Islam: 1440 Years of Mercy Hijacked by 70 Years of Manufactured Extremism

Historical Legacy of Peace and Pluralism in Islam

For over fourteen centuries, Islamic civilization largely exemplified peaceful coexistence and pluralism. From the Prophet Muhammad’s era through the caliphates and sultanates, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others often lived side by side under Muslim rule. The Ottoman Empire’s millet system and medieval Muslim Spain’s convivencia (coexistence) are notable examples where diverse communities thrived. Historians note that conflict between Islam’s sects or with other faiths was the exception, not the norm. In fact, the Middle East for centuries was “a beacon of relative social harmony and intellectual openness; especially in comparison to medieval Europe”

Jews, for instance, enjoyed a 1,400-year-long history of remarkable achievement under Muslim rule – a legacy interrupted only in the mid-20th century

This legacy of tolerance, mutual respect, and partnership across religious lines

stands as a testament to Islam’s inherently pluralistic ethos.

Islam’s core teachings reinforce this pluralism. The Holy Qur’an declares, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256), and extols the value of human life: “Whoever kills a soul, unless for a murder or spreading corruption on earth, it is as if he had slain all mankind; and whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved all mankind”

For centuries, mainstream Islamic scholarship (including the dominant Ash‘ari Sunni theology) championed moderation, reason, and mercy. Extremist violence and sectarian hatred were widely viewed as alien to the umma (global Muslim community) and contrary to the Prophet’s teachings of compassion. Indeed, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) warned, “Beware of extremism in religion, for those before you were destroyed by it,” urging balance and mercy over fanaticism. Given this deep well of peaceful tradition, many Muslims today ask with anguish: How did groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others emerge in recent decades – and why now?

The Rise of Wahhabism: Divergence from Orthodox Islam

To unravel this question, one must examine the roots of modern extremism. A critical turning point came in the 18th century with the rise of the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula. Founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Najd (central Arabia), this sect presented itself as a return to “pure” Islam. In reality, it broke sharply from Sunni orthodoxy as traditionally understood by Ash‘ari and Maturidi theologians. Wahhabism rejected centuries of Islamic scholarship and many mainstream practices – from revering saints and visiting shrines to celebrating the Prophet’s birthday – branding them as heretical “innovations.”

Most alarmingly, Wahhabism introduced an aggressive takfiri ideology: it declared Muslims who did not follow Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s interpretations as apostates. This was a radical departure from Sunni orthodoxy, which generally forbids excommunicating fellow Muslims over doctrinal disputes. Whereas classical scholars urged caution and nuance, the Wahhabis were “much too willing to commit takfīr (excommunication) [against] Muslims” who violated their narrow doctrines

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Wahhabi followers allied with the House of Saud and waged war on other Muslims – sacking holy cities like Karbala and Taif and massacring those they saw as “infidels.” Ottoman scholars condemned the Wahhabis as a neo-Kharijite sect (echoing the earliest extremists in Islam’s history). Traditional Sunni theologians (Ash‘ari/Maturidi) also criticized Wahhabis for literalism and even anthropomorphism in creed. For example, the Lebanese Ash‘ari scholar Abdullah al-Harari (Al-Ahbash leader) explicitly “accuses Wahhabis of falling into anthropomorphic descriptions of God and imitating polytheists” – a grave deviation from orthodox belief.

Thus from its birth, Wahhabism was seen by mainstream Islam as an extremist outlier – politically violent, theologically rigid, and fiercely intolerant. Its rise set the stage for much of the extremism we witness today. Yet for over a century, Wahhabism remained a fringe movement largely confined to Arabia. How then did its influence explode onto the global stage in the last 70-90 years? The answer lies partly in a convergence of colonial and geopolitical machinations that weaponized this ideology for political ends.

Colonial Divide-and-Rule – and the Hempher Allegations

By the 19th century, European colonial powers recognized that sectarian division could be a potent tool to weaken the Muslim world. The British and French in particular became masters of “divide and rule.” In the mid-1800s, as the Ottoman Empire struggled to maintain unity among its diverse populations, colonial agents stoked sectarian and ethnic rifts. For instance, historians note that Britain and France “latched on to religious minorities and stoked divisions” in places like Lebanon, carving the region into Christian vs. Druze enclaves

In Iraq, the British exploited Sunni-Shia-Kurd divides when they created the Iraqi state in 1921, embedding sectarianism into its politics

This pattern was deliberate: a fragmented Muslim world would be easier to dominate.

