Masses who have developed with different thoughts and objectives that are in conflict, and who have been deprived of positive cultivation, they form a society wherein passion, animosity, and hatred run rampant. Such a society promises nothing in the way of goodness and decency.

The harmony in this resplendent book of the universe continues with the mutual support of all things, living and non-living, and their coming together to form a cohesive whole. Every kind of destruction and devastation transpires due to the collision of opposing currents. Such destruction is proportionate to the intensity of the clash.

Human societies are united under the same feelings, thoughts, and visions. They reach spiritual perfection with the same edification and all have a promising future.

As for those masses who have developed with different thoughts and objectives that are in conflict, and who have been deprived of positive cultivation, they form a society wherein passion, animosity, and hatred run rampant. Such a society promises nothing in the way of goodness and decency. In such a tumultuous society, the odds of an individual finding his or her true purpose and attaining serenity are unlikely – and perhaps even impossible. This is especially true when that society’s chief institutions are at the epicenter of the upheaval. When this happens, the society has become completely disordered. As a result, chaos and confusion reign.

However, the regularity of human societies, as with the order and harmony in the universe, is necessary and indispensible, both so that humanity can conform to nature’s universal harmony and so that humans do not contradict their own innate disposition. Every movement that does not adhere to the general symphony present in the book of the universe is a debacle, and the populace that falls prey to this erroneous movement is very unfortunate.

As such, in a population where successive oppressions and counter aggressions in the name of reprisal form a vicious cycle, the turmoil and mayhem resulting from disputes, uncertainties, and above all, deficiencies of the heart and soul, will engulf its surroundings like a terrifying tornado. In the ensuing terror, none will have the security to consider and examine the events or the reasons behind them. And of course, in the meantime, with collisions taking place one after another, the nation-tree will be shaken over and over again; homes will be intermittently destroyed, and individuals left stupefied. If only those rushing to society’s rescue in the sphere of belief and thought possessed a sense of order, faith in renewal, the power of persuasion, and sincerity and earnestness. Alas! Not in the least!

Virtually none of them has embarked upon this task with a clear worldview, an initial plan and system, or any anxiety over their destiny. Perhaps, with respect to the majority, even those who first sensed and recoiled in the face of such danger, especially the sensitive and exceptionally spiteful, were so unrefined in spirit that they said “yes” to every kind of tyranny, attack, and domination for the sake of satiating their carnal selves…

How sad it is that in this struggle, which defies all reason and comprehension – or more precisely, in this uproar – those most wronged and perpetually subjected to tumult have been the innocent multitudes. These naive masses, united by their centuries old cultural and historical values, have been unable to determine quite where they have come from and where they are going. They have been dragged into error after error, unaware of whose account they were acting. They have been corrupted and afflicted even more as their intellectuals have been denying their past and all they ought to take pride in, who could have otherwise served as a beacon of light and direction. When, eventually, the seeds scattered on our soil with countless ill intentions sprang up and developed, all segments of society formed into “enemy-camps” ready for conflict.

The masses have become such an ill-fated and uninhibited horde-who excuse everything as permissible, obliterate in one stroke all that is sacred, and ridicule all their values-that an individual falling into their clutches is but a vagrant, not bound by any limitations. And, as such, the national spirit worn away for centuries by internal erosion, and paralyzed in these ill-omened hands, has become completely bedridden.

If only the behavior of those wanting to protect their spirit in the face of such destructive movements were heartfelt, valiant, compassionate, and constructive… Alas! They too, could not establish the expected balance and provide the people with a sense of security…

On the contrary, by responding to excessiveness with excessiveness, they sacrificed myriad magnificent, righteous, and beneficial things. In this chaos, truth was slaughtered innumerable times; on top of that, those who slaughtered it did so for another presumed truth. How many times the masses were fooled and the multitudes were set against each other with wrong being shown as right and right being shown as wrong! Time and time again, after the battles erupting between enemy camps exhausted both groups, rifts had already formed that were difficult to heal.

