http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4665
 

  The Terrorists' Motivation: Islam

by Edwin A. Locke and Alex Epstein
<http://www.capmag.com/author.asp?name=383> (May 15, 2006)

The continued attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West have led
many to ask, what is the motivation of the terrorists? Commentators are
eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation the
terrorists themselves openly proclaim: Islam.

The near silence about the true role of Islam in motivating Islamic
terrorists has two main causes: multiculturalism and religion.
Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore none
may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are therefore
reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western culture to
Islamic culture. And the strong commitment to religion of many
Americans, especially conservatives, makes them reluctant to indict a
religion as the cause of a massive evil. But if we are to identify the
fundamental cause of the terrorists' actions, we must understand at
least two fundamental premises of the religion they kill for.

First, Islam, like all religions, rejects reason as a means of gaining
knowledge and guiding action; it holds that all important truths are
grasped by faith in supernatural beings and sacred texts. The Koran
explicitly states that knowledge comes from revelation, not thinking.
(Christianity in pure form entails a similar rejection of reason, but it
has been heavily diluted and secularized since the Renaissance.) Islam
advocates the subordination of every sphere of life to religious dogma,
including the legal system, politics, economics, and family life; the
word "Islam" means literally: submission. The individual is not supposed
to think independently but to selflessly subordinate himself to the
dictates of his religion and its theocratic representatives. We have
seen this before in the West--it was called the Dark Ages.

Second, as with any religion that seeks converts, a derivative tenet of
Islam is that it should be imposed by force (you cannot convince someone
of the non-rational). The Koran is replete with calls to take up arms in
its name: "fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them . . . those
who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . . . those who
disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid
will be poured down on their heads . . . as to the deviators, they are
the fuel of hell."

These ideas easily lead to fanaticism and terrorism. In fact, what is
often referred to as the "fanaticism" of many Muslims is /explicitly
endorsed by their religion/. Consider the following characteristics of
religious fanatics. The fanatic demands unquestioning obedience to
religious dogma--so does Islam. The fanatic cannot be reasoned with,
because he rejects reason--so does Islam. The fanatic eagerly embraces
any call to impose his dogma by force on those who will not adopt it
voluntarily--so does Islam.

The terrorists are not "un-Islamic" bandits who have "hijacked a great
religion"; they are consistent and serious followers of their religion.

It is true that many Muslims who live in the West (like most Christians)
reject religious fanaticism and are law-abiding and even loyal citizens,
but this is because they have accepted some Western values, including
respect for reason, a belief in individual rights, and the need for a
separation between church and state. It is only to the extent that they
/depart/ from their religion--and from a society that imposes it--that
they achieve prosperity, freedom, and peace.

In the last year, there has been more and more of a call for a "War of
Ideas"--an intellectual campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the
Arab world that will discourage and discredit Islamic terrorism.
Unfortunately, the centerpiece of this campaign so far has been to
appeal to Muslims with claims that Islam is perfectly consistent with
Western ideals, and inconsistent with terrorism. America has groveled to
so-called "moderate" Muslim leaders to strongly repudiate terrorism,
with little success. (Those leaders have focused little energy on
damning Islamic fanaticism, and much on the alleged sins of the US
government.) Such a campaign cannot work, since insofar as these
"moderates" accept Islam, they cannot convincingly oppose violence in
its name. A true "War of Ideas" would be one in which we proclaim loudly
and with moral certainty the /secular/ values we stand for: reason,
rights, freedom, material prosperity, and personal happiness on this earth.