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Terrorism does not have its religion
“It is a fact that there are many texts in the Qur’an speaking about war issues, but it is necessary to outline the context before the revelation of the Islamic religion in the Arabian Peninsula, in order to understand the existence of such texts”, said Dr. Arif Abdullah, Head of the Scientific Research Center (SRC) at the High Islamic Institute (HII) in the TV program of Goran Blagoev on BNT “Faith and society” on 25th of October.
According to him during 6th and 7th century the northern Arabs are in permanent inter-tribal fighting and their number according to the scientific sources was reaching 1700 in the pre-Islamic period, and some of them had continued 40 years. “In this context the Qur’an was revealed and its first ordinance is “Read”. 13 years from the first revelation it is said that those who were declared war have the right to defend themselves”, further said Dr. Abdullah. According to him the Qur’an motivates defencive actions only in case of terror, injustice and banishing of people by force from their home places. This is the Qur’anic ordinance and what we witness today, namely the declaration of war on a religious base, there is no text in the Qur’an, which motivates such actions, based on difference in the religion.
“In my deep conviction, terrorism, which doubtlessly is practiced by Islamic state (IS) does not have its religion”, said Slavcho Velkov, a security and counter-terrorism expert, also a guest of the program. According to him no cause can justify such actions, which are discrepant to the canons and the norms of any religion.
“We cannot claim that what IS does have something in common with the Qur’an. What we see in my opinion is a religiously motivated terrorism which is not carried out on behalf of the religion at all”, commented the university lecturer. According to him nowhere in the Qur’an the word jihad can be found, and even if it is found its Arabic meaning is efforts, strive in fighting the devil in the own soul, which everyone of us does. “IS is an organization which breaks all religious principles. That is why we should not connect the religion with these miscreants”, further said the security expert Slavcho Velkov.
“The methodology by which these people justify their actions is totally inaccurate. During their “sermons” the following call could be heard “I am sent with a sword as a mercy to the worlds”. This quote is formulated from a doubtful hadith and is attached to a text from the Qur’an the authentic words of which are “And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds”, explained Dr. Arif Abdullah. According to him mixing of unauthentic text with authentic one creates the wrong methodology, used by IS. The other problem is that they use descriptive information from the Qur’an, which describes a given event, which they turn into a prescriptive. Therefore from texts which are descriptive and which do not require any specific action from the believers, they extract imperatives for the believers. “This approach is not consistent with the approach, which has been approved by the Islamic scholars regarding the Qur’anic texts. The selectivity approach in understanding of the Qur’an is totally inappropriate and wrong”, further said the university lecturer Dr. Abdullah.
The whole program can be watched here: http://bnt.bg/predavanyia/vyara-i-obshhestvo/ochakvajte-vyara-i-obshtestvo-25-oktomvri-2014