Extremism in Islam: or is it just misconception?

   Religions are always been a sensitive topic around all over the world and every single person is somewhere connected to that sentiment, whenever someone or somewhere dishonoured your religion no matter how many facts they have to prove their statement but still, you got hurt by their dishonourable words toward your religion. Even there have been so many fights/wars happened because of the religion worldwide, as you all know there are so many religions out there and some main religions with plenty of followers are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhists, etc. There is no such thing that can define which religion is better than others, and nowhere is written so. Every religion has always conveyed good messages and no hate but those are people who spread hatred and do violence, so making a connection between violence and religion is not good at all.

   India is the most diversified country in terms of religion in the world, India has six major religions in terms of followers and those are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhists, and Jainism. Every religion has its own believes and rules, do you know why religion was created? Humans may have developed religion as a way to promote cooperation in social groups, Charlie Dunbar said. He noted that primates tend to live in groups because doing so benefits them in certain ways. For instance, hunting in groups is more effective than hunting alone. But living in groups also has drawbacks. In the earliest, religion was not a big concern for anyone, the only purpose of religion is to achieve the goals of salvation for oneself and others and to worship God in whom they have believed, but as we see nowadays religion is a big matter of concern and people are so sensitive towards it.

   It is a matter of great shame that people are using religion as a shield of excuses for their dirty works and violence. If I will ask you that in which religion has more extremism? Then the most people will answer Islam, so the point is, can a religion teach extremism, or is it just a misconception? Now, first of all, let me tell you the meaning of Islam, the word Islam is derived from the Arabic word “Sal’m” which literally means “peace”. So think about it the one whose name is peace how can it teach violence. And not only Islam, but no religion in the world also teach violence, they teach good works and peace. So how did it get wrong that Islam has extremism?

   We have witnessed lots of major terrorist attacks, and we found a common thing in many attacks that the most terrorists are Muslims like the 9/11 world trade center attack in America by al-Qaeda terrorist organization, the 26/11 Taj hotel attack in Mumbai, India by  Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization and many more. These types of incidents make people force to believe that in Islam religion violence is common or Islam teaches violence, but this assumption is wrong. As I told you above that religion is not just religion now, it has been a sentiment, a feeling. So these types of terrorist organizations are taking advantage of this and they give false teaching and provoke people by the name of religion and tell them that this is written so and the fun fact is they have never read or understood “Quran” (the holy book of Islam) if they did so then they would not have been there. They recruited innocent people and give wrong learning in the name of religion and get them trained for their personal benefit and those innocent people think that they are doing the right thing as their religion told them to do so. 

   The harsh reality is that not only terrorist organizations are using religion for their benefit but some politicians, media, and religious leaders are also taking advantage of people’s religious sentiments for their benefit. Politicians use the religious sentiments of people for increasing their vote bank, they influence people and make them believe that if they will give the vote to those who are also following the same religion like them then it will beneficial for them but this is a false belief. And media is also doing the same for the TRP and making senseless debates on religion on their channels just for the views and the religious leaders what to say about them, they are defaming true religious leaders like the terrorists defaming Islam.

   So, the conclusion is that Islam or any other religion never teaches about violence or the bad works, the extremism is in the humans not in the religion, so telling Islam is an extremist religion is totally wrong, extremism exists where illiteracy belongs. If a person is illiterate then he or she can easily influence by anyone by the name of religion or anything on which they have belief, according to as per the latest census figure on 'education level by the religious community for age 7 years and above the Muslims have the highest percentage of illiterates aged beyond 7 years at 42.72 percent, while 36.40 percent for Hindus, 32.49 percent for Sikhs, 28.17 percent for Buddhists, and 25.66 percent in Christians. So this is clear now that behind this misconception that Islam is an extremist religious it’s the illiteracy of Muslim people. Violence happens by every religious person but, the majority of incidents happened in Islam that’s why most of the people believe that there is more extremism in Islam. So the only solution to this is education and awareness. You have to be aware of that who is teaching you false and to identify that you have to be educated and the government should improve the education system and make sure that every person should be educated from the ground roots and make some rules to avoid these types of misuse of religion. But the not only government but all the people should also be aware of these, and just remember that the ones who love you will never tell you to do any bad work, so never link extremism to any religion, humans do bad works, not religion.

Tags: religion Islam extremism muslim

2 comments

1 year, 10 months ago by Umerkhan

Thank you akshin for your feedback, really appreciated 👍

1 year, 10 months ago by akshinthapar

People who think that this article is giving a way out to terrorism should STOP WATCHING REPUBLIC. Peace.

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