Title: Not all Muslims are Terrorists

Arturo Paulino

G10163923

World Religions from a Christian Perspective

6/2011

Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Muslims and Media ………………………………………………………………….….. 4

Islam, One Size Fits All? ……………………………………………………………….. 5

Are All Muslims Terrorists? ………………………………………………………….. 6

Jihad, More than War ……………………………………………………………………. 7

Inter-Religious Dialogue: Understandings and Challenges ……………. 10

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………….. 12

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………….. 14

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Introduction

On October 14, 2010 Fox News Channel personality and co-host of Fox &

Friends, Brian Kilmeade shared this infamous quote on The View regarding the

perpetrators of the assault of the Pentagon and World Trade Center. He said, “They

were outraged that someone was saying that there was a reason there was a certain

group of people that attacked us on 9/11. It wasn’t just one person, it was one

religion. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”1

This last sentence, “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are

Muslims” my personal perception of the followers of Allah. Not only that but, it

seems as if every other news channel fuels this notion through their constant

feeding of Muslim violence around the world.

The thesis I have chosen to develop in this paper is to prove that, although it

is not surprising for westerners to link violence with Islamism, the truth is that the

followers of Allah do not consist of one monolithic block of people, but rather a well

politically, racially and theologically diverse community. Therefore, violence is not a

synonym of Islamism and, even though it seems to currently be largely associated

with Muslims, it is a presumption to deem every follower of Allah as a terrorist or a

potential terrorist.

In order to prove this thesis I will first need to present the current state of

Muslims in the media. Then the next step will be to debunk the myth that Islam is

1 http://thinkprogress.org/media/2010/10/15/124417/kilmeade-muslim-terrorists/

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one religion in which all its members behave and believe the same rule. The idea

behind expanding this second point is to disassociate the notion that the actions of

one individual do not necessarily represent the beliefs of the entire community. The

third step will be to expose the variety within the Muslim community in order to

counteract the notion that all-Muslims-are-the-same.

One cannot write a document on Islam and violence without touching on the

concept of Jihad. With that in mind I will present the broadness of this concept and

its different applications. The final section will be dedicated to place this paper

within the larger context of inter-religious dialogue.

Muslims and Media

Growing up in the Dominican Republic I had very little exposure to Middle

Eastern culture and beliefs. I had learned through my middle school years that the

Arabs have made important contributions to commerce, mathematics and algebra.

Media, on the other hand, helped me shape the idea that Muslims were barbaric,

nomadic, mischievous, abusive, intolerant, mercurial, magical and aggressive.

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, director of Media Relations for American Arab Anti-

Discrimination, wrote in his article titled 100 Years of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim

stereotyping, “Hollywood has had a consistent record of Arab stereotyping and

bashing. Some in the Arab American community call this the three B syndrome:

Arabs in TV and movies are portrayed as either bombers, belly dancers, or

billionaires2. “

2 http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/anti_arab.html

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On September 11, 2001 I was surfing the Internet and stumbled across the

attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon streamed live videos. In an instant

the prowess of this people group in mathematical grounds (not one of my favorite

subjects to start with), the Hollywood pictures engraved in my mind mixed with

these new criminal images of aggression, terror and subversion and subsequently

cemented my association between Arab = Islam = Muslim = terrorist.

On August, 2010 TIME Magazine ran a cover titled “Is America

Islamophobic”. One the main stories presented in this issue was “Does America

Have a Muslim Problem”. This article describes the reactions Americans had

regarding the building of a Mosque in close proximity to ground zero. Some of the

protesters carried signs saying such things as, All I Need to Know About Islam, I

Learned on 9/11."3

Islam, one size fits all?

In spite of how generalized the media presents the Arabs, the reality is that

not every Muslim is Arabic, not every Muslim is religious, and not every committed

Muslim has the same beliefs. In other words, not everyone with a turban is headed

to commit a terrorist act.

For example, there are several million Muslims in India and China. Also, as

Bruno Etienne points out, “Not all Muslims are practicing, or pious, or bigoted; some

of them are secularists, even atheists.”

