BERLIN, April 11, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The European Union is set to remove derogatory terminology about Islam like "Islamic terrorism" and "fundamentalists" in its new lexion of public communication to make clear that terrorists are hijacking the religion, an EU official revealed on Tuesday, April 11.We wouldn't want to cause Mr. Faruk any stress, would we?
"Certainly 'Islamic terrorism' is something we will not use ... we talk about 'terrorists who abusively invoke Islam'," the official told Reuters.
EU counter-terrorism chief Gijs de Vries said that terrorism was not inherent to any religion, and praised Muslims for opposing attempts by terrorists abusing Islam.
"They have been increasingly active in isolating the radicals who abuse Islam for political purposes, and they deserve everyone's support. And that includes the choice of language that makes clear that we are talking about a murderous fringe that is abusing a religion and does not represent it," he told Reuters.
Omar Faruk, a Muslim British barrister who has advised the government on community issues, said there was a strong need for a "new sort of political dialogue and terminology".
The widespread use of the expression "just creates a culture where terrorism actually is identified with Islam. That causes me a lot of stress," Faruk added.
The lexicon, which would set down guidelines for EU officials and politicians, will reconsider other terms like "Islamists" and "jihad," which is often used by groups like Al-Qaeda to mean a holy war against the infidels.
"Jihad means something for you and me, it means something else for a Muslim. Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself," said the EU official.
The very same website that printed this definition of Jihad has this quote in its "fatwa bank," quoting the "moderate" Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
The meaning of Jihad in our present time particularly refers to striving to liberate Muslim lands from the grip of the disbelievers who usurped them and imposed on them their own laws in lieu of the Divine Law. Those disbelievers may be Jews, Christians or both or even pagans, who follow no particular religion at all. Disbelievers are all alike.So here is the real definition of Jihad: When talking to Muslims, it means fighting non-Muslims; when talking to non-Muslims, it means "struggle."
Capitalists, Communists, Westerners, Easterners, People of the Book and pagans are by no means different from one other. They should all be fiercely fought if they attempt to occupy any part of the Muslim land. This duty falls on those closest to the occupied land, who should be aided by those closest to them, who, in turn, ought to be aided by those closest to them, till it becomes incumbent on all Muslims to take part in Jihad.
Muslims have never been more severely afflicted than they are nowadays. Many of their lands have been captured by the disbelievers, on top of which is Palestine that has fallen victim to corrupt Jews. Similarly, Kashmir has been dominated by pagan Hindus. Chechnya and other Islamic states have fallen in the grip of pagan tyrannical communism.
Retrieving these lands, freeing them from the clutches of atheists and their twisted laws is the joint responsibility of all Muslims. Declaring Jihad to save our land is an Islamic obligation.
If war is waged anywhere to achieve this goal, namely to free the occupied lands of the laws and the tyranny of disbelievers, it is undoubtedly a case of Jihad for the sake of Allah. It thus needs to be financed from the money of Zakah, the amount of which is to be decided based on the total sum of the charity, the requirements of Jihad as well as the degree of the need of other potential recipients of charity. This is all to be decided by reliable scholars, if they are to be found.
I have yet to see an Islamic website mention the terror group "Islamic Jihad" with any anger about how they supposedly usurped the word Jihad.
The EU has succumbed yet again to dhimmitude, and watering down the definition of the war against Islamic terror means that the Islamic terrorists have just won another victory in their jihad against the West.