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Islam, Is It A Violent Oriented Religion?

Bismillah
Praise be to Allah Who Created Heavens and Earths, Who Created the universe, King of the Kings, and prayer and peace be upon our leader, teacher, and final Messenger of Allah Mohamed, his household and all Prophets and Messengers. I seek Allah's Close guidance and assistance to Inspire me with the correct wordings.
Please note that I m not a scholar or near one, I m not but a humble Muslim who is striving to understand the Quran and Sunnah correctly.

To start with, I m not here to examine the reasons of how violence erupted from Muslims or compare between Muslims who resort to violence as first option versus other violent sources around the world. Nor I m going to examine how the surrounding environment affected Muslims" behaviour. Because as such I will be talking about the attitude and behaviour of around 1.6 billion around the world which would certainly differ from one person to another.

But I d rather like to discuss and see whether or not Islam is a violence oriented religion. And let me make a note here to use the word violence oriented rather than adopting or fostering terrorism. The reason will be explained later Insh a Allah.

To do this, I will divide this piece into 3 points:
1. Islam is a system of life.
2. Rule of Ta`zeer.
3. Fighting /struggling in the name of Allah (Qital/jihad).

1. Islam is a system of life:
It is a system of life, a comprehensive one that includes the given regulation for any aspect as needed. I mean it regulates the interrelation with Muslims, non Muslims, parents, sisters and brothers, next of kin, neighbors, co workers, in peace and in war.
It even covers mannerism in terms of who to visit and eat with and when such as in:

2. Rule of Ta`zeer:
Being a system of life that sets rules of even our mannerism, it must ensure as well the safety and security aspects either on the individual or state level.

To this effect, for the safety on the individual level, Islam sets the punishment for each and every possible crime that may be committed by mankind against each other. Note that in Islam, punishments are apparent and must be carried out in public. The whole idea is to deter others from following footsteps of the evil. Islam, being the only accepted and ordained religion from Allah, the Creator Who Created everything and everyone, deals with mankind taking in consideration that mankind carries between his/her ribs good and evil. Our task as human beings is to suppress the evil while foster and let good grow. In some cases mankind fails to do so, thus, in order to live in a stable society, we need an outsider factor that disciplines this evil and puts it to a halt in a serious manner.

According to the statements usually coming from the media, they labele any Muslim who resorts to violence as a terrorist (as far as I understand theyparticularly refer to Muslims carrying out violent operations against or in non Muslim countries). They even go farther in portraying Islam as a violence breeding religion.

In this, they base their argument on a number of Ayahs. According to them, violence is part and parcel of the Islamic teachings that no one can escape, since such Ayahs are taught at a very young age.

The Ayah is as follows are:

If you carefully look at this Ayah, it does not specify who are those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, I mean it does not specifically define them as non believers, but rather any one who wages war against Allah and His Messenger which in such case will cover a Muslim who commits this type of a crime.

The above mentioned Ayah, didn't specify actually which type of crime will make the perpetuator eligible for this punishment. Not that Allah Forgot to Do so, or that Allah Is not specific or that Quran is inaccurate. No but rather Allah by virtue of this Ayah granted a ruler the authority in crimes which are not clearly defined in Quran to choose from among such options of punishments as mentioned in the Ayah and enforce them. For instance, rape cases will be addressed through this rule which is called in Islamic law (Shari`a) as Ta`zeer. What I want to underline here, is that only the ruler is allowed by virtue of this Ayah to carry out the punishment. In a perfect example of an Islamic state, only the ruler is allowed after a fair trial that proves the individual guilty. As soon as this is decided, the ruler carries out the punishment and not any common individual. A ruler may see how grave the rapist situation is and apply the appropriate option. Other kinds of crimes would include fraud, blackmailing, embezzlement, abuse of power and administrative corruption on the state level.

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Religion Oriented Violent It Islam

I have a question. It says that those who wage war against Allah and his followers will be dealt with. I take this to mean those who follow islam and attack their own peoples. Can you clarify what your religion says about the no believers. I have heard that it says you can kill them for their non belief. Is there any truth to this?

Islam, Is It A Violent Oriented Religion? Islam Studies

Name: Maha

Comments: Just exactly as the state law regulates punishments of crimes and other aspects of life, such as murder, theft, financial conflicts, traffic fines and so forth. Can you say about states that apply electric chair penalty that the state succeeds in bringing up violent citizens? Can you describe the state as being a terrorist oriented one for setting serious and harsh penalties on serial killers for example?

Take an example on even a smaller scale, can you say that all staff members of a given institution strictly adhere to the internal by law and regulations? Of course not, that is why both internal by law and regulations contain varied punishments that escalate in an adequate manner according to the degree of violation.