Indeed, in this collective chaos, however harmful and destructive this ravenous “miscreant-spirit” has been, those naive immature spirits unable to rest their defense on a sensible system and who return “hate” for hate and “anger” for anger, have been just as detrimental. And thus, on one side are those miserable creatures who have rejected all their human values, have denied their past and their source of pride, and through an ever-increasing estrangement, have completely altered their nature-those irreverent, unloving, rootless, disbelieving slaves of their desires. And on the other side, up against these wretched creatures, are only those simpletons, deprived of the fighting spirit and ideal, who respond with anger, coercion, and brute force… For years on end, people grappled with the waves emerging from these opposing currents, resisted all these eddies, were assaulted again and again, and were repeatedly abandoned to hopelessness…

At this time, we await a community of devotees, who will “neutralize” these damaging currents. They will be respectful of the truth, hold the sake and pleasure of God over everything else, possess reason and conscience, have enlightened minds, radiant hearts, and souls that take flight in the realms high above. They will be reverent towards all the universal values we inherited from our forebears, to traditions and customs, to art and culture, and to morality and sound upbringing. This cadre would not overturn the spiritual roots and historical values that have held us on our feet for centuries. On the contrary, they would revive these in the face of changing world conditions; and, viewing each of these as a part of the national structure, would take complete ownership of them.

At a time when our sense of identity faces annihilation, this group of blessed ones-the possessors of this “sense of sacred suffering” who take upon themselves the task of its rescue-will applaud goodness and neutralize evil. They will do so by thwarting the internal decay and discord that has gnawed away at society for years on end, by ensuring a road for peace, and by removing the archaic methods, damaging fanaticisms, and monopolist designs used by both groups and which have crippled our society.

Today, when society’s ailments have reached their peak, when real enmity and our enemies have clearly emerged, and when the dialogue we have with the world to which we are connected gains strength with every passing day, we are exceedingly hopeful for humankind and hold the belief that we will rise once again.

Gómez-Valdés et al. Lack of Support for the Association between Facial Shape and Aggression: A Reappraisal Based on a Worldwide Population Genetics Perspective. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (1)

It is a common misconception that some people are profiled to be angry or aggressive because of their physical appearances, particularly their craniofacial shapes. In addition, there have been some studies suggesting that men with certain facial traits (round-shaped faces) are more likely to develop aggressive and unethical behavior. A new study using a sample of around 5000 individuals from 94 different countries has found no correlation between facial shape and aggressive/criminal behaviors. Researchers analyzed fWHRs (facial width-to-height ratio) and 2D/3D craniofacial landmark coordinates to estimate any possible correlation between skull shape and aggressive behaviors in men. First, they utilized the famous skull collection in Hallstatt/Austria to investigate any potential correlation between skull features and life history parameters of individuals, such as their overall fitness. Second, they analyzed the male prisoners convicted of crimes like inter-personal aggression (homicide, robbery etc.) from Mexico City Federal Penitentiary to see whether there is any relation between skull shape traits and aggressive crimes. Analyses of both databases have found no significant correlation between skull shape traits either with the fitness of males or with their aggressiveness. This study has very important social and political implications in today’s societies, as we unfortunately see many ethnical, racial and even physical prejudices. This comprehensive study has undoubtedly showed once more that physical traits cannot be a reliable predictor of complex human behaviors, which are mostly shaped by external factors such as education and socio-cultural practices.

Biggest Structure in the Universe Discovered

Clowe et al. A structure in the early Universe at z ∼ 1.3 that exceeds the homogeneity scale of the R-W concordance cosmology. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, January 11, 2013

Throughout history, mankind has been trying to answer the questions of “how big” or “how far,” when looking into the vast expanse of the universe. As new technologies are developed, bigger discoveries and consequently bigger numbers are brought to light. An international team of astronomers recently discovered a collection of 73 quasars which form a single structure; the largest structure ever observed in the entire universe. A quasar, short for quasi-stellar object, is the luminous center of a galaxy that surrounds a super massive black hole. The distance of these newly large quasar groups to the earth is about 9 billion light years (1 light year is approximately 9.5 trillion kilometers). The size of these structures is simply mind-blowing. Even if we have a spacecraft that travels at the speed of light, it would still take about 4 billion years to cross. If we put this overwhelming size into perspective, the Milky Way—earth’s home galaxy—is only about 100,000 light-years wide and our neighbor galaxy Andromeda is only 2.5 million light-years away from the Milky Way. So these quasars are 1600 times larger than the distance from the Milky Way to Andromeda. This discovery seriously challenges the size calculations based on the widely accepted Cosmological Principle which assumes that the universe is essentially homogeneous when viewed at a sufficiently large scale. Cosmological Principle predicts that there should not be any structure in the universe larger than 1.2 billion light-years. A four billion light-years wide structure would obviously be an outlier when compared to other structures in the universe and it might contradict with the homogeneity of the universe. However, scientists think that such contradiction would not necessarily falsify the Cosmological Principle originally established by Albert Einstein. It might only change the assumptions of the theory that define at which scale the universe can sufficiently be viewed.

