Islam
and
Terrorism
An Address By
Dr.
Labib Mikhail
Presented to
on
February 15, 2003
at
Organized by
I
was quite honored when the Christian Coalition of America invited me to be part
of this symposium on Islam. My subject
is “Islam and Terrorism.”
To
begin with, I have to define the word “terrorism”. According to Reader’s
Digest Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, the word terrorism means: “the
use of terror, violence and intimidation to achieve a political end. To coerce or maintain control by
intimidation or fear.” (p. 1707-1708)
By this definition, we might ask: “Are Islam and
terrorism related to each other?” To
answer this question correctly, we have to understand the Two Phases of Islam.
The
First and Gracious Phase of Islam
When the prophet Muhammad began to call people in
Mecca to Islam, he was weak. He needed
the help of the Jews and the Christians, so he praised them. Here is what the Koran, the holy book of
Islam says about Jews and Christians at that time:
Verily, those who believe [Muslims] and those who are Jews and Christians and Sabians whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord. On them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve. (Surat Al-Baqarah 2:62)
In
this verse the Koran puts Jews and Christians at the same level and privilege
as Muslims.
There are many kind verses quoted in the Koran from
this first and gracious phase of Islam.
Muslim Clerics used such verses to establish that Islam is a religion of
freedom and peace. However, these
verses were abrogated lately, which means they were cancelled.
The
Second Phase of Islam
The later phase of Islam, and I may say the
permanent phase of Islam, according to the doctrine of abrogation in the Koran,
came when the prophet Muhammad migrated to Medina and organized a strong
army. When he saw that Jews and
Christians rejected his prophethood and Islam, he commanded the Muslims to
change the Kibla, the direction in
which Muslims turn when they pray, from Jerusalem to the Kaaba in Mecca. At that time in history the Kaaba was a
shrine for 360 idols.
Then Muhammad exterminated Jews and Christians from
the Arabian Peninsula. He renounced
Jews and Christians as polytheists, therefore impure and defiled. As such, Muhammad commanded that they never
come near the Kaaba in Mecca. To this
day no Jew or Christian can enter the Mecca, or come near Al-Kaaba, the Holy
shrine in Saudi Arabia. Here are the
words of the Koran:
O you who believe [Muslims] the Mushrikun
[polytheists and unbelievers in Allah and the Message of Muhammad] are najasum
[impure, defiled]. So let them not come
near Al-Masjd Al Haram [the Kaaba in Mecca] after this year. (Surat Al-Tauba 9:28)
This
is the phase of Islam we encounter today.
To be sure Islamic Terrorism was practiced in
Muhammad’s days. The Koran commands
Muslims to terrorize and strike the necks and smite the fingers and toes of the
infidels [Jews and Christians]. The
Koran says:
I
will cast terror into the hearts of those who are infidels, so strike them over
the necks and smite over all their fingers and toes. This is because they defied and disobeyed Allah and His Messenger
[Muhammad]. And whoever defies and
disobeys Allah and His Messenger, then verily, Allah is severe in
punishments. This is (the torment), to
taste it; and surely, for the infidels is the torment of the fire. (Surat Al-Anfal 8:12-14)
Before September 11th, we saw
Islamic terrorism in Egypt—where many Egyptian Christians were murdered—in
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the world. When the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York,
and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., occurred on September 11, 2001, Americans
woke up, as from a nightmare. Their
financial and military institutions had been attacked. And a third plane was aimed to destroy the
White House, the executive institution.
But, thank God, it crashed in Pennsylvania.
On that day, Americans began asking three questions:
First, “Who are those people who attacked us?”
Second, “Why do they hate us?”
Third, “What motivated them to commit these horrific
attacks?”
Before
answering these three questions, I have to say that there are three kinds of
Islamic Terrorism:
By
discussing these three kinds of terrorism, we will have the answer for our
three questions.
Physical
Terrorism
Shortly after the barbaric attacks, the
investigations of the CIA and FBI concluded that the attackers were deeply
religious young men from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who dedicated their hearts,
minds, and souls to the religion of Islam.
Blas Pascal, a mathematician who lived in 1670 AD, said, “Men never do
evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious
conviction.”
The hatred ignited by the teaching of the Koran, in
the hearts of those young men who attacked us was so horrible. It blinded them from thinking or imagining
the agony and suffering of those thousands of innocent men and women who were
murdered in the attacks and the terrible grief of those loved ones who were
left behind.
