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Ignorance that kills…AQ and their likes that antagonize scholarship
It is said that a man lived in the forest and was accompanied by a bear. The relationship between the two of them was good; the bear accompanied the man everywhere he went and provided him with food and protection that the latter needed. One day, the man fell asleep and a bee landed on the man’s face; when the bear saw it, he was afraid that the bee would awaken his friend from his slumber. The bear grabbed a huge rock and threw it at the man’s head to save his friend. Instead of killing the bee, the bear killed his friend.
Why did the bear kill his friend although he may have meant well? It was ignorance
Is this not the case with al Qaeda (AQ), who claims that they seek to protect Muslims when they have murdered countless innocent Muslims in market places, streets, coffee shops and even in worship places?
AQ self-describes itself as the ultimate religious authority to decide who is a “good” Muslim and who is not. Killing those who they deem is not Muslim enough?
Has not AQ committed the most appalling atrocities against innocent Muslims and non Muslims everywhere in the name of Islam, thus presenting the world with a negative picture of the great religion of Islam?
The first words revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was “read” and the last word “not to wrong” [Do not wrong]. Does this not signify that Islam is a religion of scholarship and justice? Yet, is AQ not violating these core Islamic values by insisting on ignoring, and at times eliminating, Muslim scholars who stand against them, expose their ignorance and their grave negative effects on Muslim societies. “Targeting scholars and Sunni religious figures was the highest priority for AQI during the past years; more than 100 religious clerics and Imams fell at the hands of AQI,” said shaykh Abdallah al- Jalal from Anbar province, Iraq.
Many of AQ and extremist groups’ recruits are youths who are ignorant and lack enough knowledge and understanding of life’s complexities and ever changing nature.
As a result, these youths are unable to think for themselves, which allows them to be easily brainwashed by AQ’s propaganda of hatred. The consequence is that these individuals fall prey to extremists and are used as suicide bombers and tools of destruction, instead of a force for construction.
Back to the example of the bear and his man friend, the victim (the man) is dead but in our real world situation, AQ’s victim (the Islamic societies), although they have witnessed the devastating effects of AQ ignorance based behaviors, are fortunately not dead. However, have we not seen how AQ time and again ignores any call for reason and insists on pursuing their extremist agenda despite the horrors that they have brought upon Muslim societies? Would AQ on their own ever begin to listen to the voice of scholarship and reason and change its destructive path, as many others have done? .
It should be clear that it is ignorance that AQ relies on as its lifeblood. By their own admission, they have rejected the ideas of nearly every Islamic scholar who has devoted his life to the study of the religion for its own sake, without agenda or ulterior motive. In the place of their wisdom, they demand that their followers accept the words of men capable of the most merciless acts toward their fellow humans – men whose hearts are clearly filled with hatred – as the only qualified scholars of Islam. We have seen countless examples of brave scholars speaking out against the senseless violence and hatred promoted by Al Qaeda, as well as some of their own former members exposing the group’s true nature. But if more scholarly people and those who are concerned with the truth do not stand up, AQ and their likes will continue to violate Islamic values and cause harm to Muslim societies.
Noorzai Jahani
D.E.T Centcom
Tampa Florida