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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(The site talks about major religions and tries to remove the
misconception people have….and highlights what’s common between
the major religions…..and inviting people to truth…..Join and invite
people to peace and truth)
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 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
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.