Table of Contents
Types of Extremist Religious Groups. 3
Origin of Extremist Religious Groups. 6
Philosophy of the Extremist Religious Groups. 7
Operations of the Religious Extremist Groups. 9
Effects of Religious Extremism.. 11
Extremist Religious Groups
Introduction
Extremism refers to the manipulation of certain perspectives to unacceptable limits. The laws change to favor the people or the group of people pushing for the changes. Religious extremism is the manipulation of the religious laws to extremes that change the religious laws to forms that favor the individuals. Such instances may be the forceful eviction of the people with different views from specific regions. The extremist religious groups at times differ even with people of the same religious background due to their skewed version of interpreting the religious books.
Most of the groups interpret the religious books in ways that favor their extreme actions as a way of justifying their actions in the name of protecting the gospel. Religious groups with the extreme nature do not originate from a specific religion but rather from the ideologies followed in the assembly of the group. Some of the groups such as ISIS and the Al-Shabab base their ideologies on their skewed translation of the Quran while others such as the Christian Identity Movement originate from the skewed interpretation of the Bible. The fundamental function of this paper is to consider the extremist religious groups, their ideologies, and the effects of their existence.
Types of Extremist Religious Groups
ISIS
The origin of the extremist groups does not express the views of all the people from the origin. A terrorist group may compose of Christians, but the group barely represents the views of all the Christians. In a similar manner, the origin of the groups such as ISIS does not reflect the position of all the Muslims. Many Muslims put a lot of effort in eliminating such groups due to the destructive nature of their ideologies and operations.
One of the groups is ISIS. The abbreviations stand for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. A group is a militant group that has control of major regions in Iraq and Syria. Some of the members of the group are in regions of different parts of the world such as North Africa and South Asia. In the beginning, the group was a member of the al-Qaeda but the faction became independent after ten years of joint operations (Dhiman, 2015, p. 15).
The group broadened their territories to places in India and Nigeria in January and June this year respectively. The group tries to establish dominance on all the Muslims in the world from the religious, political, and military aspects. The objectives of the group under the leadership of Abu Bark al-Baghdadi causes conflicts between different groups and military forces of other states such as Russia and the United States.
The group eliminates all the people that differ in opinion from their version leading to the massive outflow of people from the areas controlled by the militants. ISIS tries to take control of the whole world by making all the people follow their religion and their respective translations, the launching of a singular currency for the whole world and the establishment of a single government under their leadership. ISIS is famous for the beheading of the people who oppose their operations.
ISIS has many supporters. For example, the police in Turkey made a swoop of the resorts in the area arresting 250 members. The growth of the group attracts more supporters from all over the world who share a common vision. The table below shows the statistical figures of the supporters of ISIS and their sympathizers. The numbers total to more than 42 million people.
| Country | Iraq | Syria | Palestine | Yemen | UAE | Libya | Jordan | Tunisia |
| Percentage | 4 | 17 | 20 | 7 | 13 | 7 | 14 | 3 |
| Population | 651,720 | 3.8 m | 884,109 | 1.7 m | 1.2 m | 434,140 | 904,260 | 326,700 |
Al-Shabab
The group is a religious extremist group with their origin in the east African country of Somalia (Hansen, 2013, p. 19). Al-Shabab started working with Al-Qaeda in the year 2012, but the two groups broke up in the year 2015 due to the constant wrangles between the leaders of the two groups. The group operates under the assumption of waging holy war against all the enemies of Islam. The religious extremist group labels all the people that do not support their religion as enemies of the religion who should die. By the death of the purported enemies, members believe that they are protecting their religion.
Many states label the groups as a terrorist organization with the United Nations and the African Union forces working hard to eliminate the group. The groups had control of major parts of the country making many people flee the country because of fearing the forceful induction into the group. Despite the group having an Islamic origin, many Muslims are refugees in the surrounding nations such as Kenya and Ethiopia because of their different opinion from that of the group.
Concerned Christians
Concerned Christians is a cultic group operating in Israel. The members of the group claim to be protecting the Christians from the rising number of groups that are against the Christians. The group is under the leadership of Monte Kim Miller, who started the group in the year 1980. The group aims at eliminating the members of the Islam religion from the country as well as the conversion of the whole population to Christianity. The group targets the mosques and other religious places where the Muslims conduct their religious functions. The reason for targeting is burning down the buildings to cripple down the religious activities of the Muslims.