3 http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2011798,00.html

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As far as a monolithic theology, most Muslims do follow the five pillars of

Islam. These are the Shahada (affirmation of faith), Salat (prayers), Sawn (fasting

during Ramadan), Zakat (charity), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). That is as much

as a tying band as you can get within Islam.

For as much unity is found in these five pillars, there is also a whole other

side of disunity. As George Braswell wrote, “Sectarianism developed based on

various theological interpretations of the Quran and the hadith, on political realities,

and on cultural syncretism.” (Braswell, Kindle Loc. Cit 1542). From there you then

have different groups/movements such as Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis, Wahabbi, Black

Muslims, etc. and different other divisions within those groups.

Are all Muslims Terrorists?

In this paper’s introduction, I opened with Brian Kilmeade’s quote, “Not all

Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” The truth is that, in my

opinion, most people do directly link terrorism with Muslims.

In either case, this statement by Kilmeade does not hold water. First of all,

not all terrorists are Muslims. Coming from Latin America I can testify the Fuerzas

Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) have no traces of Islamism within

their structure. The same is true for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain. But

more interestingly, in the business of terrorism and martyrdom, there is an older,

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and deemed by many as more efficient, organization called the Black Tigers in Sri

Lanka.4

Furthermore, the 2004 declaration titled “Amam’s Message” which was

adopted unanimously at the Islamic Conference in Mecca, said on page 3, “On

religious and moral grounds, we denounce the contemporary concept of terrorism

that is associated with wrongful practices, whatever their source and form may be.

Such acts are represented by aggression against human life in an oppressive form

that transgresses the rulings of God, frightening those who are secure, violating

peaceful civilians, finishing off the wounded, and killing prisoners; and they employ

unethical means, such as destroying buildings and ransacking cities: Do not kill the

soul that God has made sacrosanct, save for justice.” (6:151)

Jihad, More than War

Another word closely associated with Muslims and terrorism is Jihad.

According to Clinton Bennett and Geros Kunkel, the term Jihad means, “To strive or

to exert ones efforts.”

Throughout history there has been different applications of this word Jihad,

but it was not until the Middle Ages in which this concept expanded to encompass

The Greater Jihad (Akbar) and The Lesser Jihad (Asghar). The Greater Jihad was the

struggle to conquer evil and wrong doings within oneself. The Lesser Jihad was the

use of force in order to defend Islam. (ibid) This goes to show that within Islam

4 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/magazine/28TERRORIST.html?pagewanted=all

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thinkers, there is not a solid position aligning Jihad with terrorism against non-

Muslims.

For examples there are verses in the Qur’an promoting peace and the use of

the sword mainly as a self-defense recourse:

“Invite all to the way of the Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and argue with

them in ways that are best and most gracious.” 16:125

“Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel evil with what is better and those who

were your enemy will be as our friends.” (41:34)

“Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but do not provoke hostility – God does

not love aggressors.” (2:190)

“And if they incline to make peace, incline thou to it.” (8:63)

When it comes down to religious radicalism I believe there is a strong connection

between the abuses of the Jihad concept towards biased propaganda. Richard

Bulliet, a Middle East historian at New York’s Columbia University, has pointed out

that there has been an increase of unofficial/amateur religious literature in the last

hundred and fifty years. On this Bulliet writes, “Today’s Islamic political culture

draws its mobilizing force from the unintended consequences of three

developments in the last century and a half: the marginalization of the Ulama

(religious scholars) by ‘modernizing’ states, the nineteenth-century print revolution,

and mass education that followed in the wake of nationalist governments after

World War II.”5

5 Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 87-90

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The best way to think of Ulama is to compare them to a group of erudite,

scribes, and lawyers. In an atmosphere in which official religious guidance was

scarce, political/military tensions were increasing (Afghanistan/Soviet Union), and

an economic disparity widening, it cannot be too surprising to see extremist,

heretical, and religious authorities gathering popular support. On the same note

Bulliet adds, “The Muslim public at large, both male and female, increasingly learned

about their religion from a torrent of books, magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets

written in large part by people who lacked the credentials to be classified as

Ulama.”6

Touching on the military aspect, once the international conflict has ceased,

those involved often took their arms, mixed their new objectives with inflated

Islamism, and carried on their plans in the name of Allah. One example of this is

after the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan, the Afghani mujahedins found

themselves eager to find new jihads against oppressive, secular rulers of Muslim-

majority states.7

Inter-Religious Dialogue (two open Q&A)

This paper is only a drop in a deep bucket of understandings and

misunderstandings between Islamism and the rest of the world, especially the West.

