The US and Other Western Governments should Desist from using the term ‘Islamist’ for the Terrorists

A terrorist has no nationality, no race and no face

After the tragic events of 9/11 the US government pointed fingers towards Osama bin Laden and his organization Al Qaeda who were squarely held responsible for these terrorist attacks. Without going into the controversy of whether or not Osama was responsible, one thing is very clear. No Muslim country has ever expressed an explicit support for Osama and his organization. As matter of fact a large number of Muslim countries have been subjected to terrorist attacks on the pretext of fighting the ‘infidels and their allies’. In these attacks carried out in the shape of suicide bombers, time bombs and improvised explosive devices (IED) countless Muslims have been killed most of whom did not even know who the infidels were. The killed ones included men, women, children, old and young, laborers, students and even the patients in the hospitals. Apart from the government and security installations the places that have been targeted include the market place, bus stands, educational institutions and even the hospitals.

These blatant killings do not have any justification. These have been equally condemned by not only the Muslim governments but also by the Muslim religious leaders. A large number of religious decrees exist that declare the suicide attacks in any form as a sinful act against the teaching of Islam. Similarly killing of innocent people belonging to any religion is severely condemned by Islam. These terrorists do not enjoy support of the masses, except for a few extremist leaders (and extremists are always there in every religion) and are always kept at a distance by the mainstream Muslims. This is one of the reasons that political parties with extremist religious concepts are never given any mandate by the electorate in a Muslim country.

Though the terrorist groups belong to different countries, races and religions, it is unfortunate that all the terrorists are now being labeled as ‘Islamists’. Rather the terms Islamist, extremists and terrorists are being used as synonyms. This trend is dangerous for the world peace. By grouping the terrorists with the general Muslim population the think tank and policy-makers in the West will do more harm rather than good to the cause of eliminating terrorism. With such an attitude the extremist elements in Muslim societies will be able to portray the West as the enemy of Islam and hence will exploit the sentiments of general population. This will make the job of the governments difficult to stem the roots of terrorism. As per the teachings of Islam, murder of one innocent person (irrespective of cast, creed or religion) is equivalent to the murder of whole humanity. So any terrorist killing even a single person is conceptually ousted from the domain of Islam. It will therefore suffice to call terrorist a terrorist, without tagging the one with a particular religion.