The cold weather and now the snow have led to too much news -- television and newspaper -- which has prompted too many questions about Islamic terrorists and ISIS.
(ISIS -- Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and ISIL -- Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are the same organization. President Obama seems to prefer ISIL over ISIS).
If there are others in the same situation, questioning what is going on in the area of the world called the Middle East, I offer the following information gleaned from various internet sources available through GOOGLE searches, plus my dictionary. This is not offered as a study of Middle East religions or a justification for any activity using a religious theme as its cause. It is just the results of answering some questions for myself in trying to understand some questions prompted by the newscasts.
According to my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1984 Edition), the term Muslim (with a capital "M") is an Arabic word which means literally "one who surrenders (to God)." And, it also is used to define "an adherent to Islam." The same source's primary definition of Islam is "the religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Mohammad as his prophet." All these definitions accomplished was to provoke more questions about activities in the Middle East which lead us to radical groups like ISIS, Al Quida and the Taliban.
A meaningful understanding of Islam and Muslims requires a much more thorough understanding of the area's history than I care to undertake. However, if one can accept the internet source Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia) there is plenty of history to consider revealing how numerous wars over the region have separated ethnic tribes into various countries. There have been problems between tribes over territories and Islamic beliefs creating part of today's problems. We are now witnessing the effect of hundreds of years of rise and fall of controlling nations producing forms of government we cannot control. It is necessary to understand religious history back to Adam and Eve to follow the line of Islam to today. Apparently both Judaism and Islam claim their linage to Adam, as do Christians spiritually through the Old Testament of their Bible. This doesn't solve the problems of ISIS slaughtering Coptic Christians or burning a Jordanian pilot to death, but apparently they use Islamic teaching as an excuse. They then publicize their savagery using the internet to draw converts into their activities.
You don't have to go back very far in history to find situations where groups of radicals use their religious beliefs to justify actions that violate the social norms. A couple of years ago we had a group in Topeka, Kans., calling itself the Westboro Baptist Church which blamed the gay community for the death of our service men and women and demonstrated at funerals to make their point. Their activities had nothing to do with the Baptist denomination of churches as most of us know and they were an embarrassment to everyone outside their own group. Outrage from the news media and Christians and non-Christians alike pressured the group into silence and we don't hear any of them in the news today. Our laws provide for the freedom to exercise their views in public, but our controls were peer pressure, not guns or other means of retaliation. Our nation's need for order and to maintain the sacredness of religious freedom proved to be adequate to overcome this very minor, but vocal, threat.
It escapes me that the nations in the Middle East, where Islam is the dominant religion, do not rise up and squelch the ISIS faction of Muslim faith to protect the sanctity of their religion. After spending weeks (literally) trying to understand the Islam faith, some of its history and origins, I am still very confused. Islam has survived and allows some radical organizations to rise up to the point they will do anything they want to get attention and claim they are doing it to follow God's will.
America should be careful about how far we go in allowing our courts to do away with the basic Christian principles this nation started under. Taking away the right to display the Ten Commandments in front of a court house may seem trivial now but we have a history to protect also. President Obama doesn't seem too concerned about this threat to Christianity, but he doesn't refer to Islamic terrorists for fear of insulting the Muslim world.
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Editor's note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. He is a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Editorial on 02/25/2015