The “Holy” Text and Terror – S. Gurumurthy

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“Wait
only for five minutes from now! Wait for the Mujahideen and
Fidayeen of Islam who will make you feel the terror of Jihad. And stop them if
you can. Feel the havoc cast into your hearts by Allah, the Almighty, face His
Dreadful Punishment, and suffer the results of fighting the Muslims and the
Mujahideen. Await the anguish, agony, sorrow and pain. Await, only for 5
minutes, to feel the fear of death.” Within minutes of this e-mail finding
its way into media computers, the Jihadi bombs in Ahmedabad blew to smithereens
over 50 persons. By the time terror hit Ahmedabad, such e-mails had become the
pattern. The mails came ahead of the blasts in Jaipur and Bengaluru earlier.
Also now in Delhi which was blasted on Sept 13. All in the name of Indian
Mujahideen. See how, in its Ahmedabad
mail, the jihadi outfit unveils its Islamic agenda against the Hindus – read India.

“O Hindus!….Haven’ t you still realised that the falsehood of your 33
crore mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb, mute and naked idols of
ram, krishna and hanuman are not going to save your necks, Insha-Alla, from
being slaughtered by our hands? Nor is your fictitious faith in monkeys, pigs
and nude statutes going to save you from the Wrath of Allah and His Humiliating
Punishment. Know that it is only the true confession of the Oneness of Allah
Alone, with no associates, that can save your blood from being spilled on the
streets of your own cities. We call you, O Hindus, O enemies of Allah, to take
an honest stance with yourselves lest another attack of Ibn-e-Qasim sends
shivers down your spines, lest another Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest
another Ghaznawi massacres you, proving your blood to be the cheapest of all
mankind! Have you forgotten your history full of subjugation, humiliation, and
insult? Or do you want us to repeat it again? Take heed before it is too
late!”

The IM goes further, quotes the most fundamental document, the Quran,
to validate its theological stand. “Yes! We – the terrorists of India –
THE INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN, – the militia of Islam whose each and every Mujahid belongs to
this very soil of India – have returned, to execute the compulsion of Allah:
“Fight them (the disbelievers) , Allah will punish them by your hands and
bring them to disgrace, and give you victory over them and He will heal the
hearts of those who believe.” (Qur’an 9:14). It goes on to quote: “Fight
those disbelievers who are near you and let them find harshness in you”. (Qur’an 9: 123).
“Go forth light armed or heavy armed and fight with your wealth and your
lives in the way of Allah”.[(Qu’ran 9: 41).

So the IM claim is simply this: we are doing what the Quran commands us to do
against the non-believers, namely those who do not believe in Islam. The
jihadis have openly challenged the pure Islamic theologians to deny that the
position it takes against the Hindus is not the position of pure Islam. No
Islamic theological school, not a single Mulla or Moulvi has shown the guts to
tell the jihadis that non-believers in Quran do not mean non-Muslims. The Islamist
scholars have kept deafening silence. The jihadis have thus effectively shut
the Islamists’ mouth by quotes from the holy Quran.

But what about the secularists? The terrorists are misguided youths, angered by
the Hindu outfits in Gujarat and elsewhere, they would counsel. The grievances
of the terrorists need to be addressed, they would pontificate, to dissuade
them from the wrong path. But what the seculars miss is that the jihadis claim,
on the basis of their faith, the right to kill ordinary Hindus. Do the seculars
have the guts to ask the Islamic scholars to come out and deny that the theological
position of Islam is not what the terrorists claim it to be? But, not
surprisingly, not a single secular media or editor, nor any political party or
leader would dare ask why the Islamic theologians are silent on the terrorists’
view of the holy book. What has their grievance against Hindu outfits or the
governments to do with their claim that Islam mandates them to attack
non-Muslims? The real issue is whether the Islamic faith mandates so. If the
jihadis are aggrieved then they can take to violence against the state.
Terrorism normally isolates the terrorists from the mainstream society. But
when the terrorists claim that they have been directed by their Holy Text to
kill people of other faiths and that view is not challenged by the mainstream scholars
or the secularists, then the terrorists cannot be isolated. This is what the
seculars seem to have preferred to miss out.

Thus neither have the mainstream Islamic scholars challenged the jihadi’s view
that their holy text authorizes them to kill the non-believers nor have the
secularists asked the mainstream Islamic scholars to deny the terrorists’
version of the Islamic faith. Emboldened the terrorists have now moved a step
further in the Delhi terror mail. While, in the Ahmedabad mail, the jihadis
have embarrassed the Islamic theologians by quoting the holy text, they have
embarrassed the seculars in the Delhi terror mail by relying on the seculars’
view to justify their terror against the Hindus. The secular enthusiasts had
carried on a relentless hate campaign against the BJP and Narendra Modi after
the Gujarat riots. Then had even trivialized the Godhra terror attack that had
roasted over 60 Ramsevaks, saying that it was an accident or that the victims
themselves had lit fire to the bogy, which enraged the Hindu outfits even more.
Later when acts of terror increased, the secular media even rationalized them
by citing the Gujrat riots as justification for terrorists’ anger. This secular
largesse did not assuage the extremists. Instead it has put the Islamist terror
on an escalator. Not surprisingly the jihadis have, in the Delhi email, used
the very logic of the secular media, and very photographs carried by it a
thousand times, to claim that they were taking revenge for the Gujarat carnage!

While the Jihadis see terror as a mandate of the holy book, the secular media
remains juvenile in its oration. It still cites Shabana Azmi’s inability to get
a fourth flat, in the building of her choice in the place of her choice as
illustrative of the failure of constitutional equity to minorities, and asks
how could there be peace with such injustice! But, no section is more badly
treated or discriminated than the untouchables
in India. If the seculars’ logic for jihadis’ violence is applied
to them, they can legitimately turn terrorists. But mere grievances cannot
produce that deadly hate. It is the jihadi theological claim, uncontested by
the Islamist clergy and the seculars, that makes terror a religious duty, and a
deadly one at that. Injustice, minus theology, cannot breed that deadly terror.
Unless the debate on terror transcends the trivia and gets to the root of the
terror – the theological motive for terror – the seculars will end up promoting
terror, not containing it. Will they introspect?

 

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