More Twists on Double Helix

Biffi et al. Quantitative visualization of DNA G-quadruplex structures in human cells. Nature Chemistry, 20 January 2013.

About 60 years ago, on April 25th 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published a one-page paper where they described the “double helix” structure of the DNA, the molecule that carries genetic information from parent to offspring. This discovery not only revolutionized the biological sciences and medicine but also dramatically changed the way we perceive life, nature and most importantly ourselves. Yet, new findings on DNA structure keep surprising us. Scientists from Cambridge University discovered the first quadruple helix—a four-stranded DNA structure in human cells which they named “G-quadruplex.” These structures were previously observed in test tubes but they were never found in cells. The building blocks of DNA molecules consist of four different bases: Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C) and Thymine (T). G-quadruplexes (G stands for Guanine) are formed by four guanine bases that forms a square DNA helix. Researchers found that these structures are enriched in rapidly-dividing cancer cells, specifically at the ends of chromosomes called telomeres. When researchers targeted and trapped these quadruple DNA structures with synthetic molecules, they found that DNA replication slows down and cell division is blocked. Researchers suspect that these quadruple DNA structures in telomeres of cancer cells could explain why cancer cells rapidly proliferate and divide. It is still not clear whether G-quadruplexes exist in healthy cells but targeting these structures in cancerous cells with pharmacology seems to be a promising method to stop the spread of cancer.

Therefore, holy war can be an element of jihad, but is restrained by strict rules. Many modern interpretations of jihad are not congruent with classical jihad and many physical aggressions by Muslims today cannot be classified as the specific kind of holy war that is legitimized by the Qur’an.

The Prophet Muhammad described jihad as the “apex of lofty Islam.” Jihad literally translates to struggle or striving in English and it is derived from the root Arabic word jahada—to strive, strain, or exert oneself to the utmost. Jihad is a very important duty of Islam; some even consider it the sixth pillar of Islamic faith. Jihad encompasses many types of struggles that Muslims are meant to overcome throughout their daily life in different forms. In the Qur’an, jihad is striving in the name of Allah through four stages: jihad against the soul, jihad against Satan, jihad against disbelievers, and jihad against dissemblers. Jihad against the soul is meant to solidify firm belief within a person while jihad against Satan will create tenacity. For jihad against disbelievers, Muslims are meant to strive by pen, tongue, hand, media, and only if inevitable, with arms. Jihad against disbelievers is not purely peaceful and at times, the use of arms is inevitable in this stage, described in the Qur’an as qital, or fighting.

Contrarily, jihad against dissemblers is by the tongue, through educated arguments and persuasion. Therefore jihad is much more than physical aggression, and far greater emphasis is placed on striving by all other means before war. The most important struggles for Muslims will come from inside themselves, which will be a lifelong jihad of following Allah and living by his way. Jihad should then be described as the striving journey of Muslims to become aware and learn the injunctions of Islam, teach them to others, and make constant practice of them in their life while encouraging others to do the same. It is also the act of calling others to Islam and dealing with any obstacles that may arise from fulfilling this journey. This journey will encompass many obstacles that do not relate to physical violence and emphasize the importance of striving by other means throughout one’s life. Jihad with the tongue is viewed as very important because Muslims are meant to be peaceful in their struggle if possible and it is important to be expressive verbally rather than resorting to violence immediately. However, when words are not sufficient and qital, physical fighting, is necessary within jihad, there are strict guidelines that must be followed in the aggression. Not every war fought by Muslims can be defined as jihad; not every jihad can be generalized as holy war. In order for physical jihad to be legitimate, the opposing side receiving the aggression must be in a state of war against Islam, or a large group of Muslims, or non-Muslims who have had their personal freedoms and civil rights violated. A classical interpretation of jihad from the Qur’an clearly outlines that any physical jihad must be conventional warfare, with ambush fighting and the killing of civilians prohibited. There have been many examples of physical jihad in history that were legitimate in the eyes of the Qur’an, and exemplify the rules that limit aggression, as well as the circumstances necessary for a holy war to be considered jihad.

