M. Bitar, R. Mansour:
The phenomenon of terrorism, based on a specific intellectual pattern called “extremism,” is spreading mainly in countries that adopt religious law in their civil laws and among Muslim communities, especially in Western countries. This characteristic manifests itself mainly in the youth stage, especially after the end of the fragile, anxious, and searching adolescent stage, searching for the essence of the life he wants for himself and his fellow believers.The spread of extremism is known to be high among the poor, although there is no study that proves that an extremist or terrorist is necessarily poor, Not every poor person is a terrorist, and the perception or feeling of poverty does not necessarily mean that the person who perceives it is actually poor! There are those who feel poor even though they are not poor, The association of Salafism or fundamentalism with extremism or terrorism, as a product of extremism, is an undeniable fact. Moreover, the relationship of extremism and terrorism to certain intellectual sources such as Wahhabism, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Ghazali, and others is beyond doubt, There is also no doubt that there is a relationship between the concept of monotheism and terrorism and extremism.
Unification has the goal of purifying religion from impurities and achieving absolute harmony among believers, and a political goal represented by spreading the rule of God and His Messenger, Both require, in most cases, the practice of violence in its terrorist form. In addition, there is the involvement of other concepts such as loyalty and disavowal and the best nation in producing terrorist extremism, Loyalty and disavowal are exclusionary-inclusionary, and with it, the exclusionary practically dominates the inclusion clearly, and thus hostility towards the other dominates the inclusion of the other, The concept of the best nation is no less than the concept of loyalty and disavowal in disrupting human relations between people. Here, loyalty and disavowal leads to harboring hatred, hostility, rejection, and exclusion towards the other without moral justification, The other does not implicitly accept the believers’ classification of themselves as superior as the best nation, but the other practically does not care about that nonsense classification.
As for the principle of validity for all times and places and the rejection by fundamentalist Salafism of confining religion and the verses of the Book to a specific historical context, it has formed a confirmed source of terrorist extremism, Salafism considers confining religion and its rulings to the limitations of the historical context as nothing but removing religion and its rulings from their eternal validity, Herein lies the flaw that leads to crisis and tension and ultimately to terrorism, Likewise, the concept of the abode of Islam and the abode of disbelief creates dissonance with the other, which develops into a crisis of relations with the other and thus ultimately resorting to the sword and knife to settle the matter and subdue the other.
In addition to all that, there is the concept of the “superior” Muslim, which represents the most logical mechanism in the process of distributing roles related to the extremist carrying out the terrorist act, The terrorist act is the result of the “perpetrator” of the operation combining with the “intellectual background” that represents the real actor of the terrorist operation, The real actor practices double terrorism; he somehow terrorizes the perpetrator of the operation and turns him into a victim alongside the other victims of the operation.
Why do some young people adopt extremist terrorist practices? There are many approaches that can perpetuate extremism and terrorism, such as the approach of terrorism with the low social status of some, which is considered a very important factor with regard to the concept of the supreme Muslim, The group rehabilitates the low and deteriorating socially, by providing him with the badge of the supreme Muslim, Often this deteriorating socially is a drug or alcohol addict or a former prisoner due to crime or assault on others, Providing him with the badge represents compensation for his shortcomings, and on the other hand, it turns him into a slave ordered by the group that qualified him with the fabricated badge, This person turns into an executor of any act or terrorist operation that the group asks of him, which he obeys without conviction.
There is the religious approach to terrorism, as jihad is a pillar of the religion, and its manifestations are almost limited to the practice of violence with a background based on strict jurisprudence and hostile texts, Interpreting many verses and hadiths in a way that reinforces terrorist extremism is very easy, No terrorist operation has lacked a suitable fatwa supported by a verse, hadith, or tradition.
There is a social approach to terrorist extremism, This approach is not exclusively Muhammadan, and it is based on any other thought or concepts related to the social status of the victim and the terrorist in conditions that qualify and a context that qualifies the practice of terrorist extremism, Here, terrorist extremism wants to establish a new life free from exploitation, marginalization, and inferiority, and based on the belief in the right to build social relations that secure for the terrorist and the group a status that corresponds to his evaluation of himself and others…for example, the best nation!! Then there is the concept that rejects the rulers from the people of disbelief, which pushes for the practice of terrorism according to the classification of people as believers or disbelievers.
The atmosphere established on the concept of the clash of civilizations, especially the inevitable clash of the Muhammadan heritage with Western civilization, played a significant role in entrenching extremism and hostility manifested in terrorism, This is in addition to the feeling of inferiority of the “self” and victimhood based on identity, There is an oppressor identity and an oppressed identity, and there is no similarity between oppression and oppression. Oppression is a judicial matter, while oppression is a political tool, Terrorist extremism does not perceive or understand that difference and contrast between oppression and oppression, Therefore, it mistakenly believes that through terrorism it corrects the imbalance. In reality, terrorism does not correct any imbalance, because it represents in itself a great imbalance.
For a long time, terrorism was exclusively perpetrated by individuals, However, in recent years, terrorism has taken on organized, collective forms, such as the terrorism of ISIS, al-Nusra Front, and numerous other armed factions worldwide, particularly in the Arab region. Terrorism has evolved from the individual to the institution, encompassing state and group terrorism as organized entities, These structural changes in the terrorist system have been accompanied by new manifestations, including theatrical displays such as beheadings on camera, dressing victims in orange jumpsuits as a symbol of Guantanamo detainees, and adhering to Salafist practices such as treating captives as commodities, as happened with Yazidi women and others in areas controlled by some armed factions, This stems from ideological principles aimed at reviving the practices of the righteous ancestors, The enslavement of the women of Banu Qurayza was similar to the enslavement of Yazidi women, thus there is no difference between ISIS members and the men of those righteous ancestors.
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