Do you think murdering people in the name of religion is unacceptable? What are your thoughts?

Question

During the last two decades in particular, the concept of "Islamic terror" has been often discussed. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on targets in New York and Washington which caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians, this concept has once again returned to the top of the international agenda.

As Muslims, we completely condemn these attacks and offer our condolences to the American people.

In this article, we will explain that Islam is by no means the source of this violence and that violence has no place in Islam.

Even if the terrorists have Muslim identities, the terror they perpetrated cannot be labeled "Islamic terror", just as it would not be called "Jewish terror" if the perpetrators were Jews or "Christian terror" if they were Christians.

That is because, as we will examine, murdering innocent people in the name of religion is unacceptable. We need to keep in mind that, among those who were killed in Washington or New York, there were people who loved Jesus (Christians), Prophet Moses (Jews) and Muslims. According to Islam, murdering innocent people is a great sin that, unless forgiven by God, brings torment in Hell.

Thus, a religious person who has fear of God can never commit such an act.

In fact, the aggressors can commit such violence only with the intention of attacking religion itself. It may well be that they carried out this violence to present religion as evil in the eyes of people, to divorce people from religion and to generate hatred and reaction against pious people. Consequently, every attack having a "religious" facade on American citizens or other innocent people is actually an attack made against religion.

http://www.islamfortoday.com/harun02.htm

Answer 1

As salaamu 'alaikym warahmatullahi wabaraktu, my friend.

As you surly know from the Holy Qur'an and the teachings of the last Prophet (peace be upon him, his family and his followers) to murder one person is to murder all of humanity.

This points out that all are one, not separate.
What we do to any others is what we also do to our self as well as to all whom we may hold dear in a special manner.

Would any one deliberately kill his or her own children, his or her spouse, his or her parents?

Violence is not the answer and great caution must be used when any individual or nation employs the tactic of the same as, in the end result, they may find that they have destroyed themselves by becoming the very enemy whom they thought to oppose.

To quote the late John Lennon, "Love is the answer. You know that and I know that for sure..."

May it all be well with you, ma'a salaam.

Answer 2

I Like your sarcasm ! To start, religions were thought up by people, with a higher intelligence level, to help disadvantaged/non-intelligent, or simple minded, deal with accordance's, that could not be explained, i.e.; Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Floods etc. It was a way to control fear, by conjuring up the GOOD vs EVIL concept, was a way of keeping these people under control. A little research and an open mind, and you might even believe that UFO's do exist. But there goes that fear factor again. How would the average working man, raised on beliefs, forced upon him, react to a visitation from a "SPACE MAN" ? Orwellian ? So the ones that don't look like us, talk like us, or have the same belief's,(as the bible recounts) must Die ! THIS IS MANKIND. It's in our gene's. Maybe, these visitors are the ones that planted our seed's, and are just checking on our progress ? Maybe religion is nature's way of population control ?

Answer 3

Point well taken, and I appreciate your candor. It makes me wonder though, whether or not the diverse Islam communities --both in the U.S. and Middle East-- have made public demonstrations and RALLIES, and/or have been VOCAL AGAINST these elements [Extremist Terrorists] at all?

If such is the case then --for some reason-- it must have totally escaped the CNN-feed to the Western media because that would definitely be big news here. I for one haven't seen or heard anything being voiced against them at all, and I'm sure many will agree with me that the Islam community has so far remained "silent" to the viewing eyes of television land.

Killing is always wrong, regardless of who does it. Period.

Peace be with you.

Answer 4

No!
What could be a better thing to murder people for than religion?
Sarcasm^^

I'm sure there's something to recent allegations of odd circumstances leading up to 911. It makes me think of some old guy I knew way back that was all upset because someone speculated that Pearl Harbor might have been a US plan. Now it's common knowledge among educated people that the US did plan Pearl Harbor and it's taught on every college campus in America except the right wing fundamentalist colleges.

There is a movie that might help provide healing and expose some of how the Anti-Christ really operates. It’s interesting that Christianity is the majority religion on Earth when Jesus taught that only a few would find their way. The world has been fooled, the people that made this movie are Atheist so they have much of this wrong but when you consider what’s happening and compare everything it’s beginning to look like the Christians are the dark empire of the Anti-Christ and the power base is in Washington DC.

