Radical Islamism and Jihad

Syed Ata Hasnain
India’s very
large minority Muslim community may appear to be cannon fodder for Daesh’s
ambitions, but some deft intelligence work by our agencies has largely
prevented this. The storm, however, has not yet passed and there is every
feasibility of more attempts. The events at the Kabul hospital and Lal Shahbaz
Qalandar shrine claimed by Daesh were in all probability diversions, and yet an
indication of its global reach....

Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Nearly 1,000
bodies of political activists and suspected separatists have been found in the
restive Balochistan province over the past six years, according to the Pakistan
Government's official figures. A media report noted, "According to the
Federal Ministry of Human Rights, at least 936 dead bodies have been found in
Balochistan since 2011." Most of the bodies were dumped in the regions of
Quetta, Kalat, Khuzdar and Mekran - areas where Balochistan's separatist
insurgency has its roots. ...

Adnan Abu Amer
The release of
the policy document after various capitals, among them Cairo and Amman, slammed
the door in the movement’s face is perhaps not coincidental. It would also not
be unreasonable to suggest that 30 years after the movement's inception, Hamas
simply recognizes that new positions and policies are required to address
political and economic developments and current regional tensions and ties.....

Raashid Wali Janjua
In countries
like Somalia and Pakistan, the impoverished segment of the population depends
upon religious seminaries or madrasas for the education of their children. In
these seminaries, the children are educated in theological subjects and are
heavily indoctrinated in the extremist version of religion. According to Karin
von Hippel, an amount of $1 billion has annually been spent on such madrasas,
out of which 75 percent of the contribution comes from abroad, mostly from
Saudi Arabia....

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain
It is obvious
that Islam is in ferment, uneasy with itself.
The discomfort comes from its spread beyond the shores of the original
land where it took birth and shape. Faiths adapt to situations and to people,
settling into comfort positions, especially if there is no ecclesiastical
authority to force issues as per a single order. Islam’s spread was rapid and
its adaptation to regional and local environment gave it acceptance. There was
also confrontation, as there inevitably is when a faith attempts to expand its
scope and ambit of reach....

Alia Brahimi
While
the impending combat threatens to be circuitous and uncertain - involving, as
it will, fighting among civilians in the narrow streets and alleyways of the
Old City - Abadi's confidence about the final outcome appears to be warranted.
But what will be the broader repercussions of Mosul's liberation for the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS)?...

Dylan Collins
Six years to
the day since protesters poured into the streets of Daraa, Damascus and Aleppo
in a "day of rage" against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad,
Syria's uprising turned global war is far from over. Six years of violence have
killed close to half a million people, according to the Syrian Centre for
Policy Research, displaced half of the country's pre-war population, allowed
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) to seize
huge swaths of territory, and created the worst humanitarian crisis in recent
memory....
India has been
more or less lucky to be safe in the last few years despite being high on the
hate list of terror groups. These outfits have their focus elsewhere at the
moment. Syria, the US and Europe are their priority. No doubt, our security
agencies have put in a lot of visible and invisible effort in neutralising
their local variants like Indian Mujahedeen and Al Qaeda in Indian
Subcontinent...
The Ulema need
to stand united in dealing with extremism; they must forget their differences
and fight for the Muslims who are suffering at the hands of these few thousand
miscreants who are misusing Islam for their own misdeeds. They can build an
alternative, the narrative of peace and love; and when the people will no
longer be misguided they will not fall in the hands of terrorists nor pay heed
to their words....

Maria Sartaj
Sufism allows
one to have their own unique spiritual experience, in its true essence it never
judges; I’ve experienced chants by Hindus at Ajmer Sharif who cried ‘Gharib
Nawaz Ki Jai Ho’ in ecstasy and it was as powerful as any other statement
of allegiance. One doesn’t become a Sufi just by listening to Coke Studio; it
is rather a way of life and a submission to divine power that brings peace to
the soul.

Sobhya Agha
Modern suicide
terrorism began in the 1980s under conditions where the coercer was the weaker
actor and the target the stronger. From Hezbollah, Hamas, the Tamil Tigers and
Chechnyan rebel groups to Al Qaeda and the militant Islamic State group, the
rhetoric of major suicide terrorist groups reflects the logic of coercive
punishment. This technique’s purpose is to inflict punishment and provoke
fear....
Coalition
forces fear Isis will revert to Al-Qaeda's strategy of guerrilla or
"asymmetric" warfare, including bomb attacks. Clever for the fact
that attacks can occur anywhere at any time. "Islamic State is a global
insurgency. It may well be they will never be as powerful or enjoy the presence
they currently have, but it will be a very long time before this group is
completely irrelevant."....

Malik M Ashraf
Islam also
forbids armed groups and non-state entities to declare Jihad. According to
Islam it can only be declared by a legitimately chosen leader of the state.
Similarly rebellion against the state or taking up of arms against it is not
permitted by Islam. These Islamic injunctions and teachings must be relied upon
to develop a counter narrative against the ideology preached by the terrorists
and proponents of religious extremism. That job can best be done by the
religious scholars through the pulpit and the mosque.....

