Why Muslims Wage Wars And Drop Bombs

A few weeks ago in our Tawheed class, we were discussing how to answer people who think that Muslims all over the world are terrorists.

Most of the time when out teacher is answering our doubts, she relates her life experiences to put the concept across in a practical way.

To answer this query, she narrated her experience from the past, when she was preaching Islam to a group of nine ladies form varying nationalities - German, Spanish, British, Chinese, Japanese, and others.

One day, while she was with them, they said, 'Sister, please don't mind if we ask you one question?'

'No, go ahead and ask what you have to ask.'

'Don't feel bad or offended when we ask this, but why do Muslims drop bombs and wage wars?'

'Now that's a very good question,' my teacher said. 'But please, you also don't feel bad or offended when I answer you.'

There was a short pause and my teacher continued...

'Let me start with you,' she continued, turning towards the German lady. 'Do you remember Hitler? Do you know what he did in the world war II?,' she asked referring to the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jewish men, women and children were mercilessly killed.

The German lady was quiet.

'Let me come to you now,' she said, turning towards the Spanish lady. 'Phillipines was actually a Muslim country before the Spanish arrived there, forced people into Christianity, and killed those who refused to change their faith.' 

~ Christianity arrived in the Philippines with the landing of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. In the late 16th century, soldiers and missionaries firmly planted the seeds of conversion when they officially claimed the archipelago for Spain and named it after their king. Missionary activity during the country's long colonial rule by Spain and the United States transformed the Philippines into the first and then one of the two predominantly Christian nations in East Asia, with approximately 90% of the population belonging to the Christian faith, the other Christian nation being East Timor. ~

The Spanish lady too, had nothing to say.

Turning towards the British lady, my teacher said, 'The United Kingdom, prior to being united was acually four countries. England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales,' she counted off these countries on her fingers. 'The criminals form these countries were released and transported to America or Australia.'

~ Transportation to the Americas and later, Australia, was the second common penalty and many hangings were in fact commuted to transportation. Transportation began in 1718. By the American War of Independence in 1775, around 50,000 indentured convicts had been sent to these colonies. Judges who sat in courts in the port cities such as Bristol and Liverpool were often wealthy merchants and plantation owners. While the main labour force for their sugar and cotton plantations were slaves from Africa, they thought nothing of sentencing petty criminals to years of hard labour on their own property. While the conditions in the penal colonies were often as harsh as on the slave plantations, there was a crucial difference: the convicts could, in theory, look forward to freedom after they had served their sentence, while the slave could not. ~

We all know about the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Till date, some of the children born in these cities have deformities, due to the effects to the bombing.

~ On August 6, 1945, the United States used a massive, atomic weapon against Hiroshima, Japan. This atomic bomb, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, flattened the city, killing tens of thousands of civilians. While Japan was still trying to comprehend this devastation three days later, the United States struck again, this time, on Nagasaki. ~

Turning to the Japanese and Chinese ladies, my teacher asked, 'Do you want me to continue?'

'No ma'am!' was the reply. 

The ladies had finally understood the point my teacher was trying to make. It's not Muslims who wage wars. Turn through the pages of history and you will see different countries decalaring wars on their rivals for some political reason or even for for taking over certain resources.

What were the 9/11 attacks for. Many people will never agree to the fact that they were an inside job. They will keep blaming the Muslims, who they believe to be the Islamic terrorists. Osama Bin Laden was alleged to be the master-mind behind these attacks; his motive being to forcedly stop specific foreign policies (American policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel), and force Non-Muslims to accept Islam.

True some of these people might include Muslims, but these are the people who got their religion wrong. Who might have been brainwashed by someone else to carry out their acts. And who do not represent the true religion of Islam, which always has and will always bring the message of peace to everyone!