Is Terrorism a Muslim Monopoly?
(In a Nutshell)


Following are some points from the talk delivered by the famous Islamic Orator, Dr. Zakir Naik which took place in Mumbai in front of a jam packed crowd, at the Shanmukhananda auditorium on 11th Sept 2006.

The empahsis in the text are mine.
The whole talk is a must watch and highly recommended.


~ According to Oxford dictionary, the word 'Terrorism' means, "The use of violent actions in order to achieve political aims or force a government to act".

~ It was first time coined in 1790's during The French Revloution. 1793-94 was called as the Regin of Terror, the Years of Terror.

~ International Media, especially the Western Media, is repeatedly bombarding "All Muslims are not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims".

~ Let us analyze what do the historical records and the data on terrorist attack that is available in world history, tell us.

~ In the 19th century we hardly find any terrorist attack done by Muslims.

~ In 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated and twenty one other innocent bystanders were killed. He was not killed by a Muslim. He was killed by a non-Muslim named Ignacy Hryniewiecki, an anarchist.

~ In 1886, a bomb blast took place in Haymarket Square, Chicago during a labor rally. Twelve innocent people and one policeman killed and later seven more policemen died in the hospital. Eight anarchist were responsible for this, all of them non-Muslim.

~ When we analyze the records of 20th century, we know on 6th September 1901, the US President William Mc Kinley was assassinated by an anarchist named Leon. He was a non-Muslim.

~ 1st October 1910, bomb blast in Los Angeles Times Newspaper building, twenty one innocent people were killed. Bomb blast was done by two Christians - James and Joseph. They were the Union Leaders.

~ 28th June 1914, Archduke of Austria and his wife were assassinated, which precipitated the World War I. Assassination was done by members od Young Bosnia, most of them were Serbs. They were non-Muslims.

~ 16th April 1925, bomb blast in St. Nedelya Church in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. More than One Hundred and Fifty killed and more than Five Hundred injured. The biggest terrorist attack in Bulgaria. It was done by Bulgarian Communist Party. They were non-Muslims.

~ 9th October 1934, King Alexender I of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a gunman Vlada Georgieff, who was a non-Muslim.

~ 1st May 1961, the first US aircraft was hijacked by Ramerez Ortiz who was a non-Muslim.

~ 28th August 1968, the US ambassador to Gautemala was assassinated by a non-Muslim.


~ 30th July 1969, the US ambassador to Japan was knifed by a non-Muslim Japanese.

~ 3rd September 1969, the US ambassador to Brazil was kidnapped by a non-Muslim.

~ Bombing on 19th April 1995, at Federal building in Oklahoma City. One Hundred and Sixty Six innocent people died and more than a Hundred injured. It was done by two Christians - Timothy and Terry.

~ After World War II, from 1941 to 1948, 259 terrorist attacks conducted by Jewish terrorists, by many organisations like Ignun, Sterngang, Haganah etc.

~ 22nd July 1946, bombing of King David Hotel by Ignun under the leadership Menachem Begin, in which Nintey one innocent people were killed out of which Twenty Eight were British, Forty one were Arabs, Seventeen Jews and Five others. It was the biggest terrorist attack against the history of British mandate. At that time Menachem Begin was called terrorist number one by the British Government. Later on after a few years he becomes the Prime Minister of Israel and after a few years gets the Nobel Prize of Peace.

~ Most of these Jewish groups (the Haganah, Ignun and Stern Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and installations and killing civilians. The British, who then governed Palestine, rightly called these Jewish groups terrorists. Many of these terrorists later became leaders of independent Israel — Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier.

~ In Germany in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed several innocent human beings, including the head of Treuhand, the German privatisation agency.

~ In Italy, the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former Prime Minister of Italy.

~ The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this.

~ Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that killed twelve people and injured and wounded more than Five Thousand in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995.

~ In Europe, the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist organisation for almost a century. But they are not referred to as 'Catholic Terrorists', but as IRA.

~ In 1972, IRA conducted three bomb blasts, in which a total of more than twenty people were killed. And in 1974, IRA conducted two bomb blasts, in which more than twenty five people were killed and more than Two Hundred injured. In 1996, IRA conducted bomb blast in London that killed two persons and injured more than Hundred and another bomb blast in Manchester shopping center injured more than Two Hundred.

~ Spain and France face a terrorist challenge from ETA, the Basque terrorist organisation.