Watch this movie:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Then consider how this stacks up against revelations.
If you don’t think there’s anything to it fine.
Just think about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-1JVctSOY
♥Blessed Be♥
♥=∞

Answer 5

It is ENTIRELY unnacceptable. I don't believe that there even EXISTS a religion that states in any way that killing others is okay to do.

Unfortunately, my brother, it is something that is done by members of ALL religions. Almost ALWAYS with an interpretation of religion being the 'reason'.

I am aware that Islam condemns killing. Those that are doing it are not aware. They are not evil, though. Does a young child become an 'evil sinner' when he kills his father with a gun he found?

Ignorance is not the same as evil. The ignorance must be rubbed out, not the people who suffer it.

It is the ignorance of that fact that led to 9/11, and it is the ignorance of that fact that brought about the retribution from Christian led countries.

It's just an unfortunate thought that it will be the ignorance of that fact that will continue the violence, war and hate, until our mother Earth becomes poisoned.

When that happens, our intolerance, our hate, our greed, our ignorance will rest in eternal peace. Along with our human race and our animal relatives.

This is the REASON why our God(dess) (whichever one applies) does not allow killing.

It is not religion that is the problem, it is the ills of the follower.

May peace go with you, my brother.

Answer 6

Of course murdering people in the name of religion is unacceptable.

However, that does not mean that religions don't encourage it.

Murder in the name of religion has happened throughout history. It has been done by Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Aztecs, and just about everyone else. All major modern religions thrived on it, especially Christianity and Islam. It continues to happen in many parts of the world today.

The Koran and Bible both have many verses which explicitly encourage it. Anyone who has actually read them knows that.

In the past, I have provided you with many quotes from the Koran which demonstrate its call for violence against non-Muslims. You always ignore them. The fact that you so readily ignore passages from your sacred text which you claim is the perfect message of God proves that you don't use it as your ultimate source of morality.

Unfortunately, some people do use it for that and you still claim to do so. A literal interpretation of scripture and the belief that it is the inerrant word of God can and does inspire many people to violence around the world. Islam is really the worst about that at this point in history.

It is a shame that you continue to deny the violent aspects of your religion. Denouncing violence is great, but it doesn't work when you constantly ignore its ultimate source.

Answer 7

If the perpetrators had religious as their motive then it was an act of religious terrorism, thus Islamic terrorism, Christian terrorism and Jewish terrorism all exist and are all accurate terms.

I have no problems calling abortion clinic bombings carried out by fundamentalist Christians, Christian terrorism so why should I have any problem calling Osama bin Laden an Islamic Terrorist?

Why when Islam was spread with the sword do people think that violence has no place in it anyway?

Answer 8

This is a beautiful logic and observed inference it speaks for the holy and pious who are stuck with labels such as "iIslamic terrorists".It is sad that in this era of information many good people are made to carry burden of such hurtflul remarks.No wonder you can often here sensible rebuttals like "there are no Muslims in hell". But the truth is such courage and stamina to live our lives honestly and for GOd will not go without rewards or a better word blessings direct from God.

Answer 9

I think murdering people in the name of religion is totally unacceptable. The second a religion or sect moves toward killing or harming others, it loses the moral high ground and becomes morally bankrupt. This is the damage Osama has done to Islam.

You are courageous to speak out. This is what Muslims in the US need to do, over and over. I'm Christian and happen to believe that Islam is not a religion of war, but that some (like Bin Laden) pervert it. But many Americans do not understand that, because they see examples of radical, violent Muslims on TV. Like the Al Qaeda in Iraq attack on the small town in Iraq yesterday which killed at least 250 civilians. This is horrific, but it does not represent the actions of all Muslims.

A few days ago, an Islamic Center in a town near me was burned by arson. This is also very wrong.

Salam.

Answer 10

I've got to agree with your sentiments.

In the 1960's (which I just about remember) there was a hippy slogan, used I think, against the Vietnam war which read (and I'm cleaning it up a bit)
"fighting for peace is like copulating for virginity". You could easily substitute "fighting for religion" in that statement.

I'm an atheist myself but I recognize that the majority of religious people abhor the idea of violence in the name of their own faith. How can you propose a 'god of love' and then use hate to fight in his name. Furthermore, it seems to me that any god needing to have mere mortals fighting so hard for him can't be that strong anyway...why would a strong god allow such terrible interventions?

Yes, if religious ideals are to make any sense at all, they must be lived with the consistent message of peace which you suggest.