The most horrible thing is that those attackers did
not feel any sense of guilt. The Koran taught them that their acts are not acts
of evil, but rather acts of a high level of righteousness intended to eradicate
the infidel Christians from the face of the earth. The Koran taught them also that there is a great reward waiting
for them in paradise if they die as martyrs.
The Koran taught them that their sins will be
forgiven, and each one of them will be married to one hundred virgins, with
wide lovely eyes in paradise. These are
the words of the Koran:
And if you are killed or die in the Way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all that they amass [of worldly wealth].
(Sural Al-Imran 3:157)
Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers
[Muslims] their lives and their properties for (the price) that theirs shall be
the Paradise. They fight in Allah’s
cause, so they kill (others) and are killed.
It is a promise in truth, which is binding, on Him. (Surat Al-Taubah 9:111)
The
Koran describes life in paradise in the following verses:
Eat and drink with happiness because of what you
used to do. They will recline (with ease) on thrones arranged in
ranks. And we shall marry them to Hur
(fair females) with wide lovely eyes.
And we shall provide them with fruit and meat such as they desire. (Surat
Al-Tur 52:17-20,22)
Paradise
is all sensual, nothing spiritual.
Another
picture of paradise is described in the following words:
The
second picture:
Water flowing constantly and fruit in plenty whose
supply is not cut off and reclining on couches raised high: verily we have
created from them (women) of special creation and made them virgins of equal
age. (Surat Al-Waqiah 56:31-37)
The
third picture:
Gardens and vineyards and young full-breasted
virgins of equal age and a full cup of wine. (Surat Al-Naba 78:32-34)
With these pictures of paradise—dreaming about one
hundred virgins awaiting each one of them—those young people with their Egyptian
leader Muhammad Atta committed suicide and died with their victims.
Preparations for the September 11th
attacks took many years. Ben Laden and
Ayman Al-Zawahri with their associates of men of very evil minds began to test
the Americans with terrorist attacks.
They saw that Americans ran away from trouble in Beirut, Lebanon where
243 marines were murdered. Americans
ran away from Somalia, and they did not do anything when they were attacked in
Saudi Arabia, Nairobi, and Yemen.
Ben Laden, who is from the radical Wahhabi Islamic sect established in
Saudi Arabia in the 18th century, and with roots even well before
that, concluded that America is a paper tiger.
Hit Americans hard and they will collapse. Ben Laden thought, that the time had come to establish an Islamic
Empire, where Islam would be the only recognized religion in the world, and the
sharia (law) of the Koran will be the
only law. Ben Laden and his followers
were in great shock, when they saw what America did in a short time in
Afghanistan. They saw that America is
not a paper tiger but a fierce tiger.
They are now living in hiding, somewhere in an
Islamic country. That indicates that
there are Muslim countries who harbor terrorists and sympathize with Ben
Laden’s beliefs and terrorism. If Islam
is a religion of peace and freedom, Ben Laden should be arrested by the Islamic
country, which gives him refuge. For
Ben Laden and his associates to be given refuge, in any Islamic country is a
declaration that Islam and terrorism are associated.
Last November, Russian president Vladimir Putin made
a strong statement. The London
Telegraph reported on November 12, 2002, the following:
Islamic radicals are pursuing the systematic
annihilation of non-Muslims…president Putin said that western civilization
faced a mortal threat from Muslim terrorists, and claimed that they had plans
to create a world wide caliphate which means a world wide Islamic Empire.
At
this point I will mention but a few of the physical terrorist attacks committed
by Muslims after the September 11th.
Time will not allow me to tell you about many other
terrorist attacks around the world. The
most recent ones are the murder of the American diplomat in Amman, Jordan, and
the attack on the club in Bali, Indonesia.
We have heard through the media, that the terrorists
attacked us because we stand with Israel against the Palestinians. This is a totally false accusation. Many centuries before the existence of the
state of Israel, in the year 1895, the Turkish Muslims massacred more than
60,000 Armenian Christians in many cities in Turkey and crushed them like
grapes during the vintage in one night.
There was no Israeli-Palestinian conflict during that time. Those butchers were motivated by their
Koran.
When we say
that Islam and terrorism are related to each other, is this a false
accusation? Is it to insult Islam? Or is it a fact based on the clear worlds of
the Koran?
