ISIS is an Islamic problem that Muslims must confront, according to a post by a Singaporean Muslim that is going viral on Facebook.
“ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and it is an Islamic problem. Let me say it again to be perfectly clear,” Sulaiman Daud wrote in the post that has been shared over 30,000 times since yesterday. “ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and they are a cancer at the heart of Islam. And the problem will not go away until Muslims confront that.”
“ISIS attackers scream ‘Allah hu’akbar’ during their attacks,” Daud adds in a post written a day after the terror attack in Paris that killed 129 people. “ISIS recruits cite Qur’anic verses as justification for the rape and enslavement of women.”
“There are no Christians in ISIS,” Daud pointed out. “There are no Buddhists, Jews, Pagans, Taoists, Houngans, Catholics, Wiccans, Hindus or even Scientologists in ISIS. ISIS is a Muslim organisation and they kill in the name of Islam.”
“So if you feel that Muslims are being oppressed or killed in Muslim countries, I expect you to also be just as outraged by ISIS,” Daud wrote. “Because they have killed more Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Jordan than the entire US army. They have done more damage to the name and reputation of Islam than any Western nation. ISIS is Islam’s biggest enemy, not the US, not Israel or France or Germany or the Russians.”
“ISIS is not America’s problem, nor the British, nor the French,” Daud concludes. “ISIS is not Syria or Iraq’s problem. ISIS is a problem for Muslims. And if you can’t admit that, you’re not really a good Muslim either.”
While thousands of people expressed their agreement with Daud, many others felt that the author was just scratching the surface without looking deep at the root causes of the problem.
“On the surface it would seem like its a Islamic problem. but if you look at the root of it, ISIS is a political problem,” an artist who goes by the name RAZ commented. “Politicians and war mongers are using our emotions to justify using our money to fund their wars in the Middle East. Look at what happened the day after the attacks, bombing Syria in revenge. Does anyone honestly think that solves anything?”
“Why bring religion into the picture of these attacks?” Daud’s compatriot Andrew Kock asked. “All religion is[sic] peaceful, terrorism don’t[sic] see religion, they use it as a tools[sic] to manipulate people of different beliefs. Now we are here to stop terrorism, not to talk about religion. Please don’t get all your simple minded beliefs and point fingers on a religion just because the media reports on it.”
Others felt that Muslims weren’t getting credit for addressing the problem due to lack of media coverage.
“Muslims are addressing the problem,” Martini Tahir of Santa Barbara, California responded. “Just that the media is not reporting about it, so majority of people who have very few Muslim friends may not have heard about it.”
Here’s Sulaiman Daud’s post in full:
I want to thank well-meaning non-Muslims who, in the wake of these attacks, have emphasised that they have been carried out by a small, twisted minority. A terrorist’s goal is to sow hatred and discord, and by not giving in, you are defeating their plans.
But I want to say that as a Muslim, I wish that we weren’t so quick to emphasise that this has nothing to do with us. While I personally have never killed anyone and none of my friends and family have ever resorted to violence, radicalism has everything to do with Islam. And the failure to address that out of a well-intentioned commitment to tolerance is making the problem worse.
ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and it is an Islamic problem. Let me say it again to be perfectly clear. ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and they are a cancer at the heart of Islam. And the problem will not go away until Muslims confront that.
ISIS attackers scream ‘Allah hu’akbar’ during their attacks.ISIS recruits cite Qur’anic verses as justification for the rape and enslavement of women.
ISIS soldiers kill archaeologists, gay men and women, and people who refuse to convert to Islam because they are blasphemers.
There are no Christians in ISIS. There are no Buddhists, Jews, Pagans, Taoists, Houngans, Catholics, Wiccans, Hindus or even Scientologists in ISIS. ISIS is a Muslim organisation and they kill in the name of Islam.
So don’t say that ISIS aren’t ‘true Muslims’ or that they are ‘not really Muslims’. Like any large organisation, ISIS exists in a spectrum. You have the aimless, restless teenager who never amounted to anything in his life and traveled to Syria because he can’t find a job and doesn’t know if the Qur’an is to be read from left to right or right to left. But you also have pious professionals, businessmen, and academics who read their Qur’an cover to cover, pray every day, were seduced into radicalism, and truly believe that the Islamic State’s goal of conquest is a noble one. The so-called ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has a doctorate in Islamic studies.
So if you feel that Muslims are being oppressed or killed in Muslim countries, I expect you to also be just as outraged by ISIS. Because they have killed more Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Jordan than the entire US army. They have done more damage to the name and reputation of Islam than any Western nation. ISIS is Islam’s biggest enemy, not the US, not Israel or France or Germany or the Russians.
We have to own the problem. We have to admit that this is a religious problem, and we need to renew our commitment to a secular country which treats all religions equally. I have believed in the importance of secularism all my life, and with every day that passes that belief grows stronger. Religion is no way to govern a nation. Not any religion, and not any nation.
ISIS is not America’s problem, nor the British, nor the French. ISIS is not Syria or Iraq’s problem. ISIS is a problem for Muslims. And if you can’t admit that, you’re not really a good Muslim either.
[Photo Credit: Shaeekh Shuvro]
