Islamic terrorism

== Refutations, criticisms and explanations for decline ==
=== Refuting Islamic terrorism ===

Along with explaining Islamic terrorism, many observers have attempted to point out their inconsistencies and the flaws in their arguments, often suggesting means of de-motivating potential terrorists.

[[Princeton University]] Middle Eastern scholar [[Bernard Lewis]] argues that although bin Laden and other radical Islamists claim they are fighting to restore [[shariah]] law to the Muslim world, their attacks on civilians violate the classical form of that [[Islamic jurisprudence]]. The "classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered [jihad] the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations".<ref>Lewis, Bernard, 'Islam: The Religion and the People' (2009). pp. 53, 145–50</ref> In regard to the [[September 11 attacks]] Lewis noted,

{{blockquote|Being a religious obligation, jihad is elaborately regulated in sharia law, which discusses in minute detail such matters as the opening, conduct, interruption and cessation of hostilities, the treatment of prisoners and noncombatants, the use of weapons, etc.<ref>Bukhari 50:891</ref> Similarly, the laws of Jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter.<ref>Quran (8:12)</ref> The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm non-combatants, women and children, "unless they attack you first". ... A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce. What the classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New York two weeks ago. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam.<ref>{{cite web|author=Bernard Lewis |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1001547201928681240 |title=Jihad vs. Crusade |publisher=Opinionjournal.com |date=September 27, 2001 |access-date=August 4, 2016}}</ref>}}

Similarly, [[Timothy Winter]] writes that the proclamations of bin Laden and [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] "ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship", and that if they "followed the norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no school of mainstream Islam allows the targeting of civilians."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.islamfortoday.com/murad04.htm|title=Abdal-Hakim Murad, Bin Laden's Violence is a Heresy Against Islam|publisher=Islamfortoday.com|access-date=25 April 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100103130922/http://islamfortoday.com/murad04.htm|archive-date=3 January 2010}}</ref>

Researcher Donald Holbrook notes that while many jihadists quote the beginning of the famous sword verse (or [[ayah]]):
*But when these months, prohibited (for fighting), are over, slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every likely place. ...
... they fail to quote and discuss limiting factors that follow,
*".... But if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligations and pay the zakat, then let them go their way, for God is forgiving and kind."
showing how they are (Holbrook argues) "shamelessly selective in order to serve their propaganda objectives."<ref name=holbrook1 />

The scholarly credentials of the ideologues of extremism are also "questionable".<ref name="eikmeier" /> Dale C. Eikmeier notes

{{blockquote|With the exception of [[Abul Ala Maududi]] and [[Abdullah Yusuf Azzam]], none of Qutbism's main theoreticians trained at Islam's recognized centers of learning. Although a devout Muslim, [[Hassan al-Banna]] was a teacher and community activist. [[Sayyid Qutb]] was a literary critic. [[Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag]] was an electrician. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician. Osama bin Laden trained to be a businessman.<ref name="eikmeier">{{cite journal|last=Eikmeier|first=Dale C.|date=Spring 2007|title=Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism|url=http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/07spring/eikmeier.htm|journal=[[Parameters (journal)|Parameters]]|volume=XXXVII|issue=1|pages=85–98|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609120804/http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/07spring/eikmeier.htm|archive-date=June 9, 2007}}</ref>}}

[[Michael Sells]] and Jane I. Smith (a professor of Islamic Studies) write that barring some extremists like [[al-Qaeda]], most Muslims do not interpret Qur'anic verses as promoting warfare today but rather as reflecting historical contexts.<ref name="Sells">{{cite news|author=Sells|first=Michael|date=8 August 2002|title=Understanding, Not Indoctrination|newspaper=The Washington Post|publisher=[[Internet Archive]]|url=https://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/msells.htm|access-date=21 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021027032139/https://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/msells.htm|archive-date=27 October 2002}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia | author=Jane I. Smith | title=Islam and Christianity | encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Christianity | publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 | isbn=978-0-19-522393-4}}</ref> According to Sells, most Muslims "no more expect to apply" the verses at issue "to their contemporary non-Muslim friends and neighbors than most Christians and Jews consider themselves commanded by God, like the Biblical [[Joshua]], to exterminate the [[infidel]]s."<ref name="Sells" />