Thomas Joscelyn
Iyad Ag Ghaly,
the long-time leader of Ansar Dine, heads the new joint venture. Ghaly, a
Malian Tuareg jihadist, explained why the merger was necessary in a video that
is more than seven minutes long. And he emphasized that his group is part of al
Qaeda’s international network. “On this blessed occasion, we renew our pledge
of allegiance [bayat] to our honourable emirs and sheikhs: Abu Musab Abdel
Wadoud, our beloved and wise sheikh Ayman al Zawahiri and…the emir of the
Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan Mullah Haibatullah, may Allah protect them and
support them,” ....

Jonathan Spyer
Ownership by
the US and its allies of eastern Syria in the post-Islamic State period is the
best way to prevent the possibility of the realization of Iran's aims, while
presenting Russia with a fait accompli. The indications are that the US
administration is thinking in these terms. If so, Iranian victory emerging from
the ruins of Syria and Iraq can be prevented. The post-Islamic State landscape
in Iraq and Syria is emerging. The contest for primacy within it is set to
begin.....

Raza Rumi
A suicide
bomber who failed to detonate himself at Sakhi Sarwar shrine in 2011, in an
interview, said that he had been originally recruited for jihad in Afghanistan
but diverted to South Punjab due to the shirk and Murda Parasti
(worshipping the dead) prevalent at the shrines. Intriguingly, he said that the
reason for this mission was the large number of Kafirs (infidels) that had to
be tackled. Such Pakistani Kafirs, he was told, were greater in number – even
more than America....
What Pakistanis
are missing is that the issue of the terrorist sanctuaries is not a new one and
has roots in the mistrust between the two countries. The Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan first shifted its sanctuaries to Afghan soil after the Swat operation
in 2011 and the second phase came after the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in
June 2014. The Afghan government acknowledges their presence, but clearly wants
to use the sanctuaries as a quid pro quo for an end to what it says is the
Taliban/Haqqani network presence in Pakistan....

Andre Vltchek
Afghanistan, a
stunning but terribly scarred and injured land has been suffering from a
concussion. It has been dizzy and disoriented. It can hardly walk. Still it
being Afghanistan, it has been walking anyway, against all odds!.....

Ruth Maclean
The main mosque
of the town was destroyed except for the battle-scarred minaret, still standing
and in possession of its crescent moon. Part of the pale green of the mosque’s
dome lay amid the grey rubble, loudspeakers still attached. “Isis do this –
destroy mosques and try to pretend it was us,” Mohammed said. Nearby, each
grave in a cemetery had been systematically destroyed for being too high, the
same reason Jihadi fighters in west Africa had used to justify the destruction
of the ancient tombs of Timbuktu....
The Shia
militias have been kept out of the city to avoid sectarian killings, as have
the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. There is no curfew; policemen guard many street
corners, and the IS “sleeper cells” that some warn of seem to be soundly
asleep, if indeed they exist. ...

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam
The strongest
extremist movement in the Islamic history was laid down in the
Wahhabism-Salafism propounded by the Saudi scholar of the Najdi tribe, Ibn
Abdul Wahhab. Based on the puritanical Islamism, it emerged in the 18th century
Saudi Arabia and turned into the global jihadist movement inspiring the earlier
extremists of the Ikhwan al-Najdiyyun and the present-day jihadists of the ISIS
and the ilk….

Naomi Grimley
The boys are
Yazidis from northern Iraq. In 2014, the world watched in horror as tens of
thousands of their people were trapped on Mount Sinjar in the searing heat
without food or water. At the same time, the teenagers Lovant and Sabbah were
being rounded up in their village by IS fighters. Most of the adult males were
taken away and murdered, while the boys were moved with their mothers to a
nearby city in northern Iraq, before being separated from their families
altogether.....
Sufis so far
have worked to peacefully introduce Sindh to the world. They have protected its
religious tolerance and interfaith harmony for centuries, but their own
shrines, places where Ayaz and Mehmood stand in the same row, are under attack
from terrorists. The suicide attack on
Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine, which left 90 dead on February 16, and more than
250 people injured, is not the first incident that has left us aghast; the fact
is, Sindh has witnessed many big and small terrorist attacks in recent years.
....
The
intellectual and ideological training of Ikhwan Al-Najdiyyun was based on the
fanatic teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Abdul Wahhab al-Najdi. It is important
to study and analyze their ideas and practices in order to understand the
contemporary terrorism. The primary factor in the teachings of Ibn Abdul Wahab
was repugnance and exclusivity. His teachings encouraged religious intolerance
and peddled hatred against all those who did not follow the Najdi ideology. The
main violent teachings of Ibn Abdul Wahab and his radical thoughts and
reflections can be found in details in these books in Arabic: Tafseer Kalimah
Tauheed (التوحید کلمہ تفسیر), Risalah
Salaas Masail (مسائل رسالہ
ثلاث), Kashf Ash-Shubhaat (الشبہات کشف), Risalah
Talqeen Usool Al-Aqeedah Lil-Aammah (للعامہ العقیدہ اصول تلقین رسالہ),
Risalah Ma’na At-Taghut (الطاغوت اومعنی رسالہ),
Risalah Arb'a Qawaid Li Ad-Deen (للدین اربع
قواعد رسالہ)....
Sufism thus
stands in marked contrast with the fanaticism, intolerance, bigotry and
militarism of the Taliban, their mentors and like-minded individuals – who, on
their part, look upon it as heretical. According to the Taliban ideology, ‘the
heretics’ deserve only one type of treatment: death. The militants regard
bombing the shrines and killing the pilgrims who visit these places as a religious
duty. Not surprisingly, several shrines in Pakistan have been soaked in blood
by the militants.