Time to Learn Some Arabic Quran Verses? | Another Extremist Attack in Mali

Mali Attack

Mali Attack

We woke up this morning to another terrorist attack in Mali, albeit a little different from the usual suicide bombing.

Just like the recent Paris attack, reports say the gunmen who stormed the luxurious Radisson Blu’s hotel throwing grenades in Mali’s capital, Bamako, were heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar.’

So far, at least three people have been killed and several of the hostages the gunmen seized have been freed by Mali’s special forces and UN troops through a floor to floor clearing of the hotel.

Despite the fact that about 80 hostages have now been released, 124 guests and 13 staff are still inside the hotel. CNN says,”two Malian nationals and a French national have died, a U.N. official said without elaborating.”

Interestingly, it has been reported that these attackers allowed several of the hostages to walk out of the hotel—those who were able to quote verses from the Quran.

An al-Qaeda-linked terror group has claimed the attacked, Reuters has reported. But The Independent says, “there is no further information on the group, which made the claim on a social media account.”

The world is under attack and as much as we cannot say these extremists who are appearing at every corner, throwing out ‘Allahu Akbar’ are representatives of Islam, we cannot also continue to ignore the exisiting bad ideas and doctrines of Islam, which somewhat make these atrocious conducts appealing to those small percentage of Muslim extremists.

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We cannot blame Muslims for these attacks, it will be unfair to say all Muslims are responsible for this but if we want to make real progress in combating Islamic fundamentalism which we will all agree is a key factor in these numerous attacks—we must begin to have honest conversations about some of idealogies of Islam and verses in the Quran held as sacred.

Mali Attack

Mali Attack

Of course the fact that those who were able to recite verses from the Quran were reported to have been set free by the gunmen today in Mali does not mean these attackers are true Muslim or respect the Islam faith, but it means, they hold themselves as genuine Muslims—and see other Muslims as part of their community.

The problem with this discourse is always: who is the real Muslim?

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Most times after extremist attacks, we hear of the Muslim communities  faintly and sometimes loudly saying the attackers who may have claimed to have killed in the name of Allah are not real Muslims.

It’s a matter of interpretation, the argument mostly goes—with the peaceful ‘real Muslims’ constantly saying the Quran verses or teachings these extremist groups, be it Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda- or ISIS rely on for their nefarious killings have been taken out of context.

What about de-legitimizing those Quran verses which remain controversial, the true pillars of these jihadists?

We cannot ignore the geo-political elements in all these rampant and repugnant attacks but we will be doing a great disservice to humanity if we fail to acknowledge the religious motivation behind many of these attacks.

For now, it seems learning a few Quran verses in Arabic is capable of keeping you safe, compared to just being a decent human being.

It also seems as though these militant groups are dictating the direction of the warfare—they strike and we respond.

The world must come together and uproot these maniacs, the ideologies, politics and teachings which give rise to them.

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