Dr. Zakir Naik – Is Terrorism a Muslim Monopoly?
“In every religion there are black sheep and the media keep putting these people forward. This is a media conspiracy and a way of pushing people away from Islam.” he added.
Dr. Zakir Naik said, “No religion encourages terrorist acts or violence. The word ‘Islam’ itself means ‘Peace, obtained by submitting yourself to the Almighty’. Anyone, be it Muslim or non-Muslim, who kills an innocent Muslim or a non-Muslim, kills the entire humanity. However, Islam goes a step further to say that if one saves innocent lives, the whole of humanity is saved. Injustice is the root cause of terrorism…”
He continued, “Palestinians are called terrorists just because they are fighting to get their land back.” By citing examples of LTTE (in Sri Lanka), IRA (in UK), Lord’s Salvation Army, which trains the young children to conduct terrorist attacks, and many other non-Muslim terrorist outfits he further said that, the lives claimed by these outfits are more than the ones by the Muslim terrorists.
Dr. Zakir said Naxalites/Maoists across India and the LTTE in Sri Lanka were non- Muslim terror organisations, which had had developed pan regional bases beyond national boundaries. Other such non-Muslim terror outfits included the United Liberation Front of Asom, National Democratic Front of Bodoland and All Tripura Tiger Force in the Northeast, Naik noted.
Drawing on international examples, Dr. Zakir said that the Japanese Red Army, Lord’s Salvation Army and the ETA in Spain were also non-Islamic in character and composition.
“So nothing is more removed from truth as to suggest that Muslims have monopolized terrorism,” said Dr. Naik. He said the Irish Republican Army, which was considered to be terrorist group, has a history of 100 years of violence against the British, but the British government doesn’t seem to be scared about them as they are about radical Islamic groups.