Currently, the group has bases in regions like Greece, Philadelphia among others. Most of the members of the group faced deportation from Israel in the effort of weakening the threat level of the group and protecting the country from religious wars and turmoil. With the destruction and elimination of the population that does not share their sentiments, the groups believe that they are waiting for the second coming of their creator. All the ideologies held by the extremist religious groups seem to come from their respective religious books, but the translations differ with the intended meaning. The groups change the message to fit their needs.
Origin of Extremist Religious Groups
During the overthrowing of the government of Libya under the leadership of Gaddafi, many of the arms under the custody of the government fell to the rebels. The rebels received funds from most parts of the world to help overthrow the government. However, with the acquisition of the arms, the groups broke away from the al-Qaeda and established their group with specific guidelines and regulations. The war in Libya ended up empowering the group with enough labor to become a threat in the whole region. Most of the extremist religious groups originate from other groups and capitalize on [political turmoil to grow stronger. Al-Qaeda represents one of the oldest groups that have led to the establishment of other groups that broke from them.
After breaking up from Al-Qaeda, ISIS established their interests that became the sole reason for their operations in the region. For the concerned Christians, the group formed in the country under the leadership of Monte Kim Miller, who dictated to the members of the operational structure of the group and the values to uphold. The extremist groups base their roles in fighting against all the people who do not support their values.
Such explains the fight between ISIS and various governments such as the United States and Russia. The groups destabilize the regions where they have their bases making it impossible for people to live in peace or conduct any activity to improve the region economically. With the growth of the groups, the financial needs increases and the need to get a bigger operational space. The expansion of the groups translates to bigger issues hence the efforts by the governments to eliminate the groups.
Philosophy of the Extremist Religious Groups
The members of the Concerned Christians group believe that they need to be ready for the second coming of their creator. For this reason, they believe that the presence of the people that harbor different beliefs is a reason for making their creator delay in coming back. The members also believe that people who share a different believe will hinder them from getting to heaven.
For this reason, the members of the group work hard to eliminate the members of the other religions to be ready for their makers. The al-Shabab on the other and label the people who support other religions as enemies of their religion. The group believes in leading their people by dominating the political arena in the country and controlling the regions. The group believes that the current border in the country does not depict the real size of their state. The fighting between the country and the neighboring states is in the effort to try to expand their borders.
The group fights for the strict application of the Sharia law (Stone, 2014, p. 67). To the group, the law describes the religious status that each human being should follow. To the group, the religious affiliation is not optional, and not all people have the free will to choose their religion. By forcing the people to follow their ideologies, the group believes that it is the only way of restoring the dignity of their cultural background.
The group believes that only the local population should express their views on the matters concerning the region. Te group fights vehemently to restrict the interference of outsiders from the matters of the region. Al-Shabab originates from a religious perspective, but their ideologies and goals spread to the political arena. For the locals who do not obey the teachings of the group, the religious extremists consider them as enemies of the religion who should not have the liberty of living in the area.
The ISIS, on the other hand, tries to emulate the life of the founding father of Islam. To the group, any innovations of a religious nature are unacceptable, and they support the Sharia law. The group supports the death of the people who oppress Muslims and call for the Jihad of the enemies of the religion according to their understanding. To the group, the killing of people who do not support their doctrines is a way of expressing the discontentment with the individual.
Those people leaving the group are enemies of the group and deserve the same treatment as those opposing the group. The groups differ with the peaceful teachings of the Quran by supporting extremism and acts of violence on other people (Khan, 2006, p. 225). The group disputes modernization and the adoption of practices that changes the practices described in the religious books. The groups believes in being the leaders of the world by dominating the political arena and making all the other religions support their elusive practices.
Operations of the Religious Extremist Groups
Leadership
Religious extremist groups operate under a specific leader. The leader chooses another member of the group who are responsible for the running of the group from various localities. The leader of the group makes decisions on behalf of the group, and his word is final (Ciment, 2015, p. 397). The different people under the leader hold different positions that maintain the strength of the group and oversee various operations conducted by the group.
Religious extremist groups hold the identity of their leaders as a secret as a way of protecting the group. The communication in the group starts from the leader heading downwards to the members of the group. Each of the members of the group plays an important part in making the group functional and protecting the leader. For ISIS, the leader, Abu Bakr delegates duties to the followers who include the minister for war and finance.
Many of the religious groups such as the ISIS and the Al-Shabab end up training the followers on how to fight and use weapons to defend the leader and the cause. The death of the leader of the group threatens the survival of the group hence the extreme measures of protecting the leader. It is the expectation that all the members obey the hierarchy set in the group.
