In the first part, we took a look at militant Islam and Islamist violence that are sanctioned by the Quran.

Some important points about Islamism

1. The view that the ideology of radical Islam is rooted in Islamic scripture fully understands the cause of terrorism; it takes religious arguments seriously and does not view them as a mere smokescreen for underlying “real” motivations, such as socio-economic grievances. This school of thought understands that the problem of radicalization begins long before a suicide bomber straps on his vest or a militant picks up his machine gun; it begins in mosques and schools where imams preach hate, intolerance, and adherence to Medina Islam.
2. Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. It is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.
3. Unfortunately, there are very few or negligible verses of tolerance and peace to balance out those calling for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed.
4. Muhammad’s own martial legacy, along with the remarkable emphasis on violence found in the Quran, has produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.
5. Where Islam is dominant (as in the Middle East and Pakistan) religious minorities suffer brutal persecution with scant introspection. Where Islam is in the minority (as in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe) there is the threat of violence if Muslim demands are not met. Either situation seems to provide a justification for religious terrorism, which is persistent and endemic to Islamic fundamentalism.
6. Islam is a ‘religion of peace’ when Muslims do not have the power and numbers on their side. Once they do, things change. Violence is so ingrained in Islam that it has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.
7. Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking the property of others as his own. On several occasions, he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and even butchered captives.
8. He inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and threatening them with Hell if they did not. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle, usually on the very day their husbands and family members were slaughtered.
9. The early Islamic principle of warfare was that the civilian population of a town was to be destroyed (i.e. men executed, women and children taken as slaves) if they defended themselves and resisted Islamic hegemony. Although modern apologists claim that Muslims are only supposed to “attack in self-defence”, this oxymoron is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.
10. Some modern-day scholars are more candid than others. One of the most respected Sunni theologians is al-Qaradawi, who justifies terror attacks against Western targets by noting that there is no such thing as a civilian population in a time of war: “It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar al-Harb [ie. non-Muslim people who resist Islamic conquest] are not protected…
11. In modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in the war, to aid its continuation, and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies. Every citizen in society must take upon himself a role in the effort to provide for the battle. The entire domestic front, including professionals, labourers, and industrialists, stands behind the fighting army, even if it does not bear arms.”
12. Sheikh Muhammad Bin Abdul Lateef, a favourite of ISIS, has admitted: ‘Jihad is a part of Islam without which Islam cannot be established and without which it is not possible to uphold the laws of sharia’.
13. One of Islam’s most revered modern scholars, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly sanctions offensive Jihad: “In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way.”
14. Qutb wrote: “Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defence of the ‘homeland of Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life.”
15. Another factor that may increase violence in Islam is polygamy. When some men have four wives others may have none. Males are more aggressive than females, especially those aged 15-30. When their marital prospects are blocked, and individuals are told about the wonders of paradise if they are killed for Allah, jihad may become very attractive.

(This article was authored by Tanmay and Kunal Raj)

(The views expressed in the article are those of the authors)