QUEST FOR THE IDEOLOGY OF TERRORISTS
Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua
My maternal grandfather Ekhaisomhi, was a true and good Muslim, the best
grandfather every child prays to have. My mother, Awawu Veronica, is simply the
best mother any child could have. She gave me the love and peace she inherited
from her Muslim parents. My paternal grandfather, Omonokhua was an African
traditional priest who was known for love, peace and generosity. Another
grandfather every child would pray to have. My father, Okhifo, gave me the
love, peace and generous values he inherited from his parents. My grandparents
and parents personified the scriptures where I practically learned the value of
life with the contents of generosity, love, peace, patience, care, fortitude
etc. In view of this, I feel confident as an authority and an expert in
dialogue with Muslims and Adherents of African Primal Religion not only because
of any academic qualification but because of my heritage at infancy.
There was a time the Church did not allow everybody to read the Bible
without guidance because of the risk of misinterpretation out of context. Dr.
Muzammil H. Siddiqi in the “Islamic Horizons” of the November / December 2001 believes that Qur’anic verses are misquoted and taken out of
context to prove that the Qur’an promotes violence by some people whereas
Muslims are enjoined, “Do not take life, which Allah has made sacred, except
for a just cause” (Qur’an 17:33). According to the Qur’an, killing a person
unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity, and saving a person is the
same as saving all of humanity (Qur’an 5:32). However, some terrorists who are
Muslims seem to derive their ideology from the Qur’an to justify their fighting
in the name of Allah. Some Muslims think that these terrorists take the Qur’an
out of context to act in their own twisted quest for hatred and vengeance.
Likewise, some Christian kings engaged in “holy wars” killing a whole nation
using verses in the Bible to justify their actions. There are about 109 verses
that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule and
many verses from the Bible that the Christians can use to unleash terror when
interpreted out of context but I can only cite a few examples from the Bible
and the Qur’an here as follows:
Deuteronomy 13: 6-10: “When your brother, the son of your
mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend
who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying ‘Let us go and serve
other gods,’…you shall kill him, your hand shall be first against him to put
him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to
death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God. .
. “
Numbers 31:17-18: “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who
has known man intimately. But spare for yourselves all virgin maidens”.
Exodus 23: 23-24 “I will send
my terror in front of you...you shall utterly demolish them and break their
pillars in pieces”.
(Qur’an 2:190): “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not
transgress limits, for Allah does not love transgressors”.
(Qur’an
2:191) – “And slay them
wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out;
for tumult and oppression are worse
than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first)
fight you. Slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.
Quran (2:216) – “Fighting is prescribed upon you, and
ye dislike it, but it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for
you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye
know not.”
Quran (2:244) – “Then
fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all
things.”
In the discussion of the
restoration of peace to the nation, the ideology of the terrorist should be
taken into consideration. The world we live in today is quite different from
the time these scriptural verses where revealed. Those who accept that these
war verses are applicable to this present age may need a redefinition of God
and a subjective meaning of the “religion of peace”. The witness of many good
Muslims in the world who live in peace and show love to the people around them
render the above verses anachronistic. Those who want to sustain the definition
of the transcendence as the “God of love, care, mercy and compassion” must also
endeavour to practically defend the ideology of “a religion of peace” to enable
us look elsewhere for the terrorist ideology outside the revealed religions. It
is also important to note that acquiring the weapons of mass destruction as a
means of leveraging for peace negotiation/maintenance has never worked and
therefore, is also anachronistic.
An ideology is a conviction that
cannot easily be destroyed especially when the person who has the idea is not
afraid to die. This explains the courage of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded
Osama bin Laden. The ideological guide
of Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) has been linked by some people to Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn
al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and Sayyid Qutb. His initial goal was to ensure the
withdrawal of Western military forces from the Middle East and the
establishment of an Islamic state that is guided by the laws of Allah. He
believed that “the only Islamic country” in the Muslim world was Afghanistan
under Mullah Omar’s Taliban. The
religious ideology of Bin Laden was labelled illegitimate by the Wahhabi’s
doctrine that only political leaders can call for jihad. Wahhabi Islam is
behind the Saudi royal family whereas Bin Laden called for the overthrow of the
Saudi government. While Bin Laden was “resisting western domination”, Wahhabism
focuses on correct methods of worshipping God, removing idols, and ensuring
adherence to Islamic law. Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia but he opposed the
Saudi government for allowing US troops to be involved in the saga of Saddam
Hussein in 1990. [1]
This perhaps may guide Nigeria to
really study the phenomenon of the current terrorism in the country. We need to
reflect on the initial ideology of Boko Haram at the beginning. What was “Halal”
(allowed) and what was “Haram” (forbidden) for the group.
If the group actually followed the Quranic injunctions, why are innocent people
(Christians and Muslims) targeted? Are we dealing with terrorists with a
religious ideology, or political ideology or tribal ideology? I think that
there is something mysterious about what is happening that we have not been
able to unravel. It is sad however, that the terrorism in Nigeria is almost
succeeding in causing a religious war in the Country with the announcement by
the Movement
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to bomb Mosques and
Muslims. Does MEND have a Christian
ideology? It is so sad that in all these killings, only helpless and innocent
people are victims yet the arguments always fall on a religious and tribal
statistics. We need to be focussed and
set our priorities right if we must find a lasting solution to the insecurity
that is ravaging us.
Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and
Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja; and Consultor of the
Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City
(comonokhua@hotmail.com).
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