The Doctrine of Terrorism

Two of the most horrendous incidents of terrorism in recent history are reported by Wikipedia as follows:

Lahore Gulshan-e-Iqbal bombing:

On 27 March 2016, a bomb blast occurred in the parking area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, just outside the exit gate and a few feet away from children's swings, killing at least 72 and injuring over 300 people.^[1] Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed responsibility^[2] for the attack.

2014 Peshawar school massacre:

On 16 December 2014, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The militants, all of whom were foreign nationals, included one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans. They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children,^[8][6] killing 141 people, including 132 schoolchildren, ranging between eight and eighteen years of age.

More widely publicized and mourned incidents of terrorism in the Western World are the terrorist attacks in New York, London, Paris, Mumbai, Brussels etc.

Suicide bombers are literally manufactured. Young boys are bought from orphanages attached with seminaries and bred as zombies until they can be used for the despicable purpose.

Terrorism literally means a philosophy or doctrine of carrying out violent acts that cause extreme fear and shock and temporarily paralyze affected people both physically and mentally. Although in most civilized communities the idea is despised and termed as sadism, it is still an option for the military.

In ancient times, armies that held siege of a fortification used lobbing of fire balls across the walls to force the inmates to open the gates and surrender. The wicked technique reached its pinnacle when the Americans dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and succeeded in making the Japanese surrender in a state of shock and horror.

The widely stated and understood motive of the terrorist activities are the lust of power by various breakaway warlords in the Muslim world with illiterate following and an extremely distorted concept of Islamic injunctions. The seem to think that by carrying out their ghastly terror attacks they can terrorize and persuade their target to capitulate and join them. Obviously they are living in a fool’s paradise.

Rise of Islamic empire. The Islamic Caliphate of Madinah spread like wild fire because it had much to offer such as social equality, impartial justice, clean and healthy way of life, fair and regulated trade, State care for the handicapped, educational facilities and encouragement of research. It also had the advantage of superior weaponry in the form of sabers made of Damascus steel.

The present day self styled caliphs such as Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and the successor of Mullah Omar have nothing new to offer to the world, instead they promise a rustic and chaotic government as demonstrated in Afghanistan. Their weaponry is mostly secondhand except in cases where they are used by one major military power against another.

Dissolution of Ottoman Empire: The caliphate preserved the national identities of the people such as Hijazi, Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, Turk, Indian etc. and the state capital kept shifting according to the power and influence of the constituent nationalities. The Ottoman empire was weakened to such an extent and so many of its constituents had ditched it that at the end of WWII it became unsustainable.

Pan-Islamism: After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which represented the last Caliphate following WWI, a Pan- Islamic movement started in the Muslim world which intended to ignore geographical boundaries and recognize the entire Muslim population of the world as one nation. It was a purely intellectual movement and had no violent intentions. Yet in some countries such as Egypt and Turkey (that had once led the Caliphate) it was outlawed and its members persecuted until they turned violent.

The atrocities on the Muslim populations of Palestine and Kashmir created widespread resentment in the Muslim world and sympathy and support for militant organizations aspiring to protect and augment the freedom movements in the above and other parts of the world grew.

Re-emergence of the Caliphate concept:  In the 1970s the idea of the reestablishment of the Islamic Caliphate started getting discussed with emphasis on Islamic system of justice and unifying the military power of the Islamic states. The OIC was formed and a number of leaders in the Muslim world started dreaming of occupying the coveted position. The reasons could be more than one.

Israeli Inspiration: The establishment of the Israeli state soon after WWII and its phenomenal success convinced many secular Muslims that Islamic Renaissance could be achieved by forming a global theocratic Islamic Caliphate.

Prophecies of Nostradamus: There was much publicity of the prophecies contained in various quatrains of Nostradamus which were interpreted by Christian scholars of the subject as indicating wars between Muslims and Christians that would result in the destruction of Christian power and domination of Muslims. Whereas Muslim adventurers were ecstatic, Christian zealots started working to divide and weaken the Muslim world to avoid the predicted disaster.

Baba Vanga: The prophecies of the Bulgarian Nostradamus received publicity and created particular sensation as it gave exact dates for the things to come.

The old woman said:

"great Islamic war" would begin in Syria culminating in complete control of Rome, in 2043."

This gave the various Muslim adventurers an impetus to lay the foundations of the caliphate and a race started among the likes of Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi to achieve a defined target.  Their lack of knowledge of the world and blind zeal has been exploited by numerous powers of the world to achieve their own vested interests including destabilizing their Muslim adversaries.

It seems that the present woes of the world originate from follies of the superstitious in the Western world.

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Charlie Hebdo and I

“Charlie Hebdo first appeared in 1970 as a successor to the Hara-Kiri magazine, which was banned for mocking the death of former French President Charles de Gaulle.^[10] In 1981 publication ceased, but the magazine was resurrected in 1992.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo)

The planned act of violence of January 7, 2015 in which 12 people including 9 Charlie Hebdo staff members, one guest and two policemen were gunned down in Paris by two armed assailants was indeed a ghastly crime. It shook the world and some 40 heads of state flew into Paris to condole the incident.  But compared with the carnages that occur frequently in Peshawar and Karachi at the hands of religious fanatics of the same genre. it was a walk in the park. The December, 2014 terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar in which over 130 pupils and teachers were gunned down in cold blood did not seem to cause any stir in the world.

Prophet Muhammad was born in 570 CE in Makkah and Islam started when he was 40 lunar years old or about 609 CE. In the last 1406 years there has not been a single incident in which a Muslim has abused or ridiculed the Bible or the Torah or Jesus or Moses. Their names are taken with respect by all Muslims. In fact Muslims even treat Budha, Confucious and the Hindu avatars with a degree of deference. However the response of the followers of other religions has been disappointing to say the least. There is a whole history behind it.

The ridicule of Prophet Muhammad was started by the Christians, Jews and pagans of Makkah as soon as his message became known. The European compilers of the Bible didn’t shrink from putting in snide remarks about Ismail son of Abraham who is claimed by the Arabs of Makkah to be their forefather. In recent times such western intellectuals as Voltaire and Dante have exceeded all limits of decency in their criticism of Islam and Prophet Muhammad. The illustrations contained in Dante’s Inferno are simply outrageous from any standards.

It seems that Western civilization and decency have become conditioned to such vulgarities against Islam. How come that in a society where people get jailed for denying the Holocaust, mocking the king or queen or the death of a president are not questioned about their activities that clearly incite hatred on the basis of religion and race?

We accept that there is small number of people in the Muslim world who are intellectually locked in the 7^th Century and want to change the world to resemble the state of affairs of that time and efforts are being made to contain the effects of their errant thinking. The question is: are there similar people in the Western world who are intellectually locked in the “middle ages”?  If so, are they a small minority or an overwhelming majority?

The following picture shared on facebook seems to be a fair representation of the popular following of the leaders who assembled in Paris to demonstrate solidarity with vulgarity.