ISIS: How Islamic State Is The Most “Un-Islamic”
By Nazia Nazar
21 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Islam proclaims that killing one human being (unjustly) is equal to killing the whole humanity (Qur’an, 5:32). In this perspective, the recent Paris terror attacks as well as all other incidents of terrorism which cause the death of innocent people should actually be considered as the attacks on the whole humanity. Notwithstanding, the terror incident in Paris has once again triggered the old debate to what extent Islam should be blamed for the barbaric acts committed by the ISIS,which is known as Islamic state of Iraq and Syria but actually it deserves to be called as “Inhuman state” for its barbaric activities all over the world. The people who prone to blame Islam and Muslims for this recent terror episode should not be oblivious of the fact that the ISIS had committed the same kind of atrocity in Beirut resulting in the killing of scores of Muslims a day before the terror attacks rocked Paris recently.
The figures show that the ISIS has perpetrated atrocities against the Muslim world more than it caused death and destruction in the west. According to a report by the United Nations, the ISIS was responsible for 9,347 civilian deaths only in Iraq in 2014. It seems ridiculous that the ISIS is ambitious to create an Islamic state, hence, its members are feeding on the blood of Muslims. The question arises that if the ISIS uphold the true Islamic ideology, why do they kill Muslims at all? Do they tend to create an ‘Islamic state without Muslims’? Same goes with the Al-Qaeda which has killed a large number of Muslims in its wild pursuit of the west and the ‘infidels’. According to a report published by Spiegel, “Between 2004 and 2008, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West -- in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 -- only 12 percent of those killed were Westerners.” Here arises a simple question: if terrorism is synonymous with Islam, why are the Muslims the largest victims?
The need is to understand that the Muslims constitute the second largest religious group in the world. If Islam teaches terrorism, every 6th person in this world should be a terrorist. Be honest and ask yourself, how terrified is it to hang out with Muslims in your daily life? The terror groups which hardly constitute 1% of total Muslim population can not be the representative of Islam and Muslims by any scientific definition.
Islam has set some ethics of war by prescribing: never fight against non-combatants, women, children and elderly people; and never destroy properties unnecessarily. Not a single instance could be quoted from reliable sources of history about the violation of any of the above terms in the era of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). How can the ISIS supporters justify their barbarity, inhumanity, rape and slaughtering in the light of the above teachings?
The fact of the matter is that the ISIS is the composition of criminal elements and newly converted Muslims who have scant or no knowledge of Islam at all. This fact is corroborated by recently revealed news story in media about the extremely ‘libral’ lifestyle of the female suicide bomber Hasna Ali Boulahcen who was involved in Paris attacks. According to her brother, as revealed in news reports, Hasna was a ‘party girl’, ‘heavy drunker’ who hanged out with drug dealers. She started wearing hijab (covering head) a month ago and was “never interested in studying her religion.” Same goes with many other members of ISIS, who proclaim themselves as true Muslims while living an un-Islamic lifestyle. The mockery is that those characterless figures of ISIS claim to be the Caliph of Muslims, which is considered a pious position in Islam. They are perhaps not aware of the fact that Shura (consultation) and Bay`ah (pledge of allegiance by the Muslims) are the two most important principles of appointing a Caliph for the Muslims in Islam. On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that a large majority of Muslims and Islamic scholars all over the world have categorically denounced the ISIS and its leader as Caliph, which makes no room for this terror group to proclaim its Islamic identity. It had also happened in early Islamic era when the deadliest enemies of Islam were in disguise of Muslims (called hypocrites).
Islam ordains strict punishment for those who create chaos and disorder on earth. Since the ISIS terrorists are causing death and destruction around the world, they deserve strict punishment according to true Islamic teachings. Muslims scholars from Al-Azhar Cairo have already called for the extermination of ISIS terrorists as a religious obligation.
It is quite easy to blame a religious ideology for the ongoing phenomenon of terrorism. However, it is also pertinent to investigate as to who provides funding and support to these terror organizations worldwide? How do such tiny groups resort to large-scale violence amid strong surveillance system of mighty intelligence agencies around the world?
The truth is that the ISIS had emerged in the wake of the middle eastern conflicts and associate itself with Al-Qaeda. It is no more a hidden fact that the Al-Qaeda was trained and funded by the CIA to fight a proxy war to expel the Soviet army from Afghanistan in 1979s. It is no more a hidden fact that an USAID project had designed special textbooks to promote distorted Jihadi ideology in 1980s. Those books were distributed at Afghan refugee camps and in the Pakistani madrassas, which eventually strengthened the terrorist network in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States set forth its expansionist agenda in Afhanistan, Iraq and other middle eastern countries. No other incident except 9/11 could provide a better pretext for the US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, Afghanistan was destroyed for hunting down Osama Bin Laden, who was finally killed in Pakistan in such a secret way that nobody could ever saw his dead body. Iraq was punished for allegedly having the weapons of mass destructions, which later proved to be a blatant lie. When it became so boring to blame Al-Qaeda for each and every atrocity, it was gradually replaced with ISIS, which emerged prominently in the wake of the Syrian crisis as a well-equipped and “rishest terror organization in the world.” This is not a fabricated story but the renown world analysts have explicitly criticized the US expansionist policies and the western agenda for causing turbulence in the Muslim world creating a vacuum for the terror groups to flourish.
History repeats itself, especially in the history of the United States, which is making the same game it had played in Afghanistan in 1970s. The ISIS is being used by the US to fight the proxy war against the Asad regime in Syria. In a media report General Thomas McInerney, who had served in top US military positions, had confessed that the US “helped build ISIS” when the terror group was successful in getting weapons in the wake of terror attacks at Benghazi consulate in Libya in 2012. The same media report revealed that some members of ISIS were “trained by the United States at a secret base in Jordan in 2012.” In this political game, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey also acted as the US allies and strengthened ISIS network.
A Pakistani commander of ISIS, Yousaf al Salafi, had already confessed of getting funding from the US. Recently, Seumas Milne, cited a report in The Guardian which revealed that the British intelligence had also cooperated with the CIA to provide arms to the rebel group in Syria. A couple of days ago, the Russian president Putin stated that fourty countries including G20 had been involved in financing ISIS. Putin’s recent statement seems to corroborate what the Canadian economist and University of Ottawa Professor Emeritus of Economics Dr. Michel Chossudovsky had uttered in the following words:
“A criminal undertaking at a global level … and there is an ongoing war … The global war on terrorism … which is fake…. It tells us that somehow America and the Western world are going after a fictitious enemy, the Islamic state, when in fact the Islamic state is fully supported and financed by the Western military alliance … They say Muslims are terrorists, but it just so happens that terrorists are made in America. . . . The global war on terrorism is a fabrication, a big lie and a crime against humanity.”
Nazia Nazar is pursuing her PhD in Social Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected]