The following is an except from Wikipedia on Islamic Terrorism:
Islamist terrorism (also known as Islamic terrorism or Jihadist terrorism) is terrorism - an act of violence targeting non-combatants - done by a person or group identifiably Islamic, and/or to further the cause of Islamism as determined by the acts' perpetrators and supporters.
According to statistics gathered by the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States, Islamic extremism was responsible for approximately 57% of terrorist fatalities and 61% of woundings worldwide in 2004 and early 2005, where a terrorist perpetrator could be specified. [1] Extremist acts have included airline hijacking, beheading, kidnapping, assassination, roadside bombing, suicide bombing, and occasionally rape.[2][3]
One of the most notable Islamist terrorist campaigns was the 9/11 attack on the United States. Less prominent Islamist attacks have occurred in France, Russia and China. France was the focus of terrorism in the mid 1990s from the Algerian civil war. Russia faced terrorist attacks stemming from its involvement in Chechnya. In 1997 the Chinese government set up the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to combat radical Islamic movements in Central Asia.[4]
Islamist terrorist activity is usually referred to as jihad (struggle). Threats, including death threats, are often issued as fatwas, (Islamic legal judgments). Both Muslims and non-Muslims have been among the targets and victims. Threats against Muslims are often issued as takfir (a declaration that someone or some thing considered Muslim is in fact an unbeliever). This is an implicit death threat as the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death, under traditional interpretations of Sharia law.
The controversies surrounding the subject include: whether the motivation of the terrorists or alleged terrorists is self-defense or offensive expansion, national self-determination or Islamic supremacy; what targets of the terrorists or alleged terrorists are noncombatants; whether Islam condones, or sometime condones terrorism; whether some attacks are Islamist terrorism, or only terrorist acts done by Muslims; how much support there is in the Muslim world for what kinds of Islamic terrorism; whether the Arab-Israeli Conflict is the root of Islamic terrorism, or simply one cause.[5]
I concur with the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States, the link between current and ongoing terrorism in the world and Islam is real.
The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia for the definition of Jihad:
Jihad meaning "to strive" or "to struggle", in Arabic, is an Islamic term and a duty for Muslims. It appears frequently in the Quran and common usage as the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)".[1][2]
A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this Islamic duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.[3] In Twelver Shi'a Islam, however, Jihad is one of the 10 Practices of the Religion.
Jihad requires Muslims to "struggle in the way of God" or "to struggle to improve one's self and/or society."[3][4] Jihad is directed against the devil's inducements, aspects of one's own self, or against a visible enemy.[1][5] The four major categories of jihad that are recognized are Jihad against one's own self (self-perfection), Jihad of the tongue, Jihad of the hand, and Jihad of the sword.[5]
The term Jihad used without any qualifiers is generally understood to be referring to war on behalf of Islam.[5] Within Islamic jurisprudence Jihad is the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and may be declared against apostates, rebels, highway robbers, violent groups, unIslamic leaders or military exertion against non-Muslim combatants but there are other ways to perform jihad as well including civil disobedience.[6][7][5] In broader usage and interpretation, the term has accrued both violent and non-violent meanings. It can imply striving to live a moral and virtuous life, spreading and defending Islam as well as fighting injustice and oppression, among other things.[8] In the languages of non-Islamic cultures, the term is usually used to refer to Muslim 'Holy War' or any violent strife invoking Allah.
The primary aim of jihad is not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by force, but rather the expansion and defense of the Islamic state. In the classical manuals of Islamic jurisprudence, the rules associated with armed warfare are covered at great length.[7] Such rules include not killing women, children and non-combatants, as well as not damaging cultivated or residential areas.[9] More recently, modern Muslims have tried to re-interpret the Islamic sources, stressing that Jihad is essentially defensive warfare aimed at protecting Muslims and Islam.[7] Although some Islamic scholars have differered on the implementation of Jihad, there is consensus amongst them that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against persecution and oppression.[10]Some Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad regarded the inner struggle for faith a greater Jihad than even fighting [by force] in the way of God.[11]
Jihad has also been applied to offensive, aggressive warfare, as exemplified by early movements like the Kharijites and the contemporary Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization (which assassinated Anwar Al Sadat) as well as Jihad organizations in Lebanon, the Gulf states, and Indonesia.[3] When used to describe warfare between Islamic groups or individuals, such as Al-Qaeda's attacks on civilians in Iraq, perpetrators of violence often cite collaboration with non-Islamic powers as a justification.[12] The terrorist attacks like September 11, 2001 planned and executed by radical Islamic fundamentalists have not been sanctioned by more centrist groups of Muslims.[13]
Middle East Historian Bernard Lewis points out that some modern Muslims sources try to portray jihad in a spiritual and moral sense when addressing non-Muslims. Muslims tell people that they shouldn't try to define jihad by the actions of extremists, but at the balanced Muslims. For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded Muslim history, jihad was most commonly interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defense or advancement of Muslim power. In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islamic Peace (Dar al-Salam), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels. The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds—booty in this one, paradise in the next. For most of the recorded history of Islam, from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad onward, the word jihad was used in a primarily military sense. [14]
The word itself is recorded in English since 1869, in the Muslim sense, and has been used for any doctrinal crusade since c. 1880.
