Islam Denounces Terrorism: Foreword to New Edition

This book was written right after the 9/11 attacks that were staged in the two big cities of the United States of America in 2001 and it was explained with verses from the Qur'an, the practices of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and examples from Islamic history that Islam denounces terrorism and that it is a religion of love and peace. However, terrorist attacks continued after 9/11, and spread to other countries including Great Britain, Spain, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and France. This prompted politicians, academicians, religious leaders, writers and all conscientious people all around the world, to look for solutions to terrorism, to understand its causes and to work out the steps that should be taken.

When this book was first written in 2002, it explained with evidence that terrorists, and most importantly their leaders, are selfish, cruel and merciless people who, as a result of Darwinist and materialist education they received, see life as a constant struggle where only the fittest survive. Such people came to believe that violence and wars were justified means to their ends. Al Qaeda was very active at that time. Since then, many other new terrorist organisations have emerged and they have used similar Islamic symbolism in their own ways in their attacks against civilians.

If one is looking for the cause of an act of terrorism, one must look for its source in antireligious ideologies. Religion enjoins love, compassion, forgiveness, peace and living according to high moral standards.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is on the side of cruelty and violence, causing pain, bloodshed and committing murder.

These groups are getting stronger with new recruits joining them from all around the world. This forces political, academic, and religious leaders to try to understand real Islam and determine ways to end terrorism with solutions from within the Islamic world. The Charlie Hebdo attack in France, the Christmas market attack in Germany, and almost daily acts of terrorism in countries such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have shown that the Islamic world needs to focus on this issue with caution and urgency. And a brief examination will reveal that at the root of the problem lies the fact that the groups supposedly acting on behalf of Islam do not base their action on the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but a bigoted and paganistic religion, which emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and is essentially a far cry from Islam.

This deeply flawed understanding is diametrically opposed to Islam, which is a religion that favours peace over war, life over death, forgiveness over punishment, and reconciliation over conflict. The fact that their ID cards indicate "Islam" as their religion or that they have Muslim names does not prove that these individuals act in the name of Islam. This radical mentality which allegedly legitimizes violence against non-Muslims, and even against Muslims if they have different views or if they don't practice Islam or if they follow a different sect, is a grave spiritual problem of the world today. In this expanded edition of the book, we have included the sources of terrorism that result from this bigoted view of religion and how it needs to be countered intellectually. We hope that it will help those who seek solutions by force come to realize that twisted philosophical and religious interpretations cannot be ended with mere military means. What needs to be done is not to eliminate the people with this mentality, but to wipe these distorted ideas from their minds. And hopefully the money currently being squandered on weapons will be spent on education instead and they will join forces with illuminated, modern, loving and sensible Muslims.