The obedience ensures that all the people will play their part without many hurdles. Most of the extremist religious groups terrorize the residents of the respective localities and rely on high levels of secrecy to remain functional. The leadership of the groups capitalizes on the loyalty of the members and those with the highest levels of loyalty undertake the best positions in the group.
Funding
The groups require high amount of funds to remain functional. Buying of weapons and information for the groups to survive ends up using high amounts of funds. The al-Shabab generated funds from ransoms paid by various nations to free their ships and their citizens captured by the Al-Shabab while at sea.
The Al-Shabab used to capture frequently ships using the Indian Ocean and hold them in their stronghold until the payment of the ransom. The group would then go ahead to use the funds in carrying out their daily activities. The group also engaged in poaching activities and the sale of illegal firearms (Daniels, 2012, p. 60). With the group operating in regions along the ocean, it was easy to get the weapons in the country of Somalia and sell the weapons to generate funds.
The concerned Christians, on the other hand, relied on the donations of the loyal members of the cult for survival. Although the maintenance of the group was cheaper, the donations helped maintain the organization. ISIS gets funds from the sale of weapons and receiving funds from their affiliate groups.
Some of the terrorist groups that shares a common goal with the groups such as ISIS fund them as a way of accomplishing their goals. Such groups include the Boko Haram. The group also believes in empowering their followers to take control of their country and with the massive wealth at their disposal, the group does not have any problem funding the ISIS. The funding allows for the smooth running of the group and the provision of all the necessities such as food and weapons for the various missions.
Allies
Most religious extremist groups form allies with those groups that share a common vision. The formation of allies enables the groups to help each other with survival antics for the group. The groups share information on how to carry out their missions while sharing intelligence. The concerned Christians do not have allies in the country due to the localized activities of the group.
The single location of the group in Israel restricts their operations to the country making it hard to have allies. For ISIS and Al-Shabab, their allies are the Boko Haram, the Al-Qaeda among others. The presence of allies makes it hard to eliminate the group since the groups can get reinforcement from their allies in times of turmoil. Formation of allies is tricky since even the religious extremist groups work hard to eliminate each other to maximize the dominance of the groups in the localities.
Effects of Religious Extremism
Religious extremists go to extreme lengths to exercise their dominance. With each of the religion trying to offer resistance, the religious groups end up in war. The religious groups fight to the point where one of the groups will accept defeat. In Somalia, the actions of religious extremism led to the death of many people. The people, especially the civilians who reside in the areas end up having many injuries with the majority dying. To avoid being caught up in the middle, most of the civilians end up becoming refugees in other countries.
Religious extremism faces resistance mostly from the government of the respective country or people of the other religions. With the war going on, the way of life in the country becomes impossible leading to the inevitable death. Many of the extremists have experience in military actions making their activities vary dangerous. The slain leader of Al-Qaeda had prior training in the United States and the bombing in Kampala left 70 people dead.
All this is in the effort of protecting their religion. Early this year, the Al-Shabab took a mall in the capital city of Kenya by the name West gate mall and left 69 people dead. Later in the year, the extremists took charge of a university in the country of Kenya and killed 147 people dead (Aman, 2007, p. 12). The extremist religious groups are responsible for the death of many people all in the name of fighting for their doctrine.
Most of these religions preach peace but the religious extremists manipulate their followers into considering the other religions as the enemies in the war. In June this year, the Religious extremists in Somalia attacked a military base in the country killing more than thirty soldiers. Religious extremists lead to the death of many people. In Syria, the war between the militants and the government resulted in the death of many people caught in the crossfire especially with the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government.
Religious extremism destabilizes the governments (Haar & Busuttil, 2003, p. 198). In areas where the government is fighting the religious groups, there are fewer developments in the country since most of the resources go to the war against the militia. For more than a decade, the East African country of Somalia has not experienced a stable government due to the presence of Al-Shabab.
The militias go to extreme lengths to destabilize the government by bombing the crucial infrastructure required to keep the government operational. Such infrastructure includes the parliament. The militias also take strategic locations in the country to control the economic stability of the government. In Somalia, the Al-Shabab took control of the port of Kismayu, which provided entry to all the goods into the country. Taking control of the port translated to crippling the activities of the government in getting goods into the country.
