Proof That Islamic Terrorists Are Not Real Muslims – OpEd
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—a militant Sunni Muslim group known for its extreme interpretation of Islam and violent tactics aimed at establishing a caliphate—has taken responsibility for a deadly attack on a mosque in Oman on July 15.
This marks the group’s first attack in the Gulf state of Oman, despite its continued targeting of Shi’ite Muslims. The attack took place during Ashura, a significant observance for Shi’ite Muslims who commemorate the death of Imam Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, who is highly revered in Shi’ite Islam for his leadership and martyrdom.
Six people were killed in a shooting near a Shi’ite mosque in Muscat, including four Pakistani citizens and one Omani police officer. The three gunmen were also killed and 28 people were injured, according to Agence France-Presse. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on July 16,
Non-Muslims are often shocked to hear that Islamic terrorists have bombed mosques on many different occasions and in many different countries; because non-Muslims think Islamic terrorists are Muslims; which they are not! They are extremist political terrorists who distort Islam to fit their own political goals.
Shiraz Maher, Department of War Studies at King’s College London, writes about politically radicalized jihadis who believe jihad itself is much more than just military action. “Indeed, al-Qaeda’s official chapter in Syria, the Nusra Front, often described the jihadi view of Ramadan as “a month of conquests.”
As Ramadan approached, an IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani once told supporters around the world; “Get prepared, be ready to make it a month of calamity everywhere for non-believers”
Of course, Maher says “Normal Muslims rightfully despair at these perverted interpretations of jihad and its even more perverted link to Ramadan. For normal Muslims, Ramadan is a month of self-restraint and self-reflection – but such is the tragic crisis of Islam in the three generations since the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Ismailia, Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928, that extremist political interpretations of Ramadan are almost wholly divorced from normative Islamic understandings.
“What started in 1928 as a healthy reaction to a mindless and faithless imitation of European culture has degenerated, decade by decade, into a growing rage against western liberal secularism in general; and Jews, Christians, Yazidis, Shia and Sufi Muslims in particular.”
Indeed, the vast majority of victims of political Muslim terrorists are normal Muslims. In 2014 according to the Global Terrorism Index the Islamic State slaughtered 6,073 people, the great majority of them Muslims; and Boko Haram murdered even more victims—6,644.
As Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law has written: “Al-Qaeda, ISIL (ISIS), Boko Haram, and of course their theological “teachers”, methodically and systematically destroy everything beautiful in Islam. They target and destroy the artifacts and historical sites that defy their pedantic and false sense of history. These are the true radical extremists. They and only they are the true enemies of Islam.”
As ibn Babuya writes in Thawab ul-A’mal, “The Apostle of God said: `There will come a time for my people when there will remain nothing of the Qur’an except its outward form, and nothing of Islam except its name, and they will call themselves by this name even though they are the people furthest from it. “The mosques will be full of people but they will be empty of right guidance. The religious leaders (Fuqaha) of that day will be the most evil religious leaders under the heavens; sedition and dissension will go out from them and to them will it return.”
Secularists believe that these apocalyptic visions of the future are absurd, although many secularists themselves fervently believe that runaway genetic modification of food and/or extreme climate change is going to doom all of human civilization in the next generation.
The basic difference between the pessimistic, humanist secularists and the religious optimists is that those who believe in the God of Abraham also believe that God’s inspiration guarantees that the spiritual forces of good will overcome all the world’s evils at the end of days; and justice, peace and religious pluralism will prevail. Or as Prophet Micah envisions it: (4:1-5)
“In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’
Torah will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. God will judge between many (not all) peoples and will settle disputes among powerful nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughs, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
All the nations will walk in the name of their gods, and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” Thus, the Bible and the Qur’an’s final judgement is the self-destruction of violent, hate filled terrorism and narrow ‘my way or death’ philosophy and the victory of kindness, love and religious pluralism.
Only the joint co-operation of religious leaders from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities can keep the world from a coming apocalyptic nightmare. Only our joint opposition to all sorts of terrorism will enable us to fulfill the 2700 year old Messianic vision of Prophet Isaiah:
“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. On that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-5)
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