Such penalties are there to secure a stable and safe place for all to live in.
Let me now elaborate on this issue. Islam, in some cases, either by mistake or out of emotional reaction, is introduced by Muslims as a synonym of peace specially when any violent event that is pinned on Muslims takes place.
In my effort, I prefer not to take the approach of saying others do this and thus why cann't we do it. This does not explain but rather confirms the allegations.

When those who attack Islam and describe it as being a violence oriented religion, they miss other details that must never be ignored, such as Allah Say Commanding His Messenger:

. This Ayah in particular came after a set of other Ayahs regulating the fight against those who didn't believe in Arabia at that time. The set of Ayahs ended with a clear command to grant those who don't declare war against Muslims or breach their agreements with them, the right to a safe escort when they needed it.

By the way, inviting for the way of Allah is not only restricted on non Muslims, but it primarily involves Muslims when we must remind each other in cases of failure to comply with Islamic teachings some how or the other. There is an Ayah that regulates this meaning saying

.

For Muslims to fit the description given by Allah as the best people, we must enjoin good and forbid evil. But this does not mean doing so with non Muslims in a violent manner.

In cases of verbal or any other type of conflict, Allah Commands us to just ignore like in this Ayah:

. Take an in depth look at this Ayah, you will see how comprehensively it covered the best mannerism in dealing with the opponents. Why did those who criticise Islam ignore this Ayah? This is a fundamental rule in Islam. The underlined word (light blue font) in Arabic has more than one meaning, it is a command to the Messenger salla Allah a`lyhee wa sallam as well as the followers to always choose the easy way of doing things (everything commercial transactions ..etc), it also calls for forgiving others, in addition to spending extra. While the other green colored part in Arabic say command with what is established, which means call others to follow what is established in Muslim societies of principles and traditions, such as the difference between marriage and committing illegal sexual relation (zina) and last a command to turn away from foolish. The translation here is not actually accurate. The Arabic word say from the ignorant. Allah here sets the rule of not to argue with the ignorants. Ignorants are not those who have no knowledge, but rather those who have knowledge but distorted one and insist on spreading it. We are to turn away from them, not to argue or discuss with them.

This is how we are commanded to handle situations. Why do they ignore this?

3. Fighting /struggling in the name of Allah (Qital/jihad):
As for the other violent incidents taking place in the Muslim world,
each self bombing operation has its own given circumstances and thus religious ruling. For example what is permissible in Palestine is not Halal in Egypt and so forth.

To cover this area, let us first start by why at the beginning I mentioned the use of violence instead of terrorism.

There is an Ayah in Quran that Says:

The underlined word in this Ayah in the Arabic text is turheboun, the word turheboun is derived from erhab which is terrorism. The Ayah says prepare every possible means to instill terror in the heart of who? The enemy, the Ayah is so clear in setting the conditions of why and against whom we should prepare ourselves (as part of the comprehensive system as mentioned before and in an effort to attain state security, why are Muslims denied this right?). I cann't for example by virtue of this Ayah ride a tank and decide to take position on the corner of your block instilling terror in your and your neighbors" hearts just like that. The Ayah encourages Muslims not to fall short of means of self defense including to instill terror in the other side's heart. The factor of causing disturbance and confusion in the enemy's lines is an important military tactic as you probably know.

Having said that, we must then move to the difference between fighting (Qital) and struggle in the cause of Allah (jihad).

Just to give an example in an effort not to really prolong the post, look at the next Ayahs:

These are the Ayahs regulating the action of Qital, we should not initiate qital except when we are attacked, we should only fight those who fight us, and not to transgress, we are commanded to immediately stop if they stop. I don't think I need to really repeat the contents. How can such teachings be interpreted into violence oriented?

Look at the coming one:

With all due respect to the translator and his effort, but the word jihad is not used in the Arabic.
The Arabic goes like this:" Kutiba `alaykumu al-Qitālu wa Huwa Kurhun lakum" so you can see that the word is Qital and not Jihad. Much difference.
Let us see how Jihad is mentioned in Quran

Note how Allah Puts first the struggle with wealth before lives. Jihad here is an act that contains many deeds including Qital. Qital is one item of Jihad. Jihad can be performed with money, self (which is either Qital in a battle field or to struggle against oneself in order to refrain from Haram and follow what is Halal in every possible situation), Jihad is how to put Allah First before oneself, is how to refrain oneself from following its desires.

Alhamdulelah Who Guided us to this and if it was not for Allah we wouldn't have been guided. I invoke upon Allah to Accept my humble effort strictly to Allah, Forgive my shortcomings in case I failed to properly introduce a point, and Increase my knowledge ameen.

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