Islam and Terrorism

Here is an excellent article by a Muslim denouncing terrorism. He doesn't pull his punches at all.

All of these attacks have been conducted by people who call themselves "Jihadis", this they claim is their struggle in the path of God. One cannot imagine to what extent the minds and the hearts of these people have become poisoned that in the month of Ramadan when even frowning is undesirable, they chose to murder and maim indiscriminately. The most incomprehensible aspect of these atrocities is that a vast majority of their victims are the very people on whose behalf these wars are waged!

If they want to fight and die for God, they are welcome. There are over 200,000 American soldiers, in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are there specifically to oblige them. Why not go and fight them?

These cowards, who call themselves Jihadis, run and hide from soldiers seeking to fight them and instead target helpless and unarmed civilians. They repeatedly confirm that they have no regard for social order, for law, for human life and even for the sacred injunctions from the God whose pleasure they seek through violence.

If they really wish to wage a Jihad (struggle) in this holy month of Ramadan, then their first target should be their own cowardice and the profound Jahiliyyah (ignorance) that disables them from seeing what is right and what is wrong.

I'm always encouraged by this kind of thing, because I believe that the repudiation of Islamic terrorism has to come from within Islam in order to have any effect. Of course, as he points out, since the vast majority of the people being killed and maimed by Muslim terrorists are Muslims -- and since the terrorists have not exactly demonstrated a high level of rationality -- it's doubtful that being condemned by other Muslims would have any influence on them.