This question arises in the minds of the people, during any discussion on religion or world affairs. Muslim stereotypes are perpetuated in every form of the media accompanied by gross misinformation about Islam and Muslims. In fact, such misinformation and false propaganda often leads to discrimination and acts of violence against Muslims.
Oxford Dictionary describes the word terrorism as: ‘the use of violent actions in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act.’ The word terrorism was first coined in 1790′s during the French Revolution. The years 1793 and 1794 were called as ‘The Reign of Terror’ or ‘Years of Terror.’
During these years Maximilin Robespierre guillotined thousands of innocents. He arrested more than 500,000 out of which he executed 40,000. More than 200,000 were deported and more than 200,000 were starved and tortured to death in the prisons.Today there is a statement, which is being repeatedly bombarded, especially in the western media and that statement is, ‘All Muslims are not Terrorist, but all Terrorist are Muslims.’ But here are the historical records on terrorist attacks that speak a different picture:19th century – We hardly find any terrorist attacks done by Muslims.
- 1881 – Tsar Alexander was assassinated in a Bomb Blast. He was traveling in a bulletproof carriage in St. Pietersburg Street. The first bomb kills innocent 21 bystanders. The second bomb killed him while he was stepping out of the car. He was killed by Ignacy Hryniewiecki. He was Anarchists.
- 1886 – Bomb Blast at Haymarket Square, Chicago, during a labour rally. 12 people were killed; one among them was a policeman. Seven policemen were injured and they died in the hospital. The people responsible were 8 Anarchists all of them were non-Muslims.
- 6 September 1901 – The US President, William McKinley, was shot twice by an Anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. He was a non-Muslim.
- 1 October 1910 – Bomb blast in Los Angeles at Times newspaper building. 21 were killed. The blast was done by 2 Christians named James and Joseph. They were union leaders.
- 28 June 1914 – Archduke of Austria and his wife were assassinated which precipitated the World War I. The members of Young Bosnia assassinated them – most of them were Serbs. They were non-Muslims.
- 16 April 1925 – Bomb Blast in St. Nedelya Church in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. 10,050 were killed and 500 injured. This was the biggest terrorist attack that was done on the soil of Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Communist Party did it. They were non-Muslims.
- 9 October 1934 – King Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a gunman by the name of Vlada Georgieff. He was a non-Muslim.
- 1 May 1961 – First US plane to be hijacked was not done by a Muslim. It was done by Ramierez Ortiz.
- 28 August 1968 – The US Ambassador to Guatemala was assassinated by a non-Muslim.
- 30 July 1969 – The US Ambassador to Japan was knifed by a Japanese non-Muslim.
- 3 September 1969 – US Ambassador to Brazil was kidnapped by a non-Muslim.
- 19 April 1995 – The famous attack of the Oklahoma Bombing in which a truck loaded with bombs ran into the federal building of Oklahoma, in which 166 were killed and 100 were injured. Initially in the press it came as ‘Middle East Conspiracy’. Later on they came to know that it was done by two Christians named Timothy and Terry.
After World War II
- After World War II from 1941 to 1948, the Jewish Terrorists conducted 259 terrorist attacks.
- 22 July 1946 – The famous bombing of King David Hotel was conducted under the leadership of Menachem Begin. 91 were killed, out of which 28 were British, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others. The Ignun group dressed up as Arabs to show as though the Muslims did this bombing. Menachem Begin was called terrorist number one by the British government. Later on after a few years Menachem Begin the terrorist number one became the Prime Minister of Israel & got a Noble Prize for Peace. Imagine a person who was a terrorist number getting a Noble Prize for Peace. Menachem Begin and others were fighting to get a Jewish state. Before 1945 Israel did not exist in the World Map. These Jewish group were fighting for a Jewish state and later on with the power they kick the Palestinian out and now the same people are calling the same Palestinian who are fighting for a more just cause for getting their land back. And the Israelis label them today as Terrorist.
- Hitler killed 6 million Jews. The Palestinians welcome the Jews. Later on the Jews kick the Palestinians out of their own land and when the Palestinians are fighting to get their land back they are labeled as Terrorists. It is like I welcome a stranger in my house. After a few days that person throws me out of my house and when I shout out side my house that I want my house back, you call me a Terrorist.
- In Germany from 1968 – 1992, Baader Meinhoff Gang killed several innocent human beings.
- In Italy, Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, the former Prime Minister of Italy.
- 20 March 1995 – Aum Shinrikyo a Buddhist Cult used Nerve Gas in the Tokyo Subway in which 12 people were killed and 5700 were wounded and injured.
IRA (The Irish Republican Army)
- In UK since hundred years IRA (The Irish Republican Army) is conducting Terrorist attacks against UK. They are Catholics. But are never called as Catholic Terrorist. In 1972 IRA conducted 3 bomb blasts. In the first blast 7 were killed, in second blast 11 were killed and in the third 9 were killed.
- In 1974 IRA conducted two bomb blasts. First at Guildford Pub in which 5 were killed and 44 injured; second at the Birmingham Pub which killed 21 and injured 182.
- In 1996 IRA conducted bomb blast in London in which 2 persons were killed and more than were 100 injured. In the same year IRA conducted bomb blast in Manchester shopping center in which 206 people were injured.