~ Africa is ravaged by so much civil war and internal strife that few people even bother to check which groups can be labelled terrorist. They stretch across the continent. Possibly the most notorious is the Lord's Salvation Army in Uganda, a Christian outfit that uses children as warriors.

~ In Sri Lanka, the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) have long constituted one of the most vicious and formidable terrorist groups in the world. They were the first to train children as terrorists. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide bombing is widely associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis, but the Tamil Tigers were the first to use this tactic on a large scale. But they are not called as 'Hindu Terrorists', but they are called LTTE or Tamil Tigers.

~ The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs.

~ 31st October 1984, former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh security guard.

~ In North East of India, there are many non-Mulsim terrorist organizations like All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT)

~ The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu terrorist group that targets Muslims rather than the other way round. In sixteen years i.e. 1990-2006 it is reported to have conducted Seven Hundred and Forty Nine confirmed terrorist attacks.

~ Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall of several terrorist groups, and so have Bodo strongholds in Assam. Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades, and Christian Nagas are still heading militant groups. But most important of all are the Maoist terrorist groups that now exist in no less than 150 out of India's 600 districts. Maoists terrorist attacks in 1/3rd part of India. They have attacked police stations, and killed and razed entire villages that oppose them. These are secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists.

~ Maoists in Nepal in seven years conducted Ninety nine terrorist attacks.

~ On 22nd October 2004, Forty four Hindus were killed by Christian terrorists.

~ When we analyze we can surely say without doubt that terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers.

~ Not only is Terrorism not a Muslim monopoly, it is not even a speciality of the Muslisms. It is not even encouraged in Islam. It is prohibited!

~ "... if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder od for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." [Al Qur'an 5:32]

~ Islam is derived from the Arabic word 'Salaam', which means 'peace'. It also comes from the Arabic word 'Silm', which means 'to submit your will to Almighty God'. Islam, in short means, peace acquired by submitting your will to Almighty God.

~ Islam condemns all form of Terrorism. It is prohibited, you cannot justify killing of any innocent being.

~ We have to condemn all form of terrorism, whether it is 9/11, '93 Bombay serial blast, 7/7 London blasts, or any other.

~ We also have to condemn the killing of thousands of Afghani's in Afghanistan, the killing of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, the killing of thousands in Gujarat, the killing of thousands in Palestine, the killing of thousands in Lebanon.

~ All sorts of terrorism in which innocent human being are killed are to be condemned, whether done by Muslims or non-Muslims.

~ We know that most of the religions don't preach that you should kill innocent human beings. But when we analyze, we have terrorists from all religions. We have Christian terrorists, we have Jewish terrorists, we have Hindu terrorists, we have Muslim terrorists, we have Buddhist terrorists, we have Sikh terrorists. Terrorists professing various different faiths.

~ And when we analyse, (though we know that religions don't encourage killing innocent human beings) and try and find out people who have kiled the maximum human beings which religion do they profess... The number one who killed the maximum number of human beings is.. Hitler! He had incinerated Six Million Jews and indirectly if you count all the people killed in World War II, it comes out Sixty Million people. Was he a Muslim? He was a Christian.

~ Joesph Stalin (Uncle Joe), killed Twenty Million human beings of which Fourteen and a Half Million were starved to death.

~ Mao Tse Tsung of China killed Fourteen Million to Twenty Million human beings. He was a non-Muslim.

~ Benito Mussolini of Italy killed Four Hundred Thousand (400,000) human beings.

~ Maximilin Robespierre, during the French Revolution starved and tortured to death Two Hundred Thousand (200,000) and executed Forty Thousand people.

~ Ashoka in one battle of Kalinga alone killed more than One Hundred Thousand (100,000) people. He was a Hindu.

~ Saddam Hussain killed some Hundred Thousand people. In Indonesia Mohamed Suharto killed around Five Hundred Thousand people. But they are nothing compared to Hitler, Uncle Joe or Mao Tse Tsung.

~ Here we are not trying to say that they were practicing their religions. They were not, otherwise they wouldn't have killed a single innocent human being.

~ But yet we find in the Media that Muslims are being targeted. Why??

~ Why then is there such a widespread impression that most or all terrorist groups are Muslim? Catholic Irish terrorists have killed far more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the subway bombings in London and Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The reason is that there is a lot of false propaganda in the media, which is controlled by the west. these western leaders justify their attack on muslim countries by false propaganda, to gain power. Many politicians of other countries follow, and use divide and rule policy, again for power.