Terrorist attacks vs. Islam

Are terrorist attacks allowed in Islam?

• Islam does not permit killing an innocent person, even in the heat of battle on a battlefield.
• All human life is sacred, regardless of race, religion, gender and age. 
• God decreed, following the killing of Abel by Cain, that to take a life is as if one has killed all mankind, and to save a life is as if one has saved all mankind (Quran 5:32)
• Only during war, or as punishment for heinous crimes, may a human life be taken.
• Killing an innocent person, even in battle, Muslim or non-Muslim, is a crime.

How do terrorists justify attacks?

Some people calling themselves Muslims have come up with justifications for terrorist attacks:

• By incompetent, politically motivated  persons deliberately misinterpreting and taking verses of the Quran out of context, contrary to the interpretation of all the recognized scholars through history.  Islam does not permit killing of innocents, even in battle on a battlefield.  This ignorant and delibrate misinterpretation is in some ways similar to the White Christian Supremacist groups using verses of the Bible to support their racist views, in attacking Jewish children at a day care center in Los Angeles, or the misinterpretation of the Torah by the Jewish extremist who shot and killed Muslim worshippers in Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem .  Even militia groups in the US have their own twisted interpretation of the Constitution, as did Timothy McVeigh, who thought his interpretation justified attacking the federal government, leading to the Oklahoma City bombing which killed many innocents.  The only other people who agree with these misinterpretations of the Quran are the anti-Islam Christian groups who try to present these as the "real" Islam to scare Christians, and as justification for violence against Muslims.
• By using the killing of innocent Muslim women and children by their non-Muslim enemy as justification for doing the same to the innocents of the enemy.  This is not supported by Islamic law, and what they do is contrary to Islamic law, it is never permitted, even in a battle, to kill an innocent non-combatant.
• By following the example of non-Muslims, who think nothing of dropping bombs or firing missiles at enemy targets who are in the midst of civilians, calling the death of many innocents “collateral damage”.   "Collateral damage" is not permitted by Islam.
• By following the example of non-Muslims who regard the civilians of the enemy to be legitimate targets, and deliberately bombed women and children, justifying it as a means of war, as happened in World War II (Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima etc.).  In Islam, even in war, innocents may never be deliberately targeted, nor weapons like bombs or missiles used in situations where their indiscriminate destruction would kill innocents also.

What reasons?

• The purpose of the terrorists is definitely not to spread Islam.  Islam does not need terrorism, it has the power of truth.
• The terrorists are driven by a desire for revenge, hate and anger at the corruption and oppression in Muslim countries.
• The terrorists are against the West because it supports regimes in Muslim countries that are corrupt and oppressive, in their view.
• The terrorists do not really care about what goes on in the West, do not care about democracy or freedom or religion in the West.  The only thing they seemed to care about was that the West supports oppressive regimes.
• The invasion and occupation of Muslim countries has become another new grievance for terrorists.

Resistance to occupation or terrorism?

• It is permitted for a nation to resist and fight back against occupation of its land and enslavement of its people.
• The French Resistance, helped by the Allies, including the US, were considered heroes for fighting against the occupation of France by Nazi Germany, while the Vichy French were reviled as traitors for cooperating with the occupiers.
• The occupying Nazi Germans committed atrocities against French civilians, especially in retaliation for attacks on the military by the French Resistance.
• The French after WW II themselves committed terrible atrocities against the Algerians in trying to keep Algeria a colony by force, when they were themselves occupiers.
• While it is accepted that a nation may fight any occupiers of its territory, fighting does not allow attacks on innocent civilians by either the resistance or the occupiers.
• A resistance against occupation by foreign forces can not be termed terrorism under what limited international law applies, provided it does not target innocent civilians.