It is in this context that one of the most controversial documents in Muslim discourse emerged: “The Memoirs of Mr. Hempher.” Purportedly the confessions of an 18th-century British spy, Hempher’s memoir describes a plot to infiltrate the Ottoman realm and subvert Islam from within – chiefly by manipulating Ibn Abd al-Wahhab into creating a new sect. In the memoir, the British agent boasts: “We, the English people, have to make mischief and arouse schism in all our colonies in order that we may live in welfare and luxury”

He explains that by breaking Muslim unity and corrupting their morals, the British could destroy Islam’s power from inside

The Wahhabi movement, with its zealotry, would be the perfect tool: divide Muslims against each other in the name of “purifying” the faith.

Modern historians generally consider Hempher’s Memoirs to be apocryphal – likely an anti-Wahhabi propaganda tract that surfaced in the late 1800s

Its over-the-top conspiratorial tone has earned comparisons to the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery

Yet, even if the document itself is of dubious authenticity, the strategy it outlines is very real. The British Empire did pursue a divide-and-conquer approach. Notably, during World War I, Britain made alliances with Arabian chieftains (including the Saud-Wahhabi alliance) against the Ottomans. The British and French secretly signed the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 to carve up the Middle East, and after the war they created artificial borders that often inflamed sectarian tensions (e.g. splitting the Levant and Iraq). Many Muslims believe that British patronage helped the Saudi-Wahhabi emirate survive in the Arabian desert, eventually leading to the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

Whether or not a British spy coached Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the pattern is clear: colonial powers encouraged the most extreme, divisive forces within the Muslim world when it served their interests. By the mid-20th century, the Wahhabi ideology – once denounced by the Ottomans – found lavish state sponsorship under the Saudi monarchy (a key Western ally after WWII). Still, it would take the crucible of the Cold War for Wahhabism and kindred ideologies to be weaponized on a truly global scale.

Cold War Jihad: When the West Armed Extremism

In the latter half of the 20th century, global geopolitics were dominated by the Cold War between the U.S.-led West and the Soviet Union. The Muslim world often became a chessboard for proxy conflicts. In this era, Western powers actively nurtured Islamist extremism as a tool against their adversaries – a shortsighted strategy whose repercussions we are still reaping.

The most dramatic example was Afghanistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up a communist regime. The United States, determined to give the Soviets their own “Vietnam,” seized this opportunity. Years later, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski openly admitted what had long been suspected: months before the Soviet invasion, President Carter had already signed a directive (on July 3, 1979) to covertly support Afghan anti-communist militants

Brzezinski recounted with pride that “we knowingly increased the probability” of a Soviet intervention by aiding the Afghan Mujahideen When the Soviets did invade, the CIA massively escalated the program (code-named Operation Cyclone). Billions of dollars, advanced weapons, and training flowed to the Afghan resistance throughout the 1980s – much of it channeled via Pakistan’s ISI and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi regime, exporting its Wahhabi creed, matched American funds and recruited zealous fighters from across the Muslim world for a “jihad” against godless communism.

Washington celebrated this jihad as a great success, and indeed the Soviet Army eventually withdrew in defeat in 1989. Brzezinski called the secret operation “an excellent idea” and bragged that it “had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap” – giving the USSR its own debilitating war

When asked if he regretted supporting Islamist hardliners who later became terrorists, Brzezinski was unapologetic. “Regret what?” he scoffed. “What is more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe?”

This chilling reply encapsulates the cynical mindset: extremist militants were pawns to be used and discarded in the Cold War game. Those “stirred-up” Muslims – many of whom had been indoctrinated with Wahhabi-takfiri ideology in Afghan training camps – would soon evolve into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Indeed, by the late 1980s, one of the prominent Arab volunteers in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, formed Al-Qaeda (“The Base”) from elements of the U.S.-sponsored jihad. It is no secret that “the people we are fighting today, we funded 20 years ago,” as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later bluntly acknowledged

Clinton explained that in the 1980s, “we did it [funded the Mujahideen] because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union.” It “wasn’t a bad investment to end the Soviet Union,” she noted, “but let’s be careful what we sow, because we will harvest [it]”

