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[Ahmad786Khan]

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND MILITANCY

The phenomenon of religious extremism and militancy is as old as, the religion itself. Man’s affiliation with his religion is bound by the ties of his firm belief in truthfulness of his ideology, so much, so that at times he is not even prepared to give a second thought to any reasoning and or logic, which may challenge his perception of right and wrong. Many of the ancient societies were so fanatic about their religious beliefs that they even did not hesitate to kill the prophets, who tried to stop them from their evil practices and false religious beliefs. The Arabs at the time of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh), believed in the idol worship and had a firm belief in the righteousness of their religious rituals, to the extent that they were not willing to consider any argument or logic, against what they thought was true and beneficial for them, although it was easily conceivable that what prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was telling them, made more sense then what they believed in, however, they apposed the Islam to the limit, where, swords were drawn and blood was shed. The Quraish’s hatred, for Muslims, is an example of the religious extremism, because, otherwise, the Muslims of Makkah had no designs against the locals and all they wanted was the right of co-existence with the religious freedom in their personal lives. The Quraish were not being forced to accept Islam, neither were they imposed with any social or economical warfare or threat of life, rather, all they were approached with was a call for a religion, which they had choice of accepting or denying, with no compulsion whatsoever, even then they denied their fellow brethren, the right of believing in a religion, other than theirs, and tried to eliminate their, fellow tribesmen, only on the grounds that they started believing in something which was contradictory to their opinion about the true path. The religion and militancy go a long way together. The early Muslims challenged the contemporary empires for the purpose of propagation of their religion and expansion of Muslim lands. The crusaders gathered in the name of Christianity to wage holy war. The militancy has remained an integral part of the religion throughout the history of civilization. The humans have remained in the habit of settling conflicts with force, instead of debate. The religion being the fundamental concern of human intellect is bound to raise controversies, which have historically been dealt with power of the sword, and disputes arising out of religious affairs, remained the primary cause of clashes amongst various societies and civilizations.

[sajidnuml]

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