Please listen carefully to these verses from the Koran:
(1) The Prophet Muhammad urges Muslims to fight in the cause of Allah,
O
prophet Muhammad urge the believers [Muslims] to fight. (Surat Al-Anfal 8:65)
(2) The Koran commands Muslims not to befriend Jews or Christians.
O ye who believe [Muslims] take not the Jews or the
Christians for your friends and protectors.
They are but friends and protectors of each other. And he among you that turn to them [for
friendship] is of them. (Surat Al-Maidah 5:51)
(3) The Koran commands Muslims to fight Jews and Christians.
Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in
the Last Day, no forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His
Messenger [Muhammad] and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth
(Islam) among the people of the Scripture [Jews and Christians] until they pay
the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Surat At-Taubah 9:29)
We have to understand that Jizyah is a special high tax to be paid only by Jews and Christians
who live in Islamic countries and who do not want to renounce their religion
and convert to Islam.
(4) The Koran declares that
those who wage war against Allah and Muhammad must be crucified and tortured in
a sadistic manner.
The recompense of those who wage war against Allah
and His Messenger Muhammad and do mischief in the land is only that they shall
be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite
sides, or be exiled from the land. That
is their disgrace in the world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter.
(Surat Al-Maidah 5:33)
(5) The Koran commands
Muslims to fight the infidels who are neighbors and close to them:
O you who believe [Muslims]! Fight those of the infidels who are close to
you, and let them find harshness in you; and know that Allah is with those who
are pious. (Surat Al-Taubah 9:123)
(6) The Koran commands Muslims to convert non-Muslims to Islam by force:
Kill the Mushrikun (polytheists, Christians and
non-Muslims), wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and
lie in wait for them in each and every ambush.
But, if they repent and perform As-salat (public prayer with Muslims) and
give Zakat (Islamic alms), then leave their way free. Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful.
(Surat At-Taubah 9:5)
(7) The Koran commands
Muslims to fight non-Muslims until they exterminate all other religions and
make Islam the only religion in the world:
And fight until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief
and worshipping of others along with Allah) and (all and every kind of) worship
is for Allah (alone).
(Surat Al-Bagarah 2:193)
There are almost one hundred verses in the Koran
calling Muslims to Jihad, holy war
against Jews, Christians, and non-Muslims.
Do these clear verses of the Koran indicate that Islam is a religion of
peace?
Intellectual Terrorism
There is another kind of terrorism in Islam: intellectual terrorism. Islam is a prison with no way out. Once a person enters that prison, he cannot
leave it alive. In Islam, the
democratic right to free thought and individual decision concerning religious
matters is totally denied. We have more
than one example of this intellectual terrorism, I will mention but a few.
The first is Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie was born to a Muslim family
in Bombay, but spent much of his life in London, England. He wrote a book entitled The Satanic
Verses. Muslims though this book
was an insult to the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. So Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini issued an order to assassinate
Rushdie and promised $5 million to the one who would kill him. Khomeini, Iran’s spiritual leader at that
time, said in a statement read for him on the radio in 1989: “Anyone who died
attempting to kill Rushdie,” he promised, “would go straight to paradise.” Rushdie’s head is very expensive!!
The second is Dr. Farag Foda, the great author who
was assassinated in Cairo, Egypt in 1993 because he wrote many books exposing
the true face of Islam and Islamic society.
He was accused of being an apostate Muslim and was shot and killed in
front of his son.
The third is Professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid, who was
accused of being an apostate Muslim because of his books about the Koran. The court in Egypt ruled that he must
divorce his wife, Ibihal Younes. He
fled from Egypt and is now living with his wife in Holland.
The fourth is the well-known Egyptian writer Naguib
Mahfouz, who became the first Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature. Muslims stabbed him in
front of his house in an attempt to kill him.
The man is over 80 years old.
They wanted to kill him because they thought that he insulted Muhammad
in his novel, The Children of Gabalawi. It is of great importance for any American
or any secular Muslim to know what kind of society he or she will live in if
fundamentalist Muslims rule.
Psychological Terrorism
That brings us to the third kind of terrorism in
Islam: psychological terrorism.
Instilling
fear in the hearts of those who disobey the Koran is a vital factor in
Islam. This psychological terrorism was
practiced when the Taliban regime ruled Afghanistan. During that period of time any woman who would show more than her
eyes was flogged in the street. Music,
television, even sports were not allowed.