6 Ibid.7 Vinoth Ramachanra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World. 2008. Inter-Varsity Press. Downers Growve, IL Kindle, Loc. Cit 237

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In light of this reality I believe it will be helpful to present two open questions

concerning the material expressed in this paper.

1. If Islam is not a terrorist religion, why don’t they come right out and

denounce it?

There are two problems with this question. The first problem is defining

who “they” are. The simple answer is Muslims. The real answer is that there

is not such as thing as a monolithic, pecking order structured Muslim

worldwide organization with global authority upon all its members. Islam

does not have an equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope.

Therefore, there is no one entity to hold accountable for

endorsements/explanations for all the actions Muslims take around the

planet.

The other problem with this question is that it oversights the attempts

the Muslim community has taken in order to distance itself from criminal

terrorist acts (such as the Amam Message).

2. If Islam is as benevolent and open as you present them on this paper, why

don’t they allow their members to freely choose their religion?

This is a hot topic among Muslims. On one hand Islam prides itself as a

religion of freedom with verses such as “There is no compulsion in religion”

(al-Baqarah, 256), and at the same time there are Muslim-governed nations

who ostracize and punish those who dare to leave Islam. This practice is

punishable by death in countries such as Afghanistan, Comoros, Iran,

Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. It is also illegal to

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leave the Islamic religion in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman

and Qatar.8

As much as I would like to justify this practice, I simply cannot

conciliate capital punishment with freedom of religion. There are those

within the Islamic thought who disagree with this punishment. Within this

line of thought there is Gamal al-Banna, an Islamic thinker and brother of the

founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In an interview published on

March 27, 2006 by BBC News he was quoted, “Each and every individual has

the right to change his religion without any conditions whatsoever”9 The

interview finishes this story saying that Gamal-al-Banna is unfortunately the

minority on this subject.

Conclusion and Application

Going back to the title of this paper, I think this conclusion begs the question,

‘What does this paper represent in the economy of inter-religious dialogue and

8 Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed. "When Muslims convert." Commentary 119, no. 2 (February 1, 2005): 66-68. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed June 9, 2011). 9 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4850080.stm

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peace?’ After studying the influence of media, some aspects of terrorism and jihad,

my goal is to communicate at least one thing: Islam is not a unified terrorist one-

size-fits-all global organization.

In the same way Christians should not be labeled as abortion clinic bombers,

or delusional end-of-the-world tellers, which portray the actions of a few, likewise

Muslims should not pay the global consequences of the local actions of a few

extremist heretics.

Once that is cleared, I believe we (the non-Muslim population) can approach

Muslims with a clean slate and the benefit of the doubt. More than advancing inter-

religious dialogue and world peace, the proper understanding of terrorism and

Islam sets the stage for conversations to take place.

On a personal note this paper has exposed my own bias against the Muslim

population, and has allowed me to take a deeper look into the differences and

complexities within the dar-al-Islam itself. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said,

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious

stupidity.”10 The fact that we live in a globalized world with public and quick access

to media outlets, challenges us to look beyond the mere appearance of actions and

stereotypes by making informed decisions and taking intelligent postures in regards

to religions and their members around the world.

10 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth101536.html#ixzz1OneEe61A

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Bibliography

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freedom." BBC News - Home.

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2011).

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Amman Message. ammanmessage.com/index.php?

option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=30 (accessed June 8, 2011).

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Tenn.: Broadman & Holman, 1996.

4. Bulliet, Richard W.. "What Went On?." In The case for Islamo-Christian

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June 9, 2011).

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(February 1, 2005): 66-68. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials,

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EBSCOhost (accessed June 9, 2011).

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9. LELYVELD, JOSEPH. "In the Magazine - All Suicide Bombers Are Not Alike -

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