In other words, the jihadists Washington midwifed had come back to haunt. By the 1990s, those same forces (now without a superpower to fight) turned their guns elsewhere – launching terror campaigns that culminated in the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Afghanistan is just one example. Throughout the Cold War, the West and its allies often backed ultra-conservative or Islamist forces to thwart nationalist or socialist movements in the Muslim world. In the 1950s and ’60s, for instance, Egypt’s President Nasser (a secular Arab nationalist) was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood – who had links with CIA and Saudi funding. In the 1980s, Israel itself reportedly encouraged the rise of Hamas (an offshoot of the Brotherhood) as a counterweight to the secular PLO in Palestine

And during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. tilted toward Iraq’s Saddam Hussein but also cultivated anti-Soviet Islamist networks elsewhere. These maneuvers were less about religion than realpolitik: western powers were willing to unleash the genie of extremism if it could be used to destabilize foes.

Geopolitical Agendas: Fragmenting the Muslim World

If the Cold War set the stage, the post-Cold War era delivered the script for why extremist groups have proliferated precisely in the last few decades. In the 1990s, with the Soviet Union gone, a unipolar America eyed the Middle East with new ambitions. Influential U.S. strategists and neoconservative think-tanks (like the Project for a New American Century, PNAC) began lobbying for a “reshaping” of the Middle East to ensure American and Israeli dominance. This meant toppling regimes deemed hostile (Iraq, Syria, Iran, etc.) and redrawing the map if necessary.

It is striking – and troubling – that long before anyone had heard of ISIS or “Sunni/Shia civil war,” Western and Israeli strategists envisioned fragmenting the major Muslim countries. In 1982, an Israeli foreign ministry adviser Oded Yinon penned a paper titled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s.” It bluntly argued that Israel’s survival required it to “ensure the break-up of all Arab countries” into smaller, divided states

Arab states, he wrote, are artificial “houses of cards” of various sects and ethnicities

Israel should exploit these fractures so that each rival sect would have its own weak state – none strong enough to challenge Israel

Specifically, Yinon called the dissolution of Syria and Iraq into sectarian mini-states “Israel’s primary target in the long run”

One can’t miss the eerie resonance with what later transpired: a sectarian civil war in Iraq after 2003, and Syria’s horrific fragmentation after 2011. Yinon’s memo, once dismissed as a paranoid “conspiracy theory,” reads today like a chilling prophecy – or blueprint. Scholars note its divide-and-rule logic“followed the time-honoured imperial pattern” and indeed versions of these ideas influenced U.S. neoconservatives in the 2000s

After 9/11, the United States aggressively moved to implement a vision not unlike Yinon’s. General Wesley Clark (retired NATO Supreme Commander) famously revealed that shortly after 9/11 he saw a Pentagon plan to “take out seven countries in five years – starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran.”

This astonishing plan (which largely came to pass, albeit on a slower timetable) underscores that the destabilization of strong Muslim nations was a conscious geopolitical objective – not an unintended consequence. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was the first major step. Under the pretext of eliminating “WMDs” and dictatorship, Iraq was invaded and its state apparatus dismantled. The occupation authorities then fanned sectarian tensions (for instance, by instituting ethno-sectarian quotas in governance). The result? A once-powerful Arab country descended into chaos, civil war, and division along Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish lines – exactly as Yinon had mused two decades prior. In the power vacuum and sectarian bloodletting, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was born – the predecessor of ISIS. By the time U.S. forces withdrew (2011), Iraq lay in ruins, and a new extremist menace was rising from those ashes.

Likewise, in Syria, when peaceful protests erupted in 2011, multiple outside powers intervened to stoke a civil war. The U.S., European states, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies all funneled support to various rebel factions seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Some of these rebels were secular or moderate, but many were hardline Islamists – and arms and funds often ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch or other extremists. A declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report in 2012 even predicted – with startling accuracy – the rise of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria, noting that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey” were supporting the Syrian insurgency and that such an Islamist entity was “desired” as a way to weaken Assad

In other words, elements in Western intelligence foresaw and seemingly tolerated the emergence of what became ISIS, as a tool against Damascus. Top U.S. officials later admitted as much. In 2014, President Obama’s former intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, commented that the U.S. decision to allow Islamist extremists to grow in Syria was a “willful” policy choice

And leaked recordings showed Secretary of State John Kerry musing that the U.S. watched the rise of ISIS hoping it would pressure Assad (only to see it get out of hand)