- On 1 August, 1998, the ‘Banbridge’ bomb blast took place. The IRA planted 500 pound of bomb, which was loaded in a car where 35 people were injured.
- On 15 August, 1998, ‘Omagh’ bomb blast took place. IRA planted 500 pound of bomb in a car where 29 people were killed and 330 injured.
- On the 4 March, 2001, the BBC was bombed by IRA.
- The IRA is never called as Catholic Terrorist. Today the UK government is more afraid of Muslim terrorist. Today Tony Blair is more afraid of the ‘Muslim terrorists’ than IRA who is conducting terrorist attacks for more than a hundred years. Why?
In Spain and France ETA conducted 36 terrorist attacks. In Africa there are many terrorist organisations. But the most notorious is the ‘Lord’s Salvation Army’; a Christian terrorist organisation in Uganda. They train young children to commit terrorist attacks.
In Sri Lanka, the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) is the most notorious. It is the most violent terrorist organisation in the world. They are experts in suicide bombings and they even train children to take part in suicide bombings.
Normally people know Palestinian suicide bombings, Iranian suicide bombing, but they don’t know that LTTE are people who have popularized to suicide bombings. The LTTE i.e. Tamil tigers, they are Hindus.
In India majority of the terrorist attacks are talked about the Kashmiri militants. In India there are terrorist organization belonging to almost all different religions. We have Sikh terrorist, the ‘Bhindranwala’ in Punjab. If you go to South Asian Terrorism portal run by Non-Muslims, and if you see the list of terrorist attacks done by all the people, you will find the Muslims in a minority. But that is never highlighted in the media.
On 5 June, 1984, the Indian Security Forces took over the Golden Temple in which 100 people were killed. In retaliation on 31 October, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh security guard. In Tripura there are Christian terrorist organizations called ATTF (All Tripura Tiger Force) and NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura). On the 2 October, 44 Hindus were killed by these Christian terrorists.
In Assam we have ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam). ULFA in the 16 years from 1990 to 2006 has conducted successfully 749 confirmed terrorist attacks. The ULFA will put the Kashmiri militants to shame. But in the newspapers we only hear of Kashmiri militant. Why? The ULFA are trained to kill the Muslims, they are Hindus. How many times do we hear about them?The maximum terrorist attacks, which have been done in India, are done by the Maoists. Only in Nepal, in the past 7 years they have conducted 99 terrorist attacks. According to the Indian Government out of 600 districts in India Maoists are present in 150 districts of India. They have done terrorist attacks in one-third part of India. The Maoists are the biggest dangers to India but yet the Indian Government is afraid of the Muslim terrorist. Why? The Times of India, edition dated 9 September, 2006, reported that 875 rockets and 30 launchers were confiscated by the police. It is the biggest haul in the history of India that the government has confiscated.
From all these things we can surely say that Terrorism is not a Muslim Monopoly. Not a Muslim monopoly, it is not even a specialty of the Muslims. It is not even encouraged by Islam. The Holy Qur’an says in Sura Maidah, chp.5, verse.32, that “If anyone kills any human being, except as a punishment for murder or creating mischief in the land, it will as though he had killed the entire humanity”. Most of the religions don’t preach that you should kill innocent human being. Terrorism is not the monopoly of any religion.
The human being who has killed the maximum people is Adolf Hitler. Hitler incinerated 6 million Jews. He was Christian. Joseph Stalin (Uncle Joe) killed 20 million human beings; including 14.5 million were starved to death. Mao Tse Tsung of China killed 14 to 20 million human beings. He was Non Muslim. Benito Mussolini of Italy killed 400,000 human beings. Maximilin Robespierre during the French revolution starved and tortured 200,000 people to death and executed 40,000 people. Ashoka in one battle of Kalinga alone killed more than 100,000 people. He was a Hindu.
Saddam Hussein killed a few 100 thousands people. But the embargo put by George Bush and the USA alone killed more than half a million Iraqi children. In Indonesia, Muhammad Suharto killed 500,000 people.
This is nothing compared to Hitler or uncle Joe nothing compare to Mao TSE sung each individual will put the Muslims to shame. I am not trying to say that these individual they were religious. If they would have religious then they would not have committed such acts. But yet we find in the international media that the Muslims are called as fundamentalist, extremists and terrorists. The American Revolution took place in the 19th century. According to the British Government the terrorist No. 1 that time was Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
Solution to terrorism
- Politicians should be honest and just and should not do wrong things for the vote bank.
- Innocent Indian citizens should not be instigated by the politicians and kill other human beings. Police should be upright and just and protect the innocent. They should not be ploy of the politicians. I know that there are times that they can be transferred. But if every policeman in India is honest, the new policemen who are transferred will also be honest. So what will the politicians do?
- People should not take the law in their hand and kill other human being.
Mahatma Gandhi said, ” If India has to improve it should be ruled by a dictator as honest and upright as Hadrat Umar (The Caliph of Islam).
Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson said, ‘People who worry that nuclear weaponry will one day fall in the hands of the Arabs, they fail to realize that the Islamic bomb has already been dropped, it fell the day Prophet MUHAMMED (pbuh) was born’.
-Dr Zakir Naik
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