In Saudi Arabia, a woman is banned from driving a
car or from walking down the street alone, or without covering all her body
with the hejab. Women in Islam live under constant fear of
beating or divorce. The Koran says the
following in Surat Al-Nisa Chapter 4:34:
As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty
and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds (which means do not
have sex with them) and beat them.
Add to all that the threat against any Muslim who
apostates from Islam (renounces Islam).
He or she is to be executed.
Today we are hearing on radio and television many Muslim Clerics saying
that Islam means peace. The truth is
that the word Islam means submission, not peace. A Muslim is one who is in submission to Allah. Since Allah is invisible, so submission
should be to the sharia (law) of the
clerics who interpret the Koran. Peace
is granted only to Muslims.
Islam divides the world’s population into two camps,
Dar Al-Harb (House of War) where Jews
and Christians live, and Dar Al-Islam
(House of Islam) where Muslims live. They believe that Jihad, Holy War, should continue against those who live in the
House of War until they are all exterminated or converted to Islam.
Fundamentalists dream of a global Islamic
empire. They believe that if they
destroy America and western countries they will achieve this dream.
Christianity and Islam
Al-Shaab, the weekly newspaper of
the Labour Party, published in Egypt, wrote the January 27th issue,
that this symposium of Christian Coalition of America is aimed to create hatred
for Muslims in the US.
Let me tell the Muslims, we cannot hate you, because
we are commanded by Christ our Lord to love you, even after that horrible
attack on the 11th of September.
These are Christ’s words in Matthew 5:44-45:
Love your enemies, bless those who curse your, do
good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and
persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
Meantime, I would like to say to the Muslims that
there are major differences between Christianity and Islam. Christianity created free societies, where
freedom of religion is granted. Muslims
took advantage of this freedom and built hundreds of Mosques in England, in
Australia, in Canada, and in the United States of America. While in Saudi Arabia, they do not permit
the construction of even one church. In
Afghanistan, during the reign of King Zahir Shah the only existing church,
which had been built by president Eisenhower’s request of King Zahir, was
demolished on May 17, 1970.
While the Saudis distribute thousands of copies of
the Koran in the US and elsewhere, they do not permit even one Bible into the
kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is one
major difference between Christianity and Islam.
The other major difference, which really should be
the first, is the denial of the crucifixion of Christ in the Koran. We have the testimony of many witnesses, who
saw with their own eyes the crucifixion of Christ, and the print of nails in
his hands after his resurrection, and testified that he was crucified, and
sealed their testimony with their blood, yet the Koran attacks the cross and
denies the crucifixion of Christ.
Listen to the words of the Koran, in Surat An-Nisa 4:157, that they
said:
We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the
Messenger of Allah,” but they killed him not, nor crucified him. Only a likeness of that was shown to
them. And those who differ therein are
full of doubts, with no [certain] knowledge.
But only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they kill him not.
Charles Haddon Surgeon, who was called the prince of
the British preachers said the following:
Leave out the cross and you have killed the religion
of Jesus Christ. Atonement by the blood
of Jesus is not an arm of Christian truth; it is the heart of it. The cross answers the question of every
human being. Who will pay the penalty
for my sins? Christ paid that penalty
when he shed his blood on the cross.
This
is the greatest major difference between Christianity and Islam.
Conclusion
Now, how do we solve this problem of Jihad and Islamic Terrorism? I have two suggestions to the Muslims.
First: It is
the responsibility of the intellectual Muslims, and they are many, to join
hands and declare to the Muslims and Muslim countries that the verses of the
Koran calling for Jihad and killing
of Jews and Christians were for Muhammad’s time. These verses should not be applied in our modern civilizations
for they create havoc.
Second: I
would suggest to all Muslims, since they shout in every occasion, “Allah Hu-Akbar” (Allah is greater) to
leave Allah to defend Islam. If Islam
is the only religion He accepts, then let him defend it. Using young men and women to be suicide
bombers is an insult to the greatness of Allah, if they really believe that
Allah is great.
I would advise Muslims to join the forces of freedom
and advanced inventions, to make the planet earth a better place for human life
instead of making it a jungle of beasts.
To the Christians, I would repeat the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature” (Mark 16:15). Preach the
gospel to the Muslims, they most of all, are people who need to hear and know
and understand the gospel of the love of God, demonstrated by the death of His
son on the cross.