1. Say: "O people of the Book! come to common terms as between us
and you: that we worship none but Allah; that we associate no
partners with Him; that we erect not from among ourselves Lords and
patrons other than Allah."
[Ch 3 verse 64]
Invite (mankind, O Muhammad pbuh) to the Way of your Lord (i.e.
Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Revelation and the Quran)
and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly,
your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is
the Best Aware of those who are guided.
[Ch 16 verse 125]
If one amongst the pagans (disbelievers) ask thee for asylum, grant it
to him, so that he may hear the word of Allah; and then escort him to
where he can be secure that is because they are men without
knowledge.
[Ch 9 verse 6]
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2. Terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly
''All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.'' This
comment , frequently heard after the Mumbai bomb blasts implies that
terrorism is a Muslim specialty, if not a monopoly. The facts are very
different.
First, there is nothing new about terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed
the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists
killed US President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy .
World War I started in 1914 when anarchists killed Archduke
Ferdinand of Austria . These terrorist attacks were not Muslim.
Terrorism is generally defined as the killing of civilians for political
reasons. Going by this definition, the British Raj referred to Bhagat
Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and many other Indian freedom fighters
as terrorists. These were Hindu and Sikh rather than Muslim.
Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel
Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too
were called terrorists until they triumphed. Nothing Muslim about
them.
In Palestine , after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun
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 dozens,
including the head of Treuhand, the German privatisation agency. In

3. Italy , the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime
minister.
The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this. Japan was also
the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands
in the Tokyo m etro system using nerve gas in 1995.
In Europe , the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist
organisation for almost a century. 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 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. One
such suici de bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
In India , the militants in Kashmir are Muslim. But they are only one
of several militant groups. The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale,
were Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu terrorist
group that targets Muslims rather than the other way round. 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. They have
attacked police stations, and killed and razed entire villages that oppose
them. These are secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or

4. Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular
terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists.
In sum, 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.
Why then is there such a widespread impression that most or all
terrorist groups are Muslim? I see two reasons. First, the Indian elite
keenly follows the western media, and the West feels under attack from
Islamic groups. 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 Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA
and Red Brigades no longer pose much of a threat, but after 9/11
Americans and Europeans fear that they could be hit anywhere
anytime. So they focus attention on Islamic mi litancy. They pay little
notice to other forms of terrorism in Africa, Sri Lanka or India : these
pose no threat to the West.
Within India , Maoists pose a far greater threat than Muslim militants
in 150 districts, one-third of India 's area. But major cities feel
threatened only by Muslim groups. So the national elite and media
focus overwhelmingly on Muslim terrorism. The elite are hardly aware
that this is an elite phenomenon.