Terrorism and Islam, Any Inherent Connection?: A Philosophical Investigation
Ever since the 9/11, the world has come to experience the unfortunate reverberations of transnational terrorism. While the effects of such dastardly and lethal acts leave much to be desired, it has never failed to be noticed that the greater part of and the most heinous of these terrorist attacks are championed by Muslims and in the name of Islam. In Nigeria, the two monsters of Bokoharam and Fulani militia, have this Islamic connection. This has led to lots of aspersion cast on Islam as a religion as well as heightened Islamophobia. The question is whether this Islamic connection is merely incidental or inherent. The piece examines to what extent Islam as religion fuels terrorism and violence in general as; well as determine if Islam has such potency in itself or is it a congregation of factors. In doing this the paper uses the philosophical methods of analysis and hermeneutics. It is discovered that while there are presence of non-religious factors as well as Islamic factors that are merely incidental, Islam has contents, history, tradition, and values which are regarded rigid, dichortomist and even fundamentalist. These predispose towards and encourage intolerance and violence fanning the embers of Islamic terrorism.
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