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.
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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