Muslim Scholars’ Take on the Negative Consequences of “Terrorism”

Abstract

I pen this editorial feeling weary of having to address this particular topic yet again. But please bear with me, for the senseless murder of fourteen innocents in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, occurred only twenty-two miles from my home. Although I do not regularly attend the mosque that the killers frequented, I personally know that its director is one of America’s best Muslim leaders in terms of knowledge, wisdom, and kindness. Lastly, one victim recently graduated from the university at which I teach. Over the years, I have addressed Muslim extremism and radicalism from various vantage points: the identity of the Muslim extremists, whether their actions can be intellectually and religiously described as Islamic (AJISS 32:2), and whether they could be decisively defeated (not wiped out) so that peace will prevail (AJISS 32:4). I have deliberated how their violent acts against innocents evoke apprehension and fear, thereby stigmatizing and staining all Muslims and even Islam itself (AJISS 29:1). I even addressed the erroneous perception that America’s imams cause radicalism and suggested how they should tailor their messages to combat extremism (AJISS 27:2). In this editorial, I explicate what a group of Muslim academics in the Middle East considers to be the negative consequences of “terrorism” (maḍār al-irhāb).1 The first negative consequence of terrorism2 is that it “attracts God’s wrath and subjects the perpetrator to God’s severe punishment, both in this world and the hereafter.”3 These Muslim scholars had the following verse in mind while extrapolating: “If anyone kills a believer deliberately, the punishment for him is Hell, and there he will remain: God is angry with him, and rejects him, and had prepared a tremendous torment for him” (Q. 4:93). In a hadith narrated by Ibn Abbas, the young Companion who has been dubbed the “father of Qur’anic exegesis,” he said that when this verse was revealed the Companions asked the Prophet, “Even if the perpetrator repents, becomes a true believer, and does good deeds?” The Prophet responded, “How else can he repent?” (annā lahū al-tawbah) ...