In his book ''[[No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam]]'', [[Iranian-American]] academic [[Reza Aslan]] argues that there is an internal battle currently taking place within Islam between [[individualism|individualistic]] reform ideals and the [[ulama|traditional authority of Muslim clerics]].<ref name="david">{{cite journal|last=Shasha|first=David|date=January 2002|title=No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SBL/is_1-2_19/ai_n15340018/|url-status=dead|journal=International Journal of Kurdish Studies|publisher=[[Internet Archive]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090611021728/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SBL/is_1-2_19/ai_n15340018/|archive-date=11 June 2009|access-date=21 January 2022}}</ref>  The struggle is similar to that of the 16th-century [[Protestant Reformation|reformation]] in [[Christianity]], and in fact is happening when the religion of Islam is as "old" as Christianity was at the time of its reformation.<ref name=stan>[http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/2006/pr-aslan-102506.html Author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam to speak on campus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070724073511/http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/2006/pr-aslan-102506.html |date=24 July 2007 }}. [[Stanford University|Stanford University press release]]. Published 20 October 2006. Retrieved 7 May 2009.</ref> Aslan argues that "the notion that historical context should play no role in the interpretation of the Koran—that what applied to Muhammad's community applies to all Muslim communities for all time—is simply an untenable position in every sense."<ref name=times>[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/books/review/29RODENBE.html 'No god but God': The War Within Islam (Book Review)] |By Max Rodenbeck| nytimes.com| 29 May 2005</ref>
<!--Beginning with the 7th-century AD [[Arab]] [[Muslim conquests|era of Muslim conquests]], and continuing on until the 21st-century resurgence of Muslim violence on non-Muslims in the name of "[[Jihad]]", many have debated whether Islam was fundamentally a religion of peace,<ref>{{cite web|author=President and Founder of the Christian Apologetic and Research Ministry, Matt Slick |url=http://carm.org/religious-movements/islam/islam-religion-peace-and-terrorism |title=Islam, the religion of peace, and terrorism|work=carm.org}}</ref> of violence, or perhaps of some combination of the two.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Political Language of Islam |last=Lewis |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Lewis |year=1988 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-226-47692-8 |page=72}} Cf. {{cite book |last1=Watt |first1=William M. |editor1-first=Thomas P. |editor1-last=Murphy |title=The Holy War |year=1976 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |isbn=978-0-8142-0245-6 |page=143 |chapter=Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War}}</ref>-->

Despite their proclaimed devotion to the virtue of Sharia law, Jihadists have not always avoided association with the pornography of the despised West. ''[[The Times]]'' (London) newspaper has pointed out that  Jihadists were discovered by one source to have sought anonymity through some of the same dark networks used to distribute [[child pornography]]—quite ironic given their proclaimed [[piety]].<ref name="Times">{{Cite web|date=2 June 2010|title=Dangerous and depraved: paedophiles unite with terrorists online – Times Online|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4958674.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100602180448/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4958674.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=2 June 2010|access-date=21 January 2022}}</ref> Similarly, [[Reuters]] news agency reported that pornography was found among the materials seized from [[Death of Osama bin Laden|Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound that was raided by U.S. Navy SEALs]].<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-binladen-porn-idUSTRE74C4RK20110513 Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151127161638/http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-binladen-porn-idUSTRE74C4RK20110513 |date=27 November 2015 }}, "Reuters",  13 May 2011</ref>

;Takfir
Despite the fact that a founding principle of modern violent jihad is the defense of Islam and Muslims, most victims of attacks by Islamic terrorism ("the vast majority" according to one source—J.J. Goldberg)<ref name="Goldberg-9-11-2017">{{cite news |last1=Goldberg |first1=J.J. |title=The Islam-Terrorism Connection — It's Not What You Think |url=https://forward.com/opinion/387326/the-islam-terrorism-connection-its-not-what-you-think/ |access-date=17 August 2019 |agency=Forward |date=9 November 2017}}</ref> are self-proclaimed Muslims.  Many if not all Salafi-Jihadi groups practice [[takfir]]—i.e. proclaim that some self-proclaimed Muslims (especially government officials and security personnel) are actually apostates deserving of death.

