ISIS/DAESH - WE NEED A MORE ACCURATE CHARACTERISATION OF :POLITICAL ISLAMIC EXTREMISM?

The political Islamic extremists represented by Daesh/Isis are continuing to perpetrate their outrageous atrocities on innocent people and communities in Europe, America, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Although they continue to massacre and terrify more people living in Muslim countries than in pre-dominantly non-Muslim ones, their atrocities in the West has continued to cause - probably understandably so - more alarm for countries in the West than they seem to be doing in the Muslim ones.  

This could be due to a number of factors. It could be that there is still great alarm in the Muslim countries which are being persistently subjected to the murderous activities of political Islamic extremism, but that it has become so common place that it is not being reported much in the media in the West. 

It could also be that that many people in the affected Muslim countries, such as Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan, et al, have become resigned to their fate, citing the Islamic fatalism embodied in Inshallah - if it be the will of Allah - and are awaiting their destiny.

Another probably reason for this apparently differential response to the atrocities of political Islamic extremism, could be that, in the West, this extremism has become characterised and is being fought on the premis that its essential nature is a religious one; a battle between religious Islam and all other religions, but especially Christianity,  with which some extremists among the Islamic clergy followers, might want to continue the battles between the two religions, which they had fought in the Middle Ages.

The prudence of this characterisation of the current conflict into one of a conflict between religions, is, however, a questionable one. After all, although there are still millions of Christians and nominal Christians around the world, today, it probably would not be very inaccurate to assume that we are living in a significantly post-Christian and probably post-religious era, with most of the Christians and people of other religions, living in the more unenlightened regions of the world. 

Indeed, this is also a characteristic of traditional Islam, that it is strongest in rural areas and in Islamic states, such as Saudi Arabia, where the ruling elites - as they used to do once, in Christendom - use it to manipulate and control the people.  Thus we see that the house of Islam is not one, but many - as it is, in Christendom. This is why we are having this strife between Sunni and Shia Muslims, with Daesh being as brutal to Shia Muslims as they are toward people of other religions or no religions.

If the conflict is wrongly categorised, it means that the wrong tools are being used to fight it, which also means that they are unlikely to have the desired outcomes.

There was nothing religious about Daesh/Isis using the subhuman that was  Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel to murder nearly 100 innocent people on the 14th July 2016. Similarly, there was nothing religious about the political Islamic extremist perpetrators of the bombing in Iraqi capital, Bagdad, on 6th July 2016, which killed probably 300 innocent Iraqis and maimed many more, as well as leaving a vast area of the city devastated. 

Both attacks, and the others which have taken place in Europe, America, Syria, Nigeria and in other countries, are all part of the same political war which is being forced on innocent people and countries by politically motivated demagogues, who have resorted to clothing aspects of their unjust and brutal war in 'religious clothing and bastardised doctrines.'

The true nature of this war is a political and not a religious one, and it is both dangerous and misleading to accept and give credence to Daesh/Isis'  progaganda in characterising it as such. Daesh/Isis is clearly just using whatever means they believe are likely to be successful in terrifying their designated 'enemies', and furthering their cause.

We can well anticipate how the prevailing religious characterisation of the political extremists of Isis, will have led the French Government to see the murder of Father Jacques Hamel by the vacuous and loss young men who want to give some significance to their empty lives, into being a 'confirmation' of the belief that it is a war by 'Islamic religious extremism.'  If the murder of this priest is to be interpreted as an expression of 'religious extremism', how should we understand the atrocious murder/destruction of nearly 100 innocent lives in Nice? As an expression of ' extreme inhumanity'? 

Yes, that I can live with, because this is the essence of Daesh/Isis; their inhumanity, which is not a characteristic of any religion worthy of being practised by sane and sentient people.

We need to give much greater emphasis to the essential political nature of the war Daesh/Isis is fighting against innocent people - both Muslims and non-Muslims - and acknowledge the fact that it is only using religion - as the elites tend to do - as strategical and tactical props to further its political quest for power.

Daesh/Isis is incapable of valuing anything of beauty, including human life. It is only capable of valuing death, destruction and complete submission to its demented will. For a god-fearing or faithful Muslim to be associated with Daesh/Isis, in my view, would be tantamount to saying he/she is cursed by Allah. If god were to intervene into the affairs of humans, he/she would wreak havoc on anybody who had the audacity and effrontery to link his name with that of Daesh/Isis. To associate with Daesh/Isis is to confirm your disobedience to Allah. 

The lost and gullible souls who might be tempted to follow these political Islamic extremists should be aware of this. Isis is only interested in using and abusing you, with your life not having anymore value or meaning than that of an expended bullet.