Terrorism - a review

Introduction

Today's world is an increasingly complex world and in this complex world, new challenges are emerging, have emerged and will emerge. The lesson we learn in life is not to stay still, think beyond and outside the box and try to meet the new challenges with vigor. And among these challenges "Terrorism" is one of the most discussed issue.

Terrorism knows no borders and those days are gone when you could say it happened in country X or continent Y.

If we look at recent history briefly we will see that terrorism has emerged in North America, Latin America in parts of Asia, in the Middle East, in South Asia, in Europe and Africa.

Today, if you try to travel it is a hassle. If your name is Mohammad or Aziz and you are a normal citizen, you are given special treatment in negative sense. Now Before Going deep into this topic it is better to define what is actually meant by the word "Terrorism".

Definition

The Basic and simple definition of terrorism is: Terrorism is an activity which causes terror, and the person who causes this activity is called terrorist. The moment a robber sees a policeman he is terrified. So a policeman is a terrorist for the robber. In this context every Muslim should be a terrorist. When a criminal sees the Muslim he should be terrified, Whenever any rapists sees the Muslim he should be terrified, Whenever any robber sees the Muslim he should be terrified, Whenever any antisocial element sees the Muslim he should be terrified. That's what the Quran says in Surah Al-Anfall Ch. 8 V 60 "Cause terror in the heart of anti-social elements". Those people who are killing around people and who are against humanity Quran say cause terror in their hearts.

I know commonly the word "Terrorist" used only in negative sense (i.e. for a person who causes terror among the common people). For Example Oxford dictionary define the word terrorism as, "the use of violent actions in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act". So in this context no Muslim should ever terrorize a single innocent human being, it is prohibited in Islam.

Two Different Labels, Same Activity!

We know two different labels are given for the same person for the same individual, for the same activity. 60 years back when India was being ruled by the British Government there were many Indians who were fighting for the freedom of their country. These Indians who were fighting for the freedom of the country by the British government they were called as terrorists. But the common Indians called them Freedom Fighters or Patriots. Same People, Same Activity, Two Different Labels. If you agree with the view of British government that they had a right to rule over India than you have to call those people as terrorists. But if you agree with the view of common Indians that the British were came to India for business they have no right to rule over India, than you have to call them Freedom Fighter or Patriots.

It is therefore important that before a person is judged, he is given a fair hearing. Both sides of the argument should be heard, the situation should be analyzed, and the reason and the intention of the person should be taken into account, and then the person can be judged accordingly. For example to judge whether Osama Bin Laden is a terrorist or not? We cannot give the answer to this question based on the news reports of BBC and CNN. If you want the answer based on the news of CNN or BBC you have no option but to say that he is a terrorist. But the Quran says in Surah Hujrat Ch.49 V.6,"Whenever you get any information, check it up before you pass it over to the second person." So, having lack of reliable information we can't answer these types of answers so easily.

Is Terrorism a Muslim Monopoly?

We know that no religion encourages terrorist acts or violence. We also know that in every religion there are black sheep and the media keep putting these people forward. This is a media conspiracy especially against Islam and the purpose is to push people away from Islam. International media is repeatedly publishing, "All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims"

Whereas the word "Islam" itself means "Peace", whose fundamentals teach its followers to maintain and promote peace throughout the world. Anyone, be it Muslim or non-Muslim, who kills an innocent Muslim or a non-Muslim, kills the entire humanity. However, Islam goes a step further to say that if one saves innocent lives, the whole of humanity is saved.

Thus every Muslim should be a fundamentalist i.e. he should follow the fundamentals of the Religion of Peace Islam. He should be a terrorist only towards the antisocial elements in order to promote peace and justice in the society.

Historic records proved that a large number of terrorist acts in the 20th and 21st century were committed by non-Muslims. And when we analyze we can surely say without any doubt that terrorism is not a Muslim monopoly. Not only is Terrorism not a Muslim monopoly, it is not even a specialty of the Muslims. It is not even encouraged in Islam. It is prohibited...

"If any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." - The Quran, Surah Al Ma'idah Ch. 5 V. 32

Islam condemns all forms of Terrorism. All forms of acts which kill innocent human beings, whether it is 9/11, 7/7/93 (Bombay serial blast), 11/7/03 or any other. It is prohibited, you cannot justify killing of any innocent human being.

We also have to condemn..

i. 1000's of Afghani's that are being killed in Afghanistan.

ii. 1000's of innocent people that have been killed in Iraq.

iii. 1000's of people that have been killed in Gujarat.

iv. 1000's of people that have been killed in Palestine.

v. 1000's of people killed in Lebanon.

All sorts of terrorism in which innocent human being are killed are to be condemn. Whether done by Muslims or Non Muslims.

As I mentioned before that most of the religions they don't preach that you should kill innocent human beings. But when we analyze, we have terrorist that clam to profess certain religions and when we analyze they are from all types of religion...

i. We have Christian terrorists

ii. We have Catholic terrorist

iii. We have Jewish terrorists

iv. We have Hindu terrorists

v. We have Muslim terrorist

vi. We have Buddhist terrorists

vii. We have Sikh terrorists

And when we do a survey, (though we know that religions don't encourage killing innocent human beings) and try and find out that the people who have killed the maximum human beings which religion do they profess...

The number 1 who killed the maximum number of human beings is...

1. Hitler.

He had incinerated 6 million Jews And indirectly if you count all the people killed in World War II, 60 million people. Was he a Muslim!? No, He was a Christian.

2. Joseph Stalin (Uncle Joe)

Killed 20 million human beings Including 14.5 million were starved to death.

3. Mao Tse Tsung of China

Killed 14 to 20 million human beings. He was a Non Muslim.

Here we are not trying to say that the followers of these religions were practicing the religion. They were not, otherwise they wouldn't have killed a single innocent human being. But yet we find in the International media that Muslims are being targeted. The Question is Why? And we all know the answer of it.

Injustice a root cause of terrorism.

If we want to abolish terrorism, we have to realize what is the cause of terrorism. The experts say the root cause of terrorism is injustice. When injustice is done on a group of particular people they tend to retaliate, and that is the only cause of terrorism.

For Example after a terrorist attack in India 2 people were caught by the police, they are said to be Muslims and the authority said these people killed so many people in the Hindus temple in revenge. However these people, who did the attack they have a logic. They says, "Thousands of our family members were killed in front of our eyes, we have been looted, we know the person who is responsible for all this, he is our neighbor, we met him regularly, but when we see him it remind us of the toucher, when we go to the law the law does not support us, so we take the law in hand.".

I'm not justifying this act, Islam does not permit you that take the law in hand and kill other innocent human beings, and Islam does not justify to use wrong means to reach the right goals. People should not take the law in their hands. But in spite of this fact reacting like this is natural for any normal human being unless you have so much faith in Almighty God, even we will also do the same, if we do not know our Quran, if we did not know from the Quran it is wrong. So Just because someone cause injustice to me, this does not justify me to kill a third innocent human being.

So we should remove the injustice from this land to eliminate Terrorism otherwise every act to eliminate it would cause of increase in Terrorism.

Faisal is the student of Cost and Management Accounting in Pakistan, He operate the sites Pay As You Go Mobile [http://pay-as-you-go-mobile-phones.it-aroma.com/] and BMW Car Parts [http://www.bmw-car-parts.it-aroma.com/].