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10 signs of extremism
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04/10/2013 16:39
Contemporary Debate
1. Extremists lack knowledge of the most basic aspects of the faith. When ignorance prevails the community is weakened. Such people burden and limit the community to only “halal and haram” debate. They ritualize Islam and only focus on the outer appearances. Other ignorant people often lead them. The grand alliance of the ignorant people is the real cause of the Muslim community's backwardness.
2. Extremism flourishes during intellectual stagnation and is one of the greatest curses consuming our community. Some of our great minds are too busy giving tabeez (talisman) and leading milad (unnecessary veneration of the Prophet through rituals) instead of being the Imam Malik, Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Ghazali or Ibn Rushd of our time. We are unable to compete in the modern world using the power of our pens or words.
3. Proliferation of superstitious practices is so rife in the community that some people have reached the extreme end. They say they respect the Quran but do not follow its teachings and they claim to venerate the scholar but never listen to their words. They prefer to pray to the dead, reduce God’s revelation to mere words of rituals and seek other human beings as their saviour.
4. Extremists actively promote puritanical theology where everything is bid'a in their eyes and everyone is wrong. They are the bid'a brigade hyper active in our society calling everyone all sorts of name. They desire to become holier than holy. They make everything prohibited and prefer the hardline approach to Islam.
5. Extremists emphasise on frivolous issues such as the length of beard, and trousers, colour of hijab and clothing styles. They fight over nawafil (voluntary worship) while faraid (obligatory worship) is neglected. They argue over blood of a mosquito while the blood of many humans is spilled. They care about their prayer beads more than they care about justice in the world.
6. Extremists are looking for shortcuts to paradise by getting involved in fanatical activities. They think by attacking the non-Muslims, indiscriminate killing, causing friction and strife they will bypass the obligations of being good to their fellow human beings. They desire paradise but due to their actions they will not even smell paradise.
7. Extremists are unable to prioritise and are constantly mixing the sunnah (optional prophetic traditions) with wajib (obligatory), culture with religion and social responsibility with personal piety. They prefer to hold the entire community hostage to their selfish wishes. They feel they are doing a great action of religiosity. They like to open more frontiers instead of signing up to peace though sacrifice for the greater good of the society.
8. Extremists project and shoulder anger from the Muslim world such as anger over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Lack of freedom and democratic reform in the Muslim world turns them even angrier. But anger does not achieve anything, being involved in policy and attitude change does. But the extremists do not like to be peaceful and calm as such a state would defuse their misguided perceptions and make their philosophy redundant.
9. Some extremists prefer to assimilate and lose their faith in the process. They feel shy about their Muslim identity and hide behind a secular facade. Some extremists prefer to isolate and remain in their ghettos in the name of preserving and protecting their faith. They would rather not interact with the non-Muslims. These extremists are at two extreme ends.
10. Extremists fear integration. They feel to integrate is to destroy their segregationist and isolationist mantra. They have an allergic reaction when they hear the word integration. Their way is destructive and cause of much pain and misery for all people of the world. In their world, they would rather impose Islam on people but in reality the true essence of Islam is seldom found in their life.
God has defined the Muslims as a people who are balanced and moderate. Anything else is against the divine way and contradicts the divine purpose. We have to bring back our youth and masses of men and women back to the path of moderation – the true path to God.
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I registered here yesterday. As a blogger I often play an active role in reading and commenting on what draws my attention. I have I read the 10 signs extremism (!), but could not gather much sense as to how the word ‘extremism’ was used. Although commenting on people’s views carries the possibility of both positive and negative reactions, I, with the hope of the former, decided to comment on your 10 points. My observations are as follows: 1. First, can the one who lacks the basic aspects of understanding faith be regarded as ‘extremist’? In terms of whose intellectual standard one is to determine ‘stagnation’ of intellectuality and how does this intellectuality associates ‘extremism’ (whatever and whichever phenomenon is intended in the text) with milād and ta’wīz? (I am not a practitioner of these; neither do I make vehement opposition). With no ‘intellectual’ examination, can the practitioners of these be identified as ‘extremists’? What is extremism? Can it not be counterpoised to examine the phenomenon in which there can be a case for interference of the rhetoric and misconception about ‘religious extremism’ construed within the historical modernist paradigm that is lending a party with modernist rationality to describe its ‘Other’ as less intellectual? 3, 4,5. Perhaps the point made in item 3 deserve some attention, but again what is stated there is more of a historical construct than of recent ‘proliferation’. Can it not seen in terms that such phenomenon existed before in some Muslim territories and, now, for the reason that they come together to concentrate in the UK, it is becoming visible to the eyes which hadn’t been accustomed to it? Point 4 is also of this nature but a good one. Point 5 can be humoured as a justification for the ones with short beards, but hey, it’s Ok, I am in the same bracket, but who cares the difference of a few centimeters! 6. In the whole range of the 10, extremism marks its presence in point 6, but again, such ‘access’ is highly debatable whether or not it is ‘religious’, for the multitude of some 1.6 billion Muslims, in whose terms the religiosity of Islam is to be generally determined, reject this extremism. Continued to the next comment …
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continued from above ... 7. Should people’s inability to prioritise between Sunnah and Wājib, and the greyness of culture and religion be regarded as ‘extremists’? What multitude of Muslims would fall in this bracket? Will this kind of language help generate understanding between groups to heal the differences? 8. The issue about ‘anger’ made in point 8 doesn’t include the hundreds of millions whose life and wealth are violently exposed to death and destruction. In such conditions how are they to express their pain –with intellectuality and reason, and continue this way, till they all perish? 9. Those who are in the ghetto, are they in it to preserve their faith, or are they there for socio-economic reasons? Can people necessarily be ‘extremists’ if they lived in the ghetto and followed the dictates of their faith? I am not sure what is intended here. 10. The last point about ‘integration’ was thrown without qualifying variance. It is stated that ‘they [the extremists] have an allergic reaction when they hear the word integration’, but it is not stated what should one to think when they are hear the word ‘integration’. Does the word carry a common perception across the land? Many of the points raise here seem to beg more serious questions than they offer understanding about ‘extremism’.
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Ajmal Masroor is an Author, Broadcaster, Relationship Counsellor , Politician and Imam based in London, UK. His facebook profile can be followed https://www.facebook.com/AjmalMasroor
This Blog is made by his Fan and all writings are collected from his Facebook page which is Public.