The other terrorists

• The other type of terrorists are those who commit similar or worse acts of terrorism while wearing a military uniform.
• The military of some countries, like Russia and Serbia, have perpetrated terrible atrocities on Muslims in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.
•  In Afghanistan, the Russians bombed whole villages, killing everyone.  In Chechnya men and boys are shot on sight.  In Serbia, children were decapitated, women raped, men massacred.
• In India, the police and army colluded with Hindu extremists to kill, burn to death, hack and rape thousands of Muslims, men, women, children and babies, in Gujarat.
• In Iraq, Saddam Hussein used poison gas on Kurdish women and children.
• These are no less acts of terrorism, perpetrated by people wearing uniforms, and armed with tanks and planes.   The wearing of uniforms does not reduce the criminality and the atrocity of their actions.
• More innocent men and boys were killed in cold blood in one day by the Russian-supported Serbs in Srebrenica  in 1995, than died in the Twin Towers.  Yet there was not even a squeak of protest against the massacre from anywhere in the West.
• There is a double standard in the West, of not only condoning uniformed terrorism, but declaring the terrorists like Russia to be allies, when they are amongst the worst terrorists in uniform, and have been perpetrating atrocities for decades.  However, targeting of innocent Russian women and children by Chechen terrorists is a criminal, barbaric and un-Islamic act.

Suicide bombing

• Islam forbids suicide and forbids the targeting of innocents.
• The persons committing suicide bombing are ignorant of Islam, are easily brainwashed by unscrupulous ignorant persons, typically have psychological problems that contribute to suicidal tendencies, have a sense of having being wronged directly or indirectly, and have a desire for revenge.
• Suicide attacks are not uncommon in the US, and some of the reasons are similar.  Going “postal”, is coined from postal workers who felt wronged in some way, killing fellow workers and then themselves, and it still happens, though not necessarily limited to postal workers anymore.
• The Columbine tragedy grew out of a sense of ongoing persecution, which the killers thought would stop only if they killed the persecutors and themselves.   Americans could understand better the mentality of the suicide bombers if they understood the mentality of the Columbine killers and the circumstances that led them to become suicidal killers.
• In the US, Islam seems to attract some mentally and emotionally unstable people, mostly ignorant of the teachings of Islam, for whom becoming a Muslim in name is an act of rebellion against society.  These are not motivated by the love of God and the fear of God.  The Washington DC sniper is an example of a mentally unbalanced person becoming a Muslim in name and going on to commit crazy criminal acts.  These are not people to judge Islam and Muslims by.

Why don’t Muslims condemn such attacks?

• Muslims unequivocally condemn terrorist attacks.
• Muslim countries themselves have been victims of terrorist attacks.  During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, the Russian-backed government sent terrorists to bomb cities in Pakistan, attacking railway stations, bus stations, killing many people.  There are still terrorist attacks going on in Muslim countries.
• Attacks on innocents are barbaric, uncivilized and contrary to Islam.
• After the attack on September 11, 2001, every single significant Muslim scholar and political leader expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, and condemned the attack.
• Americans have the perception that Muslim did not and do not speak out against terrorism.  This is partly because of the sensationalist style of the American media.  If thousands of top Muslim leaders condemn terrorism, it is not news and does not get reported, but if one crazy person in a cave makes wild statements, that is what the media reports, so the American public is left with an unbalanced view of Islam and Muslims.

Why Muslims don't stop terrorists?

• Terrorists do not publicly identify themselves, even unknown in communities where they lived.  Terrorist cells work secretly and are difficult to identify. 
• In the United States, with large police forces, law enforcement technology, the "War on Drugs" has gone on for years without being won, without even reducing the volume of drug traffic and associated crime, partly because of the drug habits of large numbers of Americans.
• The fight against terrorism can be more successful than the "War on Drugs", but it is not just force that is required to stop terrorists, the wrong thinking and misunderstanding about Islam by some extremists also needs to be countered.
• The oppressive conditions in Muslim countries and actions that invite extremist reactions need to addressed.
• One of the targets of terrorists are moderate Muslims, because they oppose terrorists and condemn acts of terrorism.
• If Muslims became aware of plans for terrorist attacks, it would be their duty to stop such evil.  No true Muslim would allow innocents to be harmed.
• Muslims have the responsibility of educating other Muslims about the evil of terrorism, and about the false reasoning and misinformation used by leaders of the terrorists, so the ignorant and gullible do not get recruited.  This is like Christians educating other Christians so that they do not get involved in the KKK and other White Christian Supremacist groups who attack Jews and blacks.
• Muslims and non-Muslims have the responsibility of denouncing all acts of terrorism, whether perpetrated by terrorist groups or by uniformed military forces, and taking action against both types of terrorism, since one type of terrorism breeds the other type of terrorism.
• Non-Muslims have the responsibility of supporting moderate Muslims, and not demonizing Islam and the Muslims.  Wild misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Islam, jihad and war by Christian extremists serve only to strengthen the terrorists against moderate Muslims.