Islamic Jihadi terrorists

[Groundhog]

... and the Satanic Verses ... does this mean you aren't going to share?

[rxpharm]

Here is an interesting article published in the Nation - an op ed piece originally from the Observer UK paper:


Fellow Muslims: renounce terror
When I was a member of what is best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror was Western foreign policy.


By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

I left the BJN in 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 7 bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslims across the world, what drove me and many of my peers was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this re-classification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: "Are you British or Muslim?" But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away. This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own.

Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to declare global war in the name of Islam.

But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and others who have left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day.

Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.

I believe the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our communities.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a re-fashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

Hassan Butt

The Observer


The solution to Islamic terrorism is not violence, suppression and repression - this never will work in the long run - the Russians have tried it and still have problems. The glimmer to a solution may be found here - the only way it can be stopped is to convince Muslims just how wrong the terrorism is from their perspective. It can only be done by their own, whether they have renounced terrorism or are moderates who can win the day and it is up to the rest of us to support those who are trying to promote the change to non-violence and reject terrorism.

[Groundhog]

Good article rxpharm, and it puts the emphasis where it should be, on the system behind the way the Qur'an is interpreted.

Because the 'truth' can be revealed to individuals in Islam, individuals can be make fringe beliefs very influential. Because there is de facto freedom for nearly any Muslim to issue fatwas or religious rulings and interpretations, there tends not to be as much central control over the radical factions as you have in Christianity and Judaism (where individuals are not allowed their own revelations ... they have to go to a priest or rabbi for interpretation...though both of the latter religions still have their violent factions).

Interestingly, the Mormon religion seems to have a similar problem (at least according to the book Under the Banner of Heaven) because of individual revelations ... Warren Jeffs cult being one of the prime examples.

There are a number of Imams who are trying impose central interpretations based on more modern approaches to study of the Qur'an and Haddith. This would certainly bring order to the Islamic world, and reduce violence, but they apparently are not getting very far with their programs right now.

Additionally, Islam seems to dominate in areas like Arabia and Africa that are inherently more tribal than, say, Europe, Asia and North America, so the potential for sectarian violence is IMO much higher.

But that doesn't mean that Muslims are inherently violent any more than saying Mormons are inherently violent terrorists. The violence we see in Islam comes from the way their religious system is implemented today. Also, like in Ireland for example, it is a reflection of class and wealth differences. That's important, because this system won't be fixed by threats and reciprocal violence. Rather by figuring out how the system works, and changing it.

I really feel that the Chinese leaders (who are mostly engineers) have a better feel for this fact of the 21st century -- systems need to be controlled and reengineered rather than declared war on -- than the lawyers and (failed) MBAs that run America's government.

Xinjiang is China's Muslim province, and had the potential to be a violent place. But the local police cracked down on any meetings, protests, and make sure they are around the mosques to keep on top of what is happening. The Muslims complain that the only options they have are to become part of the Chinese bureaucracy and system ... which in fact many of the younger Muslims in the area are doing.

We could have done this in Iraq if we had been willing to peacefully spend the money and lives that we currently are. But it was simpler to send in the military and let them worry about it rather than dealing with the complexities of actually managing Iraqi actions and expectations