Furthermore, the more learned salafi-jihadi thinkers and leaders are (and were), the more reluctance they are/were to embrace [[takfir]] (according to a study by Shane Drennan).<ref name="DRENNAN-2008" /> The late [[Abdullah Yusuf Azzam]], "the godfather of the Afghan jihad", for example, was an Islamic scholar and university professor who avoided takfir and preached unity in the [[ummah]] (Muslim community). The Islamic education of Al-Qaeda's number two leader, [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]], was early and much more informal—he was not a trained scholar—and al-Zawahiri expanded the definition of kafir to include many self-proclaimed Muslims. He has maintained that civilian government employees of Muslim states, security forces and any persons collaborating or engaging with these groups are apostates, for example.<ref name="DRENNAN-2008" />

Two extreme takfiris -- [[Abu Musab al-Zarqawi]], a Sunni jihadist leader in Iraq, and [[Djamel Zitouni]], leader of the Algerian [[Armed Islamic Group of Algeria]] (GIA) during the Algerian civil war—had even broader definitions of apostasy and less religious knowledge. Al-Zarqawi was a petty criminal who had no religious training until he was 22 and limited training thereafter. Famous for bombing targets other jihadis thought off limits,<ref name="Cambanis-3-10-15">{{cite news|last1=Cambanis|first1=Thanassis|title=Book Review. 'Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS' by Joby Warrick|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2015/10/03/book-review-black-flags-the-rise-isis-joby-warrick/PkvOQIXpSqCssZ5tdqH5pJ/story.html|access-date=29 October 2015|work=[[The Boston Globe]]|date=3 October 2015}}</ref> his definition of apostates included all Shia Muslims and "anyone violating his organization's interpretation of Shari'a".<ref name="DRENNAN-2008" /> [[Djamel Zitouni]] was the son of a chicken farmer with little Islamic education. He famously expanded the GIA's definition of apostate until he concluded the whole of Algerian society outside of the GIA "had left Islam".  His attacks led to the deaths of thousands of Algerian civilians.<ref name="DRENNAN-2008">{{cite journal |last1=DRENNAN |first1=SHANE |title=Constructing Takfir |journal=Combating Terrorism Center |date=June 2008 |volume=1 |issue=7 |url=https://ctc.usma.edu/constructing-takfir-from-abdullah-azzam-to-djamel-zitouni/ |access-date=13 August 2019 |archive-date=12 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812175049/https://ctc.usma.edu/constructing-takfir-from-abdullah-azzam-to-djamel-zitouni/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

;De-radicalization
Evidence that more religious training may lead to less extremism has been found in Egypt. That country's largest radical Islamic group, [[al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya]] — which killed at least 796 Egyptian policemen and soldiers from 1992 to 1998 — renounced bloodshed in 2003 in a deal with the Egyptian government where  a series of high-ranking members were released (as of 2009 "the group has perpetrated no new terrorist acts").  A second group [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]] made a similar agreement in 2007. Preceding the agreements was program where Muslim scholars debated with imprisoned group leaders arguing that true Islam did not support terrorism.<ref name="DeAngelis-2009">{{cite journal |last1=DeAngelis |first1=Tori |title=Understanding terrorism |journal=Monitor on Psychology |date=November 2009 |volume=40 |issue=10 |url=https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/11/terrorism |access-date=31 August 2019}}</ref>