ISLAM is a religion of peace, harmony, tolerance, affection, love, kindness, care, sympathy and much more.
In Islam one cannot kill children, the elderly, women or sick people even in war. Burning or cutting down trees is also prohibited and harming or killing sheep, cows or camels is not allowed except for the purpose of eating. During war, Islam prohibits destroying towns and villages and spoiling cultivated fields and gardens.
In Islam, killing someone unlawfully is like killing the whole of humanity and saving a life is just like saving the whole of humanity.
With these clear teachings, how can Islam allow massive killing or suicide bombing? In fact, in Islam one cannot be a believer if others are not safe from his tongue and hand.
It is important to closely examine and understand the menace of terrorism as an ideology and study the reasons for its sudden rise in the last few decades in the context of global events.
Terrorism is an ideology with no religion or nationality, with no heart or conscious and even no sanity or prudence.
The world at large has to reflect and analyze what went wrong in the last few decades that gave rise to these non-state actors who are threatening global peace and forcing the world to live in continuous fear.
Some questions that may help us to find solutions are:
Have the global powers and international organizations played a role in resolving all outstanding conflicts? Was the foreign policy of the movers and shakers of world politics just and equitable or was it blurred by their own vested interests? Why was there support for decades for tyrants and dictators who suppressed their own people leading to illiteracy, poverty and massive unemployment in those countries.
Terrorism has to be addressed at its roots to make this world a better place to live for us and for coming generations. We need to examine our shortcomings which resulted in developing a fertile land for terrorism to flourish. While we have the global resolve to fight terrorists with an iron fist we also need to fight them ideologically and politically by examining our governance structure, policies and priorities of human development.
At the micro-level, it is disturbing to see a person, who could have been a successful doctor, engineer, scientist, businessman or any other respected person of society, blowing himself up along with others around him. Was he brainwashed and motivated by money, religion, vengeance, hatred or something else and and is that why he brought shame to his family and society? Collectively we need to reflect and find solutions and rebuild the social fabric of our communities, so that no one can influence anyone to become a terrorist or join a terrorist organization. We need to ensure that our youth are intellectually strong enough to differentiate between right and wrong and that they have good economic opportunities so that they can grow and play a positive role in building their society.
A very logical question which is still unanswered is: Who supports and finances these terrorist organizations? Are they just proxies which are acting on someone’s agenda to advance their ulterior motives of maligning people of a certain faith? Will the world ever be able to unmask the real faces of those who are harnessing these non-state actors and fueling them both ideologically and financially?
We need to provide platforms for our community where people can express, debate and have a healthy dialogue on all issues instead of suppressing their minds and thought processes. By doing so, we can build an intellectually strong community.
It is for the collective wisdom of our society to reflect and draw its own conclusion, but my humble opinion is that terrorism has more to do with human rights violations, the lust for global hegemony, the invasion of foreign lands, unresolved global conflicts, bad governance, illiteracy, poverty, intellectual and financial corruption, and weak institutions rather than Islam or any other religion.
People of all faiths and nationalities have to make sincere efforts to reflect and come up with a 360-degree solution to tackle the issue of terrorism and eradicate it from its roots for our generation and those to come.
Faisal Tahir Khan
The author is an entrepreneur and consultant. He can be reached at think.fikr@gmail.com