All the major business deals in the country came to a standstill. People were no longer safe. The religious extremist not only affects the business activities in the country where they are but also the surrounding regions. The Indian Ocean was a no-go zone since the militants would hijack the ships and dock them at Kismayu until the payment of hefty fines. Religious extremists make it impossible for the business transactions in the regions to thrive.
Fighting the religious extremists such as the ISIS is now a practice that requires the collective effort of all the countries. The fight against ISIS is now a global action. Superpowers like the United States, Russia, and France are now joining hands to cripple the system and ensure peace and stability in the region. With the massive wealth, it is impossible for the individual countries to fight the militants especially with the high military training that the religious extremists get in joining the groups.
Religious extremists bring hatred between members of the different religious groups. When the religious extremists were claiming to be Islam attack Christians such as the case in Nigeria where the Boko Haram kill Christians, The Christians from other parts of the world start turning on their Muslim brothers. The hatred grows to the point of religious wars occurring. It is, however, worthy to note that, most of the religious extremists use the religion to brainwash their members.
The groups use the teachings in the holy books to convince their members of being submissive and follow the doctrine blindly. The divide arising from the religious hatred is massive thus threatening the peaceful coexistence of people with different religious backgrounds. In the name of preparing the way for their maker, the concerned Christians eliminate the people who are not Christians while the al-Qaeda kills those who do not follow them with the claims of protecting their religion. With such doctrines developing, many groups will raise all using the gospel to justify their actions.
Most of the places with the war between the different religious groups end up with the destruction of the property. Many of the groups use atomic weapons with high destruction ability. In many towns in Syria and In Somalia, the rate of destruction is massive with the buildings wasted. In the United Stated, the militants’ action on the twin towers left the two buildings destroyed. The same case applies to the bombing of the American embassy in Kenya in the years 1998.
The weapons have huge amounts of power with the ability to destroy property worth millions of dollars. The whole universe should come together and condemn the religious groups that use religion to grow their extremist actions. Religions preach peace and the people changing the principles of the gospel should not turn people to being enemies. Religious extremism results in the death of people, destruction of property, political instability among many other negative results. There are no good results from actions of religious extremism, and if the teachings were true, then the religious groups would give people the free will to make independent decisions on the doctrines to follow.
Tabular representations of the effects are as follows:
| Deaths | · ISIS hot down a Russian jet on August 2015 killing all the occupants amounting to 224
· ISIS bombed a town in Turkey killing 32 civilians · Al-Shabab killed 147 students in Kenya in the year 2015 · Al-Shabab took hostage of a Kenyan mall killing 67 people · In July 2014, ISIS shot down the Malaysian plane MH17 killing 298 people · In Syria, ISIS is responsible for the death of 5% of the population · The collective number of people dead from the actions of ISIS is almost 200,000 most of whom are Christians and Shiites in the region · In a period of one year, ISIS has killed more than 10,000 people most of whom are children and women · 906 Syrian soldiers died in the hands of ISIS · ISIS soldiers executed amount to over 10,000 with 3,207 inside Syria and 7,700 in Iraq |
| Refugees | · More than 800,000 refugees escaped Syria to Jordan, Lebanon among others
· Kenya shields more than 100,000 in refugees Dadaab camp running away from Somalia · More refugees reside in Eritrea and Ethiopia with other going as far as Uganda |
| Property destruction | · ISIS burned a church of 180 years in Mosul in the year 2014
· The Al-Qubba mosque in Mosul · The tomb of Prophet Daniel in Mosul in July 2014 · Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Deir ez-Zor in Syria · The al-shabab destroyed Westgate Shopping mall in Kenya in 2015 · Vehicles in the public sector in Kenya by using grenades · A campus in the north eastern part of Kenya · The parliament of Somalia · The African Union base in Somalia |
Conclusion
Religious extremism results in the use of unorthodox means of eliminating the people who have different views on the religious background. The groups originate from the respective religions but do not reflect the views of all the people following the religion. Islamic and Christianity doctrines preach peace among people living together. None of the religions calls for the death of people for the mare reason of having different opinions. The Bible treasures the life of a person and prohibits looking down on a person.
The religious extremists aim at getting political power and financial ability through the claims of fighting for the gospel. In many instances, the religious groups break up leading to the formation of factions from the original groups. The formation of factions reveals the independent priorities that the different groups have and their reasons for existence. If the religious groups had the same goals and the well-being of the religion at heart, there would be no divisions between the main group and the smaller groups due to the similarity of their goals. However, the need to cause damage to others and the need to gain political ground is the reason for the existence of the groups.
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