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World war on terrorism

Jan 26,2015 - Last updated at Jan 26,2015

His Majesty King Abdullah perfectly summed the situation when he said that the fight against terrorism and radicalism should not be just a military one and that this effort should be led by Arabs and Muslims, who constitute the main victims of extremism.

The King told chief editors at a meeting on Sunday that the military aspect is just a short-term solution. Addressing security concerns provides medium-term and focus on the ideological effort long-term solutions.

The ideological war is the most difficult, as it targets the minds and hearts of people who are exposed to and influenced by various schools of thought without filtering right from wrong, good from bad and even Islamic from non-Islamic.

Many so-called scholars are far from and even go against the teachings of this tolerant, moderate, peace-loving faith, propagating their distorted ideas as teachings of Islam when they can be described anything else.

This highlights the need to focus on the quality of religious education and preaching in the Arab and Muslim worlds — and even elsewhere, as Muslims now live all over the world — at schools, universities, mosques and homes, not excluding the role of the media, which are playing an increasingly important role in its various manifestations.

But there remains a need for a central religious authority to lead the religious aspect of this effort.

Egypt’s Al Azhar University is a good candidate to play this role, in cooperation with similar establishments from across the Muslim world.

Such an endeavour would not be easy as it would require resources, planning, preparatory work and coordination at political and interstate levels, and is bound to be met with dogmatic resistance from those who claim to represent the true Islam, or those who adhere to sects other than the Sunni Al Azhar.

As such, all sects and schools of thought can be part of this effort, including the other major sect, Shiite, as long as they agree that the objective is to eliminate all misrepresentations, and promote the principles of tolerance, moderation, peace, coexistence and love that Islam preaches.

This long-term war, which the King described as a third world war by other means, would also require the support of allies and friends around the world, especially since most, if not all, countries in the world have Muslim populations who would be affected.

Muslims number over 1.5 billion today, making up almost one quarter of the world’s population.

It is also important for this effort not to be interpreted as anti-Muslim, as it would be led by Muslims defending their faith from those who misrepresent it, distort it and hijack it to achieve their own objectives.

The war in places like Syria and Iraq against the terror group that calls itself Islamic State is part of this effort.

It is unfortunate that this group and the murderers leading it are trying to label themselves as  an “Islamic State” when all they do — beheading, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, ethnic cleansing, destroying, discriminating, stealing and terrorising — is diabolic and un-Islamic.

Calling themselves so shows how words can be misleading, particularly to ordinary people, and highlights the need for the ideological part of this war.

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