Written by Theresa Corbin

As the world waits and worries over the fate of the girls who were abducted on April 14 from a school in Nigeria, a terrorist group, Boko Haram, steps forward and claims responsibility for the repulsive act. And all this evil based on the premise–as their name states–that Western education in sinful (much of which is based on the Golden Era of Islamic discovery) and that Allah tells them to sell these girls as sex slaves (did someone forget to take their Thorazine?).

But somewhere between May 2013 and the recent kidnapping the story changed. CNN reports that Shakau, the leader of Boko Haram, in May 2013 “first announced in a video that Boko Haram would start kidnapping girls. The kidnappings, he said, were retaliation for Nigerian security forces nabbing the wives and children of group members.”

Now after the deed is done and the world is looking at Nigeria, Shakau claims he did it in the name of Allah (God) and Islam. Has he forgotten about his original motive of retaliation?

If there were ever a case of twisting religion to suit agenda, this would be it.

Shakau and his band of criminals are simply trying to give their retribution some form of justification that the world will not be able to ignore.

It is the oldest trick in the book. Distort Islam beyond recognition (or fill in the blank with any other ideology) and use it to promote political agenda in order to attain power. Make sure you do so in impoverished area with an ill-educated population. Keep the people uneducated. Use terror to force people into submission.

Then tell the world you have some sort of supreme knowledge no one else has and what you do is in the best interest of your people. And voila your greed and blood lust are sated (right out of the North Korean play book). 

The premise on which they claim to stand so thinly veils their greed for power it is almost childish.

Boko Haram has not only kidnapped these innocent girls and threatens to sell them into sexual slavery [ “O ye who believe! Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should ye treat them with harshness” … Quran 4:19], 

they have also:

–Assassinated Muslim clerics for criticizing Boko Haram’s violent nature [killing him (a Muslim) is disbelief -Bukhari].

–Bombed churches [In a letter to St. Catherine’s Monastery, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) dictated, “No one is to destroy a house of their (Christian) religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses … No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).” ].

–Burned down over 200 schools [“If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise” … -Abu Dawud]

–Murdered fifty-nine male students at the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi  [“… if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” Qur’an 5:32] 

Boko Harma has kidnapped, murdered and maimed countless others all in an effort to set themselves up as supreme rulers of Nigeria claiming Islam (their own made-up version) as their right of power. 

However, 99.999999% of Muslims in the world are not buying it. We will not allow them to usurp our religion and superimpose their own ideology and agenda. We will not offer Boko Haram or any other group like it aid or comfort.

Arsalan Iftikhar, international human rights lawyer and adjunct professor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago, says

As a Muslim human rights lawyer, it is obscene and absolutely un-Islamic for these lunatic human traffickers to invoke the name of God while kidnapping young girls and threatening to sell them into sexual slavery. The leaders of Boko Haram have clearly never read the Holy Quran, which states quite clearly that “oppression is worse than murder” (2:191) and that nobody “shall force girls to commit prostitution” (24:33).

Hassan Mostafa, chair of the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario, says,

When the leader of this organization started making ridiculous references that he was told by God or Allah to enslave these young women, we felt the need to clarify that this in no way represents Muslims in Canada or around the world.

Imam Khalid Latif, Executive Director and Chaplain, Islamic Center at New York University, says,

They [Boko Haram] espouse a perversely skewed interpretation of Islam that I personally believe carries no legitimacy and is far removed from any Islam that I or the majority of Muslims practice. 

Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb of Al-Azhar, An Islamic institute in Egypt, says 

Harming the girls ‘completely contradicts the teachings of Islam and its tolerant principles.’

Religious Endowments Minister Mohammed Mohktar Gomaa says,  

The actions by Boko Haram are pure terrorism, with no relation to Islam, especially the kidnapping of the girls.

It is time for the Muslims to stand up together in outrage about the filth that is done in the name of our religion.

We demand that Boko Haram brings these girls back to their families, to their childhood, and to their education!

We demand that Boko Haram and groups like it STOP misappropriating Islam for their agendas!

#BringBackOurGirls   #TakeBackIslam

Read more about our Take Back Islam effort: here, here, here, and here

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