ISIS Terror Group is An Enemy to All, Not Just The Western World

ISIS Terror Group is An Enemy to All, Not Just The Western World July 27, 2016

A man reacts in front of bouquets of flowers near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed, killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday, in Nice, France. (photo from cbsnews)

By Seidu Malik

Once again, the world has witnessed the most vicious and cowardly act of murder in Nice, France by a fanatic. The latest horror brings into question whether ISIS supporters or recruits fit into the category of human beings. Even savage beasts living in the wild or jungle with a low level of intelligence will not purposely harm or kill scores of their own at the same time.

Just to refresh your memory, less than a month ago, the same group killed and injured scores of people in Turkey, Bangladesh and Baghdad in Iraq. Curiously enough, these are all Muslim countries to be precise.  This therefore begs the question as to whether the ISIS reign of terror is confined only to Western world, which generates huge publicity and backlash against American Muslims, or are the Muslims themselves victims of ISIS’ brutality?

This intriguing question should make the American public realize that this terror group is not defending the religion of Islam but is an evil force causing carnage and destruction the world over. If indeed ISIS is the true face of Islam, as many who are ignorant of the Islamic faith or subject to constant misinformation would have you believe, then how do you explain the attack in Baghdad, Bangladesh and Turkey? How do you explain why this group stepped up their attacks in the Muslim’s holiest month of Ramadan if really they had the interest of Muslims at heart? Is it because of lack of intense media coverage of those attacks that we are loosing sight of the fact that ISIS murdered more than 300 people in less than a month in the Muslim world?

My heart-felt condolences go to the victims in Nice, France, but until we understand the true nature of ISIS, it would be almost impossible to defeat them. As I have said before, ISIS has perverted the teachings of Islam for political gains and has successfully recruited from ignorant and wayward Muslim youth for their outrageous campaign. The “ignorant and wayward” label is readily apparent if you consider the fact that the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen and Chattanooga Army recruit gunman, Muhammad Abdulazeez’s personal lifestyle before the attack. Both gunmen were reported to be alcoholics, which is strictly against the teaching of Islam, taking drugs and otherwise living a carefree lifestyle instead of one of moderation. Even in the latest incident in Nice, the perpetrator is reported to drink alcohol, abuse his wife and not even attend mosque at all. All these actions fall squarely against basic Islamic teachings. ISIS or any other terror groups are made mostly of a bunch of misguided individuals with little knowledge of the Islamic faith who only aims to achieve notoriety through spectacular killings.

We should not condemn law-abiding Muslims who follow the true teachings of Islam that strictly prohibit the killing of innocent ones (Quran 5:33) as being terrorist or being part of the problem. As many of the latest attacks shows, Muslim themselves bare the brunt of ISIS’ campaign. We should not victimize such a group for the actions of an ignorant bunch bent on causing mischief in the world.

The Ahmadiyya Muslism Community, the single largest Muslim organization under a single imam or leadership has, over the century, lead the fight against extremism and have spread the true message of Islam throughout the world. It is therefore erroneous to assume that most Muslims subscribe to ISIS ideology.

As I have explained before only wayward and ignorant Muslims youth are brainwashed into terror ideology. We should view the current ISIS problem as a geopolitical issue instead of a religious problem.  This is the only way forward to bring this carnage under control. We should remove our deep-seated societal biases when developing a comprehensive policy to contain the rampaging onslaught of ISIS in both the Western countries and the Muslim world.

Innocent lives are being lost indiscriminately on a daily basis and thus we can no longer sit on the fence with our arms folded or continue to shift the blame at the door step of Islam which absolutely forbids its true followers from killing innocent ones. This is the time for us to put our differences aside and to unite to eliminate the threat of ISIS cruelty from claiming more lives irrespective of the person creed, race and religious affiliations.


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