In Modern Standard Arabic, jihad is one of the correct terms for a struggle for any cause, violent or not, religious or secular (though كفاح kifāḥ is also used). For instance, Mahatma Gandhi's struggle for Indian independence would be called a "jihad" in Modern Standard Arabic (as well as many other dialects of Arabic) even though it was neither a struggle for Allah (despite religious support for it, the struggle was essentially nationalist and political) nor conducted violently; the same terminology could be applied for the fight for women's liberation.[15]
Jihad has often been misinterpreted as a 'holy war'. The main aim of Jihad is defensive rather than offensive. When Muslim populations are attacked on the basis of religion, Jihad becomes mandatory on the government of that particular state (and all Muslims) until all hostile forces are either eliminated or negotiated out of the occupied land. If the threat continues to persist, the Islamic State may have to eliminate the threat by any means necessary.
Classifications of Jihad by Muslims
Sunni view of Jihad
See also: Opinion of Islamic scholars on Jihad
Jihad has been classified either as al-jihād al-akbar (the greater jihad), the struggle against one's soul (nafs), or al-jihād al-asghar (the lesser jihad), the external, physical effort, often implying fighting.
Gibril Haddad has analyzed the basis for the belief that internal jihad is the "greater jihad", Jihad al-akbar. Haddad identifies the primary historical basis for this belief in a pair of similarly worded hadeeth, in which Muhammed is reported to have told warriors returning home that they had returned from the lesser jihad of struggle against non-Muslims to a greater jihad of struggle against lust. Although Haddad notes that the authenticity of both hadeeth is questionable, he nevertheless concludes that the underlying principle of superiority internal jihad does have a reliable basis in the Qur'an and other writings.[16][17]
On the other hand, the Hanbali scholar Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya did believe that "internal Jihad" is important[18] but he suggests those hadith as weak which consider "Jihad of the heart/soul" to be more important than "Jihad by the sword".[19]
Muslim scholars explained there are five kinds of jihad fi sabilillah (struggle in the cause of God):[20]
• Jihad of the heart/soul (jihad bin nafs/qalb) is an inner struggle of good against evil in the mind, through concepts such as tawhid.
• Jihad by the tongue (jihad bil lisan) is a struggle of good against evil waged by writing and speech, such as in the form of dawah (proselytizing), Khutbas (sermons), etc.
• Jihad by the pen and knowledge (jihad bil qalam/lim) is a struggle for good against evil through scholarly study of Islam, ijtihad (legal reasoning), and through sciences.
• Jihad by the hand (jihad bil yad) refers to a struggle of good against evil waged by actions or with one's wealth, such as going on the Hajj pilgrimage (seen as the best jihad for women), taking care of elderly parents, or political activity for furthering the cause of Islam.
• Jihad by the sword (jihad bis saif) refers to qital fi sabilillah (armed fighting in the way of God, or holy war), the most common usage by Salafi Muslims and offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Some contemporary Islamists have succeeded in replacing the greater jihad, the fight against desires, with the lesser jihad, the holy war to establish, defend and extend the Islamic state.[21]
The following link is to an article in Time magazine about what motivates suicide bombers with interviews with 5 Muslim scholars. Two of the scholars casually refer to the view that those who die in Jihad go straight to Paradise as a given:
Voices of Islam - TIME
Fatwas (a considered opinion in Islam made by a mufti, a scholar capable of issuing judgments on Sharia (Islamic law) are being decreed which fuel the terrorism:
Online NewsHour: Al Qaeda's 1998 Fatwa
and by Usama Bin Laden himself:
World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
There was a fatwa issued in 2005 which condemns violence in the name of Jihad:
NPR : U.S. Muslim Scholars Issue Edict Against Terrorism
The problem is that individual (fundamentalist) Mufti’s have issued fatwa’s that are followed in the name of Islam (and Jihad.)
Just as some Christians pray to the saints and some don’t, there is variety within Islam also regarding religious beliefs. What I have stated is correct for many who practice a fundamentalist form of Islam. I am not ignorant, nor am I uninformed on the subject. If being wary and cautious makes others think I am hateful, then so be it.
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