Left-liberal historians in India often put forward the theory that terrorism is a recent phenomenon in Islam, triggered by geopolitical events and external factors. They often argue that the motivation of Mahmud of Ghazni’s raids into India — where he destroyed temples, pillaged villages, enslaved and raped women — was to enrich themselves of the booty and not religious. This is far removed from reality.
According to Ghaznavid historiography of his own time, the purpose of the raid was “to complete unfinished business of the Prophet”. He destroyed Somnath temple and the Shivlingam was taken Ghazni broke it into pieces and “buried it in the ground at the threshold of the great mosque, to be walked over by worshippers on their way to prayers”.
In his book The Age of Faith, Will Durant writes: “In the West of Europe and in the East, in North Africa and the Middle East, Classical civilization came to an end in the mid-seventh century; and the reason for its demise can be summed up in one word: Islam.”
Islam destroyed many civilizations, cultures and religious beliefs in West Asia and Arab world. It destroyed the cultures of Egypt and Syria. The Muslim invaders ransacked and burnt the libraries and academies of Egypt, Syria, and Babylonia because they had a deep contempt for other cultures and civilizations. In his book The Age of Faith, Will Durant writes: “In the West of Europe and in the East, in North Africa and the Middle East, Classical civilization came to an end in the mid-seventh century; and the reason for its demise can be summed up in one word: Islam.”
In the modern world
Egyptian reformist intellectual Islam Behery says Islamic terrorism started much before the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. The Islamic caliphates pursued terrorist ideology which believed in persecution of non-believers which Islamic State terrorists perpetrated on Yezidis.
Behery says: “Terrorist states ruled the people and perpetrated all the same things ISIS does. ISIS burns people, and this happened in the past. ISIS rapes women who are considered slave-girls, and this happened in the past. ISIS wants to establish a state that will spread all over the world, by means of swords, bombs, and fire… All of this has happened in the past. ISIS accuses all the people on Earth of heresy. This has happened in the past. What would you call the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman state? These were ages of a terrorist caliphate. The terrorism was organized by the establishment.”
Discussion about this post