Meanwhile, Israel’s posture in the Syrian war was telling: Israeli leaders publicly stated they preferred an ISIS takeover in Syria to an Iranian-allied Assad remaining. In 2016, Israel’s defense minister Moshe Ya’alon went so far as to say that if forced to choose, “I choose ISIS” over Iran as a neighbor

This astonishing statement laid bare Israel’s calculus: the Sunni extremist ISIS, with all its barbarism, was deemed less threatening than a stable Syria aligned with Iran and Hezbollah. Indeed, ISIS never attacked Israel directly; its focus was destroying Arab governments and persecuting Shia, Christians, and other minorities – effectively doing Israel’s dirty work by wreaking havoc on Israel’s enemies. Syrian observers noted that for years, ISIS and other jihadists rarely, if ever, confronted Israel across the Golan Heights. In one incident when an ISIS-affiliate mistakenly skirmished with Israeli forces, they quickly apologized through backchannels

By contrast, groups backed by Iran (like Hezbollah) were actively resisting Israel. The pattern was clear: far from being a real threat to Israel, these extremists often aligned, however unwittingly, with Israel’s strategy of keeping its neighboring states fractured and weak.

Likewise, from Libya to Yemen, one can trace how Western interventions or support ignited chaos that opened the door for extremist militias. NATO’s 2011 bombing of Libya toppled Gaddafi – and that once-stable nation plunged into warlordism, with ISIS gaining a foothold on the Mediterranean shore. In Yemen, a proxy war has pitted an Iran-allied faction against a Saudi-led coalition (backed by the West), allowing Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS to thrive in the ungoverned spaces. Time and again, the geopolitical objective of fragmenting and weakening Muslim-majority states has gone hand-in-hand with the proliferation of extremist groups. These groups are political Frankensteins – monsters created or empowered by those who then decry the “terrorism” they unleash.

Who Really Suffers? Muslims as the Main Victims

For Muslim communities worldwide, the past 70-90 years – and especially the post-9/11 era – have been heartbreaking. Not only has our faith been maligned by the atrocities of these extremist groups, but the overwhelming majority of victims of their violence have been Muslims. This is a fact rarely acknowledged in Western media, which tends to focus on attacks in Western cities. In reality, from the streets of Baghdad to the mosques of Pakistan and the markets of Syria, it is Muslims who have paid the heaviest price.

Statistics bear this out. A study of terrorism fatalities between 2001 and 2015 found that “by far the vast majority of victims of terrorist attacks… have been Muslims killed by Muslims.”

The University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database shows that 75% of all terrorism deaths in that period occurred in just 25 Muslim-majority countries

Another analysis found that nearly 90% of those killed by Islamist terror attacks over recent decades were in Muslim-majority nations

Whether it’s Al-Qaeda’s car bombs in Iraqi Shia neighborhoods, Taliban suicide blasts in Kabul’s bazaars, Boko Haram razing villages in Nigeria, or ISIS’s reign of terror over Sunni tribes and Yazidi minorities alike – the carnage has largely been within the Muslim world. Every day, ordinary Muslim families – men, women, children – are the ones blown apart in markets, massacred in their mosques, or driven from their homes as refugees.

This reality exposes the grotesque lie in the extremists’ propaganda. They claim to be “defenders of Islam,” but no one has harmed Islam and Muslims more than these terrorist groups. They have destabilized nations, turned the world against us, and provided justification for foreign occupations and draconian security crackdowns. Perhaps most tragically, they have attempted to nullify Islam’s beautiful image as a religion of mercy. Instead, they project a grotesque caricature of Islam – one that delights Islam’s enemies. As the Arabic saying goes, “They killed the victim and walked at his funeral.” Extremists kill Muslims and then pretend to champion Muslim causes, all the while serving the agenda of those who seek to undermine Muslim unity and power.

Consider also the odd fact that these groups almost never target Israel or fight for Palestinian liberation – despite their fiery rhetoric about the West and “Zionists.” Al-Qaeda’s emir Osama bin Laden spoke endlessly of liberating Al-Aqsa, yet Al-Qaeda and ISIS have expended almost zero effort fighting Israel’s occupation. Instead, they busied themselves with killing fellow Muslims and destabilizing Muslim countries. ISIS, at its height, controlled territory not far from Israel’s border in Syria and Sinai, yet its aggression was directed inward against Muslim “apostates.” As noted, ISIS even implicitly coordinated a live-and-let-live understanding with the Israeli military

Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance has come mainly from nationalists and Islamist groups separate from Al-Qaeda/ISIS. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that “jihadist” groups conveniently ignore Israeli interests – another sign that their rise has never truly been about protecting Muslim lands, but rather about political power and sowing chaos. Many Muslims ask: How is it that these so-called Islamists never organize to defend Palestinians or Kashmiris, but readily take up arms to kill Muslims in Syria, Iraq, or Pakistan? The answer becomes clearer when one sees the puppet strings of geopolitics behind them.

