, or be exiled from the land.
—S
URAH
5:33, T
HE
N
OBLE
Q
URAN
While this English translation says to cut off hands and feet, my understanding of the Arabic meaning is to cut off the entire arm and leg, just as they did to the Egyptian villagers.
Yes, this is happening in the twenty-first century. Of course, the Egyptian government did a good job of covering up what happened.
SECTION V
THE FUTURE OF THE MUSLIM WORLD
RESPONDING TO RADICALS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
R
ADICAL
I
SLAMIC GROUPS
are a serious threat in our world today. They are driven by Islamic teaching, motivated by the goal to live eternity in Paradise, and committed to conquer the world for Islam, and they strive for the sake of Allah until Islamic authority is the only form of government in the world.
Now you might wonder: How can we deal with this threat? What is the solution? Is there any hope for Islamic terrorism to be stopped and for peace to be established in the Middle East? Some people say we find ourselves in a “war on terrorism.” I would rather call it a war of ideas.
C
AN
V
IOLENCE
S
TOP
V
IOLENCE
?
Dealing with Islamic radicalism in the countries of the Muslim world is very sophisticated and difficult, and crushing out a radical group by using violence is not a solution because violence creates violence. Trying to fight radicalism by violence is like fighting a serious sickness by using a pain killer: it might stop the symptoms for the short term, but it does not bring a solution for the long term. It is better to search for the roots of the problem and to deal with it so that we can achieve a genuine and long-term solution.
The Egyptian government under President Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi decided to stop Islamic radicalism by
military power, just as Nasser had done in the past. This kind of approach might work for a limited time within the national borders of a specific country. This approach, however, will never be able to fully stop the radical Islamic movements worldwide because it will not be able to erase its ideology. It will be impossible to end the strife of radical Islamists worldwide by military power.
When I witnessed the military coup in Egypt, overthrowing the democratically elected government, I was in shock. I certainly do not support Muslim Brotherhood as a group, and I do not sympathize with them in any way. But I am for a democratic process that can give everyone the chance to exercise their rights in participating in the political process of their country. Also I believe that the peaceful political approach that Muslim Brotherhood had chosen is much better than a violent one, such as practiced by ISIS or other radical groups including al Qaeda.
If someone will object my opinion, and point out that Muslim Brotherhood is a radical group who have their own agenda, my answer will be: even though I agree about that, it is better to sit around the table and to discuss these agendas in a peaceful and democratic way than to use guns, grenades, or missiles to wipe out people. It is better to let a nation hold politicians accountable through democratic elections than to go back to dictatorship.
R
ETHINKING
F
OREIGN
P
OLICY
If we ask whether and how the problems in the Middle East can be solved from its roots, we will have to deal with the elements that have caused the conflict and keep fueling it. The first element was articulated by the young people, who went to the streets to demonstrate during the beginning of
the Arab Spring, namely their hunger for bread, freedom, and social justice. A second element is the corrupt dictator regimes that the radical Muslims view as one of the first enemies of Islam because they compromise Islamic law. Western countries, who cooperate with or support these regimes are seen as equally evil.
I believe Western countries could indeed contribute to solve the situation by pursuing a fair and helpful role, sincerely seeking to help the population. So far, however, Western countries have played a quite negative role in the development of Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt. Instead of searching for a right way to promote and spread democracy in the Middle East, they often put their hand in the hand of vicious corrupt dictator regimes, seeking to secure their own interests in this region.
When the Arab Spring started with the peaceful demonstrations of the young generation, the Western countries were completely silent. They did not support or give a hand to this new generation to start a new birth of democracy and freedom in their region. Consequently the first attempt to real democracy failed. After Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist had gained influence using democratic methods, the rich corrupt Arab Gulf regimes felt severely threatened and used their oil money to put this new birth of democracy into death. They cooperated with the Egyptian military and overthrew the first freely and democratically elected government in Egyptian history. And in the neighboring countries, such as Lybia, Tunisia, and Yemen, they jeopardized the new hope for democracy by defending the old regimes and the old political systems.
It is typical for corrupt regimes to defend each other. Saudi Arabia provided a safe haven to the Tunisian dictator by giving him political asylum after he ran away
from his country. United Arab Emirates provided a safe haven to the relatives and family members of the Tunisian dictator and also the Egyptian dictators (Mubarak people). And Oman provided a safe haven to the family members and the sons of the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The Western countries, however, including the United States ignored these facts and continued putting their hands in the hand of these corrupt regimes. This fact by itself is destroying the image of the Western countries in this region, and it is providing another reason to the upset and angry young Muslim generation who believe that the Western countries are hypocrites when they speak about democracy. Muslims complain that Western countries just seek their own interests and will partner with their oppressors and support the dictator regimes to do so.
