Daesh Is Not Islam
This concludes the week of terror that has been unleashed by ISIS (Daesh), during which jihadists have killed 41 people at Istanbul’s main airport, 22 at a café in Bangladesh, and over 200 in market areas in Baghdad. What seems strange about these attacks is that they have all been carried out in predominantly Muslim countries. In Iraq, where two of the attacks were carried out, 97% of the population follow Islam. This goes against the general presumption that ISIS is an extremist militant group that fights in the name of Islam until you realize that this is, in fact, not the case at all.
Most people are not aware that ISIS, during its existence has killed far more Muslims than Westerners – this is a fact that appears to go unnoticed or is ignored when a tragic attack happens in a Western part of the world. In a report released in 2009 by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, however, it was revealed that of the people killed by al Qaeda (the group that the IS grew out of) between 2004 and 2008, only 12% of the victims were Westerners, meaning that al Qaeda has killed seven times as many Muslims as non-Muslims. The same is true for ISIS. In 2016 alone, ISIS has carried out 21 terror attacks, and 18 of those have been carried out in predominantly Muslim countries, such as Syria and Saudi Arabia. The fatalities for non-Muslim countries by ISIS in 2016 were 83 in comparison to the 677+ Muslims that have died at the hands of ISIS in only 7 months.
The reason for this high discrepancy between Muslims and non-Muslims is that ISIS is not about hating Westerners or submitting to Islam, as many people assume. If this was the case, they would not waste their resources or efforts on terrorist attacks close to home; they would, instead, travel more often to Western countries further afield if violence against Westerners was indeed their true motivation. They are instead of the opinion that you must either submit to ISIS or die. It has nothing to do with religion, but is entirely about brutality and inhumanity.
The attack at Prophet’s Mosque, carried out by a supposedly Islamic group, was done during the most holy and spiritual month in the Muslim calendar in the second holiest city in Islam at the resting place of the most significant figure of Islam. It would be unheard of for a group or individual who actually followed the Islamic faith to commit such an atrocity at this location and on this day, as it is of such religious importance. Instead of respecting or partaking in this religiously crucial event, ISIS have instead used it to their advantage, exploiting the increased number of people at this particularly significant mosque to ensure a larger and more fatal attack than normal. The significance of this area and of this day shows how conflicting the actions of ISIS are to the values of Islam.
ISIS is not interested in upholding the principles of Islam, despite the world’s view of them as an Islamic group or their continued assertions that they are fighting in the name of Islam. They continue to invoke Islam as a cover for their political ambitions whilst also driving a wedge between Muslims and the rest of the world. Every time an act of terror occurs in a non-Muslim area and the terrorist happens to be Muslim, there is amplified media coverage of the incident which fuels the extreme unjustified hatred towards Muslims. This is exactly what ISIS wants. The more hatred that is thrown at Muslims, the more they will feel isolated and angry and be susceptible to being recruited by ISIS for their non-religious cause.
The group wants to fuel this alienation to use it as a recruiting tool, and a good way to do this is to announce that they are fighting in the name of Islam, invoking panic and anger from society. Even without new members joining their organization, the group is still creating a world of fear and hatred where prejudice reigns supreme. This is exactly the kind of world they want to create. The only true way to stop ISIS is for the world to go against these pre-conceived notions that ISIS fight in the name of Islam and thus prevent the prejudice and hatred that is thrown at Muslims. Without this hatred, the world will no longer be divided and will no longer play into the hands of the extremist group. The only way for this to happen is for the world to understand that ISIS is not Islam.
By Toni Jones, Law Student at the University of Glasgow.
Source: Affairs Today