Islam’s True Stance: Mercy, Moderation, and the Rejection of Extremism

At this point, one might despair. Have the last 70-90 years been nothing but a tragedy of manipulation, with Islam’s name abused by both extremists and their geopolitical puppeteers? Yet, in this dark tale there is a light of hope and truth: Islam itself remains a religion of peace, and Muslims worldwide have overwhelmingly rejected these extremist perversions.

From a theological perspective, the actions of groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc., are unequivocally condemned in Islam. They violate the Sharī‘ah (Islamic law) on multiple counts: the deliberate killing of civilians, the targeting of non-combatants, suicide bombings, and declaring fellow Muslims as apostates – all these are major sins if not outright acts of disbelief according to classical Islam. The Qur’an commands justice even in conflict: “And do not let the hatred of a people lead you to injustice. Be just; that is closer to piety” (Qur’an 5:8). It also commands mercy: “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. Indeed, Allah does not love transgressors” (2:190). The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ forbade harming women, children, elders, monks, or even trees and animals during war. How then could hostage-taking, beheadings of aid workers, or bombing buses be justified? Simply put, they cannot.

Mainstream Muslim scholars of all stripes – Sunni and Shia, Sufi and Salafi, Arab and non-Arab – have issued fatwas and statements against these extremists. Al-Azhar University (Sunni Islam’s most prestigious seat of learning) has repeatedly denounced ISIS as Khawārij – a fanatical sect outside Islam’s fold – and affirmed that their actions are “a grave sin” against Islamic teachings

Leading muftis and imams from Saudi Arabia to Morocco, from Egypt to Indonesia, have declared terror haram (forbidden). In 2014, over 120 Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to ISIS’s leader, systematically refuting his ideology with Qur’an and Hadith proofs. They highlighted, for example, that “Islam forbids killing emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats – hence ISIS’s murder of journalists and aid workers is utterly un-Islamic.” They refuted ISIS’s revival of slavery and rape, showing it has no place in modern Islam and was outlawed by consensus. They also condemned ISIS’s takfir of Shia and Christians, pointing out the Prophet’s covenant and centuries of coexistence. The Ash‘ari theology that underpins Sunni Islam explicitly emphasizes God’s mercy and discourages trying to “play God” by judging others’ faith; ISIS flipped this on its head, making themselves judge, jury, and executioner – a stance no orthodox school accepts.

Consider the word the Qur’an most often uses to describe the Prophet Muhammad: raḥmatan lil-‘ālamīn – “a mercy to all worlds” (21:107). The Prophet himself, when he had the power to take revenge on his fiercest enemies in Mecca, forgave them en masse in an act of unparalleled clemency. This is the true face of Islam: mercy, forgiveness, patience, and justice. The extremists’ face – cruel, vengeful, bloodthirsty – is a grotesque mask that has nothing to do with our beloved faith. It is telling that over the past two decades, Muslim populations themselves have risen up against terrorist groups: Sunnis in Iraq formed the “Anbar Awakening” to fight Al-Qaeda; ordinary Syrians resisted ISIS’s draconian rule; Nigerian Muslims have been at the forefront of aiding victims of Boko Haram; Pakistani civilians and scholars rallied to delegitimize the Pakistani Taliban after their atrocities. This is proof that the Muslim heart rejects extremism. It is an imposition from outside, not a product of the authentic Islamic spirit.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Islam’s Narrative

Why, then, have extremist groups emerged in the last 70-90+ years, despite Islam’s millennia as a pluralistic, peaceful faith? The evidence points to a painful answer: they were engineered and enabled by specific political forces and circumstances, not by Islam itself. The convergence of the Wahhabi sect’s aberrant ideas with colonial divide-and-rule schemes, Cold War power plays, and post-Cold War strategies to balkanize the Middle East created a perfect storm. These groups are political monsters wearing religious masks. Their timing is not a coincidence – it corresponds directly to geopolitical interests that found Islamic-branded extremism a convenient weapon.

