Islamic fundamentalists continue to plague and eat away at the civilized nations of the world, like a cancer to a healthy host. In light of the horrific attacks in Paris and most recently in Brussels, the question that preoccupies me is this: Why are Young Muslims Being Radicalized?

    My nephew (by marriage), Nabeel Qureshi, was asked by Fox News to give a response to the Brussels terrorist attack and also he wrote an article for USA Today. See below. Please pray for his message to have a positive impact around the globe and perhaps even more, please pray for his continued safety.

    You may recognize Nabeel Qureshi by his first book - "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity." If you have the time, it is certainly worth reading. His second book just came out last week. It's entitled "Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward."


   

The Quran's Deadly Role in Inspiring Belgian Slaughter

    by Nabeel Qureshi, USA Today, March 22, 2016

    Americans awoke this morning to another terrorist attack -- this time in the Brussels airport and subway. These attacks hit close to home. Many of us have flown through the Brussels airport, just as we have vacationed in Paris and visited San Bernardino. Once again images of the injured flood social media channels, reminding Americans of the ever-present reality that it could have been us. How is this happening? Why are people becoming radicalized, and so close to home? I am concerned how little we in the West understand why peaceful Muslims who live among us are drawn into radical Islam.

    As a Muslim growing up in the United States, I was taught by my imams and the community around me that Islam is a religion of peace. My family modeled love for others and love for country, and not just by their words. My father served in the U.S. Navy throughout my childhood, starting as a seaman and retiring as a lieutenant commander. I believed wholeheartedly a slogan often repeated at my mosque after 9/11: "The terrorists who hijacked the planes also hijacked Islam."

    Yet as I began to investigate the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad's life for myself in college, I found to my genuine surprise that the pages of Islamic history are filled with violence. How could I reconcile this with what I had always been taught about Islam?

    In February 2015, the U.S. State Department Acting Spokesperson Marie Harf suggested that a "lack of opportunity for jobs" might be a significant factor in radicalization and terrorism. Alternatively, Suraj Lakhani, a scholar of radicalization in Wales, suggested that the process is driven by religious concerns and a drive to bolster one's personal identity. He implies that young Muslims ought not be allowed to hear ISIL messages or interact with their recruiters.

    Naturally, I agree that interacting with ISIL recruiters is a bad idea, but I believe what the recruiters themselves say sheds the most insight on the radicalization process. ISIL's primary recruiting technique is not social or financial but theological. With frequent references to the highest sources of authority in Islam, the Quran and hadith (the collection of the sayings of the prophet Muhammad), ISIL enjoins upon Muslims their duty to fight against the enemies of Islam and to emigrate to the Islamic State once it has been established.

    A recent two-page spread in the third issue of ISIL's propaganda magazine, Dabiq, for instance, appealed to prospective recruits to leave their homeland and emigrate to the Islamic State by quoting a hadith from the canonical collections; it urged them to realize that they are living in times that reflect those of the earliest Muslims by referring to Muhammad's life; it encouraged them to take a step of faith by quoting the Quran; and it praised them for their obedience by quoting yet another hadith. All four references to the Quran, hadith and the related Sunnah, were on the same two-page spread. Such is the frequency and intensity with which ISIL uses Islam's foundational texts to appeal to potential recruits.

    As a young Muslim boy growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, it was impossible for me to look up a hadith unless I traveled to an Islamic library, something I would have never thought to do. For all intents and purposes, if I wanted to know about the traditions of Muhammad, I had to ask imams or elders in my tradition of Islam. That is no longer the case today. Just as radical Islamists may spread their message far and wide online, so, too, the Internet has made the traditions of Muhammad readily available for whoever wishes to look them up, even in English. When everyday Muslims investigate the Quran and hadith for themselves, bypassing centuries of tradition and their imams' interpretations, they are confronted with the reality of violent jihad in the very foundations of their faith.

    The Quran itself reveals a trajectory of jihad reflected in the almost 23 years of Muhammad's prophetic career. As I demonstrate carefully in my book, Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward, starting with peaceful teachings and proclamations of monotheism, Muhammad's message featured violence with increasing intensity, culminating in surah 9, chronologically the last major chapter of the Quran, and its most expansively violent teaching. Throughout history, Muslim theologians have understood and taught this progression, that the message of the Quran culminates in its ninth chapter.

    Nabeel Qureshi tackles the question "Why are Young Muslims Being Radicalized" for FOX News. Check out the clip.