My advice, therefore, to the United States and the rest of the Western countries is to rethink their foreign policies. They should avoid applying a double standard and show integrity instead. They should seek to help the public interest of the ordinary people, standing behind them and supporting them against their vicious dictators, instead of being a friend to the dictator regimes. The best way to secure the Western interest and to heal and strengthen the American and Western image in Muslim countries is to take the side of the people—not the side of these bad royal families. This could be a great contribution in the search for a solution to resolve the problem of radical Islam.
CHALLENGING THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND ISIS
T
HE TERRORISM OF
Islamic radical groups such as ISIS violates the basic principles of religious, social or cultural behavior. ISIS declares itself as the only true and faithful advocate of Islam, which is taking the responsibility of enforcing Allah’s will by defending Islam, the Quran, and the Prophet Muhammad. When ISIS declared through their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate which is known as ISIS (the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq), they used the main sources of Islamic law (the Quran and Sunnah) to justify their agenda and to legalize their behavior, including the different methods of punishment that they used against Muslims and non-Muslims.
This leads us to the crucial questions: How can we deal with this threat and what can we do to stop or prevent the spread of radical Islamic ideology? I believe the only effective way to stop this radical and violent ideology is a new interpretation of the original sources. Such a new interpretation has to be done by the scholars of Islam in order to be acceptable to Muslims. While most people, including the radical Muslims, believe that the Islamic law they hold to is perfect, divine, and unchangeable, the truth is that the Islamic law they believe and practice includes the interpretations and opinions of Islamic scholars, which
cannot be considered perfect and infallible because they are just human opinions. Moreover, many violent aspects of Islamic teachings that are practiced today by radical Islamic groups such as ISIS are based on
fatwas
and interpretations that have been added by Islamic scholars and cannot be found in the Quran. They are justified by referring to hadith, which are not recognized as fully reliable. This is why many moderate or liberal Muslims call for filtering the Sunnah and for a rereading of the Quran in light of the twenty-first century.
You might wonder: But what about all the violent verses that call for jihad that
are
indeed in the Quran, which is the first primary source of Islam? The good news is that there are ways to deal even with this challenge. One of the key arguments views the call to jihad from a completely different perspective.
It can be argued that the verses concerning jihad have to be seen in the context of Islamic history. As Muhammad was targeted by aggressive enemies who tried to destroy him, he protected himself and the Islamic community through violence and aggression. Today the situation is completely different than in Muhammad’s time. Islam has been established for more than fourteen hundred years and there are 1.5 billion followers of Islam worldwide. Consequently Islam has the opportunity today to peacefully coexist with others. There is no need today to convert non-Muslims or force them to follow the laws of Islam in order for the Muslim community to be safe. Therefore it can be argued that there is no longer a need for the teachings of the violent Medina-Quran and Muslims can return to the peaceful teachings of the beginning of Islam, which even speaks about religious freedom.
One basic principle that Muslims can learn from the
life example of Muhammad is that he was always very flexible to adjust to the given circumstances. As we can see from the Quran and as mentioned in this book, the rules concerning alcohol changed several times. First it was allowed. Later it was restricted, later again it was completely prohibited, and eventually Muslims were promised a river of alcohol in Paradise. There is no real consistency in the Islamic prescriptions concerning alcohol. It almost looks as if Allah changed his mind. This is just one of many examples. However, I am not saying this to make fun of Allah or the Quran. This is not my intention. The reason I am pointing out this aspect is as an example of the “flexibility” of
Sharia
. I think it is important to stress that this is not my personal opinion or discovery, but this is an aspect that Islamic scholars praise about
Sharia
: the claim that
Sharia
is flexible enough to fit with all times.
Today in the twenty-first century living circumstances are completely different from what they were during the time of Muhammad. I am fully convinced that if Muhammad were alive today, he would not live the same way he used to live in the Arabian Peninsula of his time, but this is exactly what committed Muslims usually try to do. They try to live the way Muhammad lived in his time. They wear the kind of clothing Muhammad used to wear, they eat the way Muhammad used to eat, and they try to imitate him as much as they can. Also they prefer to stick to the interpretations of the early scholars of Islam. I believe that if Muhammad were alive today, he would adjust to the current life circumstances, and I believe that Muhammad would want Muslims to reinterpret the Quran for themselves and not just to follow the (violent) interpretations of the early scholars.