But as Muslims, understanding this history empowers us. It allows us to separate the pure waters of Islam from the toxic spill of politics. We can grieve the way our faith was hijacked, but also feel pride that our Ummah has resisted. We remember that for 1,400 years, Islam largely fostered civilizations of learning, tolerance, and faith – and those ideals are not dead. Today, every act of unity between Sunni and Shia, every interfaith gesture by Muslims, every mosque that opens its doors to neighbors, is a defiant rejection of the extremists’ agenda.

The truth is, Islam never needed “reform” toward peace – it only needs a return to its roots of mercy and justice. The Qur’an reminds us: “O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another, not despise one another” (49:13). That divine wisdom stands diametrically opposed to the divide-and-destroy tactics of both terrorists and imperialists.

In this emotional moment of reflection, we must also recognize the martyrdom of our era: the countless Muslim lives lost at the hands of these extremist criminals. They are the unsung martyrs of false wars, victims of a conspiracy to defame Islam from within. Our hearts burn for them. But we honor their memory by speaking the truth: Islam is not the killer – it was the target. The killers have been those who sold their souls for power and those who pulled their strings from the shadows.

As informed readers – Muslim or non-Muslim – the onus is on us to challenge the simplistic narrative that “Islam is violent.” We see the fuller picture now: Islam was exploited as a cover for violence that had very un-Islamic motives. And we see that wherever possible, the enemies of a strong Muslim world were too happy to pour fuel on the fire of extremism.

Yet, despite it all, Islam endures. The extremists failed to destroy the essence of our faith. Mosques still echo with prayers for peace. Neighbors of different sects in many lands still share iftar in Ramadan together. The vast majority of the 1.8 billion Muslims remain compassionate, hospitable, and devoted to God’s true message. In the end, truth prevails over falsehood. Our religion is one of Rahmah (mercy) and Salam (peace) – and any group that spreads fitna (corruption and strife) is, by definition, outside that beautiful path.

Let this exposé be both a warning and a reassurance. A warning that we must be vigilant – the next time we see a violent “Islamic” movement emerge suddenly, we should ask who benefits? But a reassurance that these dark episodes are not spontaneous outgrowths of Islam. They are aberrations, often cynically nurtured by outside forces. And just as a healthy body fights off infection, the body of the Muslim Ummah, with its antibodies of faith and knowledge, will inshaAllah overcome this illness of extremism.

Islam began as a mercy and a light in a dark world. It spread not by the sword, but by the illuminating power of justice, scholarship, and spiritual truth. Those ideals are our inheritance. No amount of extremist horror can erase 14 centuries of enlightenment brought by Islam. As the Qur’an promises: “Indeed, falsehood by its nature is bound to perish” (17:81). The last 70-90+ years have tested us, but by Allah’s grace, the falsehood of extremist ideology will perish – and the truth of Islam’s peace will shine bright once more.

Sources:

 

• • Martin Gilbert, History Today: On 1,400 years of Muslim-Jewish coexistencehistorytoday.com.

• • Marxist Left Review: On centuries of sectarian harmony in the Middle Eastmarxistleftreview.org.

• • Wikipedia (Wahhabism): Wahhabi practice of takfir against other Muslimsen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org.

• • Memoirs of Hempher: British strategy to divide Muslims (apocryphal text)en.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org.

• • Zbigniew Brzezinski interview (1998): U.S. provocation of Soviet-Afghan Warmarxists.orgmarxists.org.

• • Hillary Clinton via Politico: “We funded the Mujahideen… people we are fighting today we funded 20 years ago.”politico.com.

• • Oded Yinon plan (1982): Israeli strategy to balkanize Arab statesarabnews.comarabnews.com.

• • Wesley Clark revelation: U.S. plan to “take out 7 countries in 5 years”news.cgtn.com.

• • VOA News: 98% of terrorism deaths 2001-2015 were outside the West; majority in Muslim countriesvoanews.comvoanews.com.

• • TRT World / Fondapol: ~80-90% of terror victims are Muslims in Muslim-majority statesfondapol.org.

• • Ya’alon quote (2016): Israeli Defense Minister prefers ISIS over Iransethfrantzman.com.

• • Quran 5:32: Killing one innocent = killing all humanitylegacy.quran.com. (Emphasizing Islamic principle against murder.)