Islam and Terrorism

In the never ending debate of Islamic fundamentalism and its link to terrorism, some in Egypt, a notoriously fundamentalist nation, are openly debating the issue.

Even pro-government media say authorities have created a climate where young people are turning into radicals and suicide bombers... At one mosque in Cairo, some worshippers objected to prayers for the dead and missing after Saturday's bombings in Sharm el-Sheik because some victims were likely non-Muslims, said the editor of the government weekly Al-Musawwar. Another columnist pointed to a weekly column in the government Al-Ahram daily by a religious scholar, Zaghloul al-Naggar, who explains science by using the Quran. After December's tsunami in the Indian Ocean, he went on Arab television and called the devastation God's revenge on Westerners engaged in vice.

What was unusual about the self-criticism after Sharm was that it came from government media and even from within the Islamic clerical hierarchy picked by the government. "

There is no use denying... We incited the crime of Sharm el-Sheik," ran a bold red headline of a lead editorial Wednesday by Al-Musawwar's editor in chief, Abdel-Qader Shohaib. The bombers "didn't just conjure up in our midst suddenly, they are a product of a society that produces extremist fossilized minds that are easy to be controlled," Shohaib wrote.

Not all are convinced that Islam needs reform, however. Kamal Habib a former member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad militant group who was jailed from 1981 to 1991 along with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahri denounced the critics as "secular extremists who hate religion." He blamed terrorism, instead, on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's autocratic rule. "Mubarak's regime has produced this generation. This is a nihilistic generation of a nihilistic regime."

So the debate continues, but best left up to Muslims to figure out for themselves. If the West gets involved, it will only turn into "them against us" issue instead of figuring out the root of the problem.

[Update 7/29/05]

In an effort to clampdown on extremism, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says all foreign students at madrassas, or religious schools, some 1,400 pupils, must leave the country. "Any [foreigners] in the madrassas - even dual nationality holders - will leave Pakistan," Gen Musharraf said... "We will not allow madrassas to be misused for extremism, hatred being projected in our society." An extreme way to deal with an extreme situation.