The roots of Islamic terrorism

International Herald Tribune reports Most commentators argue that Islamic terrorism is a fanatical perversion of Islam which deviates from its true teachings. They call for a Western-style modernization of the Muslim world, hoping thereby that radical Islam will be tamed. This analysis misses the point. The nature of the terrorist threat is unambiguously Islamic and is not so much a deviation from Muslim tradition as an appeal to it.

But does that mean that we should react with an appeal to the use of Knights going off to fight in the Crusades?

Al Qaeda's ideology draws on two traditions to legitimize itself: one classical, the other modern. Regarding classical Islam, the oft-quoted remark that Islam is a religion of peace is false. It is historically illiterate to claim that war is foreign to Islam and it is theologically uninformed to argue that jihad is merely a personal inner struggle with no external military correlate.

Not really. Violence is the way Islam was spread back in the time of the Prophet, but that does not mean it should resort to it today. And I really doubt that the Prophet ever encouraged people to kill innocents, including innocent Muslims, to achieve their victories.

On the contrary, Islam is linked from the beginning with the practice of divinely sanctioned warfare and lethal injunctions against apostates and unbelievers. Islam experienced no period of wandering and exclusion; from its inception, Islam formed a unitary state bent on military conquest.... Islam, with good reason, will never embrace Western secularization. But it could begin to develop a critique of its history by recovering some of its aborted traditions. Islam must place true religious conversion (like that of Sufism) over territorial conquest. Islam needs to restore the legislative authority of communal consensus to allow Muslims to develop along with, rather than against, the future.

Amen