Responding
to the Qur'an burning day planned by a Christian sect in
America on the upcoming 11th September, the Islamic Ummah must
react of course. Especially that the idea of that burning
contains a message where the essence is that the Qur'an is the
source of terrorism and that jihad is the same as terrorism.This writing tries to explain that this idea is a symptom of defeat on the Western intellectuals. In frustration, the West is blaming the Qur'an as the source of terrorism. Whereas, the tyrannical behavior of America on humanity, particularly the Islamic Ummah is the one which sparked the birth of terrorist actions all over the world. Due to that, America must stop her cruelties if she wants to break the chains of terrorism.
QUR’AN AND TERROR
What is being planned by Pastor Terry Jones on the upcoming 9th anniversary of the WTC collapse on 11th September, is a naivety with a logic that is too simplistic. According to him, the terrorists were inspired by the Qur’an, therefore the holy book of the Islamic Ummah must be burned. Is it as simple as that in order to break off the chains of terrorism?
It is clear that what he meant by “inspiration of terrorism” are the verses that talk about jihad. Here is the real message from the idea of burning the Qur’an: an ideological attack by equating jihad with terrorism, a classic stigmatization, actually.
It is this attack on the ideology that needs answers more than the burning of the Qur’an itself. Because, if the public accepts this understanding, that jihad is terrorism, then it can be exaggeratedly said that the burning of the Qur’an becomes plausible in the eyes of the public.
Only that, from a different angle, it is clear that the counter-opinions on the stigmatization will become empty because it is aimed at such frustrated faction in the likes of Terry Jones and company. Normally, the West or its agents in ideology, do not say outright in a naked way that jihad is terrorism. In a subtle way, there exists in the propaganda intended to extinguish the will of jihad from the minds of the Islamic Ummah, an intangible notion that Islam is a religion which is moderate, peace-loving and etc. Next, jihad will be narrowed down to only mean “to exert a great effort”, “to battle against the carnal desires” and so on.
In its existence like this, the West is still inside the realm of intellectual war with Islam. However, this idea of burning the Qur’an has contributed a great leap backward from that war: the West is defeated intellectually and finally in frustration, they right away blame the Qur’an. Shifting from the position of wanting to soften Islam and divorce the “radical Islam” from the “mainstream Islam” just as how the West normally propagandize, this idea of a senior pastor in Florida precisely wants to declare that Islam, as a religion, is indeed a religion of violence (an extremist right wing Christian who supports this idea said that he is supporting the measure taken by the pastor in order to “put an end to the idea that Islam is a peace-loving religion... Islam is precisely a violent culture with the aim to dominate the world”).
Therefore, this idea reflects a fear on the one hand and impudence on the other side. It is clear that the September 11 incident — regardless of who the real perpetrators are — is only an excuse for them to expose a real and greater fear of Islam. The rapid growth of Islamic adherents in the West, in fact even the teachings of Islam itself as a civilization, are the factors of fear (terror) in the Western society which is shadowed by moral decline.
Certainly, the Islamic Ummah does not need to be excessive in defending themselves from this stigma of terrorism, because our interpretation of terrorism does not connect with their interpretation of terrorism. Jihad, domination of Islam on the world, are surely teachings which are inherent in our religion (see QS As-Shaff : 9).