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Videos of Lectures and Debates [Dr. Zakir Naik]: Is Terrorism A Muslim Monopoly?

About the Video: This event took place in Mumbai in front of a jam packed crowd, at the Shanmukhananda auditorium on 11th Sept 2006. Dr. Zakir Naik also gave a similar lecture at Jeddah in the last week of September, 2006.
Dr. Zakir Naik said that historic records proved that a large number of terrorist acts in the 20th and 21st century were committed by non-Muslims. The so-called global phenomenon of "Islamic terrorism/militant Islam" was a creation of the western governments and their media outlets, he said.

"Politics lies at the heart of labeling Muslims across the globe as perpetrators of terror acts, " he added.

Dr. Zakir, who is one of the Muslim world's leading and most prolific speakers, quoted from the scriptures of other religions and proved that associating killing with Islam is incorrect.

"It says in the Book of Numbers that whoever worships other than God should be killed, " he said, referring to the Bible, yet such militant verses were conveniently ignored by the Western media.

"In every religion there are black sheep and the media keep putting these people forward. This is a media conspiracy and a way of pushing people away from Islam." he added.
Dr. Zakir Naik said, "No religion encourages terrorist acts or violence. The word 'Islam' itself means 'Peace, obtained by submitting yourself to the Almighty'. Anyone, be it Muslim or non-Muslim, who kills an innocent Muslim or a non-Muslim, kills the entire humanity. However, Islam goes a step further to say that if one saves innocent lives, the whole of humanity is saved. Injustice is the root cause of terrorism..."

He continued, "Palestinians are called terrorists just because they are fighting to get their land back." By citing examples of LTTE (in Sri Lanka), IRA (in UK), Lord's Salvation Army, which trains the young children to conduct terrorist attacks, and many other non-Muslim terrorist outfits he further said that, the lives claimed by these outfits are more than the ones by the Muslim terrorists.

Dr. Zakir said Naxalites/Maoists across India and the LTTE in Sri Lanka were non- Muslim terror organisations, which had had developed pan regional bases beyond national boundaries. Other such non-Muslim terror outfits included the United Liberation Front of Asom, National Democratic Front of Bodoland and All Tripura Tiger Force in the Northeast, Naik noted.

Drawing on international examples, Dr. Zakir said that the Japanese Red Army, Lord's Salvation Army and the ETA in Spain were also non-Islamic in character and composition.

"So nothing is more removed from truth as to suggest that Muslims have monopolized terrorism, " said Dr. Naik. He said the Irish Republican Army, which was considered to be terrorist group, has a history of 100 years of violence against the British, but the British government doesn't seem to be scared about them as they are about radical Islamic groups.

Besides, he also mentioned, "Even a single killing by a Muslim is condemned by Islam, whatsoever the reasons."

On the Media, Judiciary and Politicians:

Dr. Zakir appreciated the Indian media for being unbiased and upright while reporting the communal riots. He further expressed that it is the plot of the Western media to destroy Muslims.

He also said that the media controlled by the political authorities is biased and does not portray the truth or reality. He stated, "Islam does not justify using wrong means to reach the right goals. People should not take the law in their hands."

"India has seen maximum number of communal riots in recent years. Politicians have been using the 'Divide and Rule Policy' to secure their vote banks. However, the masses should not get instigated by them. Terrorism is a monopoly of politicians. People, regardless of their religion, wish to live harmonious lives, but politicians feed the feeling of hatred amongst them, " he opined while speaking about the role of politicians in the society today.
We should learn how to turn the tables and convey the real meaning, " said Dr. Zakir, while calling on Muslims to dispel the media's vilifying of Muslims and the importance of having Muslim television channels and newspapers.

Terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly!

    SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR

''All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.'' This comment, frequently heard after the Mumbai bomb blasts implies that terrorism is a Muslim specialty, if not a monopoly. The facts are very different. 

[ALL CHRISTIAN PEOPLE ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE (TERRORISTS), BUT ALL CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MOST DEATHS WORLWIDE CAUSED BY DROPPING THE BIGGEST (ATOM) BOMBS IN THEIR ARSENALS].

In fact, based on the history of mankind during the last few thousand years,    the Christians are the biggest TERRORISTS in the world so far.

    First, there is nothing new about terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed             the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed       US President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy. World War I      started in 1914 whenanarchists killed Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.                       These TERRORIST attacks were not Muslim. 

    Terrorism is generally defined as the killing of civilians for political reasons. Going by this definition, the British Raj referred toBhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and many other Indian freedom fighters as TERRORISTS. These were Hindu and Sikh rather than Muslim. 

    Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too were called TERRORISTS until they triumphed. Nothing Muslim about them. 

    In Palestine, after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and installations and killing civilians. The British, who then governed Palestine, rightly called these Jewish groups TERRORISTS. Many of these TERRORISTS later became leaders of independent Israel - Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former TERRORISTS then lambasted terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier.

  In Germany in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the head of Treuhand, the German privatization agency. In Italy, the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime minister. 

    

The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this. Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995. 

    In Europe, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has been a Catholic TERRORIST organization for almost a century. Spain and France face a TERRORIST challenge from ETA, the Basque TERRORIST organization. 

     Africa is ravaged by so much civil war and internal strife that few people even bother to check which groups can be labeled TERRORIST. They stretch across the continent. Possibly the most notorious is the Lord's Salvation Army in Uganda, a Christian outfit that uses children as warriors. 

    In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have long constituted one of the most vicious and formidable TERRORIST groups in the world. They were the first to train children as TERRORISTS. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide bombing is widely associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis, but the Tamil Tigers were the first to use this tactic on a large scale. One such suicide bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. 

    In India, the militants in Kashmir are Muslim. But they are only one of several militant groups. The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu TERRORIST group that targets Muslims rather than the other way round. Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall of several TERRORIST groups, and so have Bodo strongholds in Assam. Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades, and Christian Nagas are still heading militant groups. 

    But most important of all are the Maoist TERRORIST groups that now exist   in no less than 150 out of India’s 600 districts. They have attacked police stations, and killed and razed entire villages that oppose them. These are secular TERRORISTS (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular TERRORISTS are far ahead of Muslim TERRORISTS. 

 In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly.

There are or have been TERRORIST groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular TERRORISTS (Anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.    

 Why then is there such a widespread impression that most or all TERRORIST groups are Muslim? I see two reasons. First, the Indian elite keenly follow the western media, and the West feels under attack from Islamic groups. Catholic Irish TERRORISTS have killed far more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the subway bombings in London and Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA and Red Brigades no longer pose much of      a threat, but after 9/11 Americans and Europeans fear that they could be hit anywhere anytime. So they focus attention on Islamic militancy. They pay little notice to other forms of terrorism in Africa, Sri Lanka or India: these pose no threat to the West. 

    Within India, Maoists pose a far greater threat than Muslim militants in         150 districts, one-third of India’s area. But major cities feel threatened only         by Muslim groups. So the national elite and media focus overwhelmingly on Muslim terrorism. The elite are hardly aware that this is an elite phenomenon.

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