In Islamic history there are many instances when jihad was a holy war. This can partially be explained by the era. Arabia was engulfed in constant warfare throughout the Prophet Muhammad’s time, and for the centuries of empire rule that followed. Muslim tribes were often provoked by aggression and forced into numerous defensive jihads with their surrounding neighbors. The original physical jihad originated from Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to the city of Yathrib, modern day Medina, in 622. The Prophet and his Muslim followers were met with violent pilfering by the Meccans and Muhammad delivered verses from the Qur’an authorizing the Muslims to fight against the Meccans. The Muslim war with the Meccans began Muhammad’s career as military commander, a title that he had to carry in the remaining years of his life. This jihad follows the rules outlined by the Qur’an because it was in defense of Muslim land that was being physically threatened; it also follows the rules of jihad by keeping the warfare traditional and targeting only those directly involved in the aggression. Muhammad had decided physical jihad was necessary and fought in the name of Islam. But upon returning from battle he said, “We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad,” underlining the importance of a believer’s internal struggle against his or her carnal self. While the time demanded physical jihad from the Muslims for their very survival, the significance was placed on the other forms of jihad, most importantly those within the hearts of each Muslim. In addition to Prophet Muhammad’s own view of physical jihad, Muslim scholar Said Nursi supported physical jihad in response to physical aggression but also believed in continuing jihad through the written and spoken word. When he was required to fight, his jihad was with his pen. Nursi highlighted the shift between pre-modern civilization and modern civilization and believes jihad should follow this shift. Pre-modern civilization was plagued by violence and conquests from Islam’s neighbors and required defensive war in response. Modern civilization has seen the rise in science and reason, secularism and materialism, and therefore the most appropriate jihad is one that persuades hearts and minds. Muslims are called to fight a cultural and economic war through ideas and thoughts, not arms.

The battles fought by Muhammad and Nursi are historical examples of jihad as holy war used to protect Islam and guarantee its growth within the world. There is a physical aspect in battle, but the focus on Islamic law as derived from the Qur’an is never ignored in jihad. Jihad includes, but is not encompassed by, legitimate, defensive warfare against aggressive enemies, which contrasts with the modern usage of jihad among a minority of Muslim laymen and mainstream society. Most conflicts engaged in by some Muslims today are a crime under Islamic law, and jihad is defined solely as war, with its other aspects ignored. Today in Muslim-majority countries, and in non-Muslim media and discussion around the world, jihad means war. The usage in Muslim countries can be interpreted as rationalization, that all wars their governments involve themselves in are just, similar to the justification most countries do that any war they are involved in is just.

Though it is debatable whether a war is just and follows Islamic law, the more troubling factor is the shift of the entire meaning of the word jihad. Jihad has evolved from meaning struggle, usually internal, sometimes external by the written or spoken word, to simply being a synonym for war. This semantic evolution has perpetuated misunderstandings of Islam as a violent religion, with war and physical aggression central to its tenets. Jihad has evolved from struggle in classical Islam, with the occasional legitimate war, to representing necessary, continuous physical aggression within modern Islam. This linguistic shift has created a grave misunderstanding of jihad around the world, and its sole definition as holy war in popular culture.

Jihad has come to hold a new meaning with the general population because of the differing interpretations of jihad by classical and modern Muslim scholars. Without background knowledge of jihad’s origins in the Qur’an, most people would believe that jihad is a holy war without rules or guidelines, based on modern scholars and media portrayal. Most laymen are not aware that classical jihad explicitly prohibits aggression towards civilians, and must be limited to conventional war tactics. This misconception of jihad is a result of the rise in world terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims who claim their actions as jihad in the name of Allah and the Qur’an. The misinterpretation of jihad by a small group of Muslims has spread around the world because of globalization and effective media coverage. This misinterpretation has resulted in the current perception. Some modern Muslim scholars and popular figures within Islam who have catalyzed this new definition, refer to jihad as, “war against oppressors, particularly those who oppress Muslims.” Osama bin Laden said in many of his speeches that Americans resemble the medieval Crusaders, with the desire to subjugate the Muslim world in a colonial war. Therefore, bin Laden believed that Muslims are currently fighting a defensive jihad against the West in response to their actions. The West as an enemy is described as similar to the Christian knights of the Crusades who also attacked Muslim civilization. Egyptian Islamist Adb al Salam Faraj called for a new jihad against the subjugation of the Muslim world, and Osama bin Laden has expanded on the ideas of a new jihad to legitimize terrorist attacks against the West that result in the death of civilians. In addition to Faraj, the Muslim scholar Maududi’s thesis on the change in Muslim society has also been viewed as spawning the modern interpretation of jihad. Maududi believed that because not all Muslim societies were ruling based on Sharia law, there was a decline in the society as a whole, and the only viable response was to wage a jihad against this dark age. In order to confront the decline of Muslim society and loss of Muslim lands, Sharia law and the doctrine of jihad had to be reinterpreted and applied both internally within Muslim societies as well as externally to the West for its role in seeking Muslim land and fighting against Muslim civilization. Muslim countries have witnessed an internal “jihad” through the removal of leaders classified as un-Islamic based on an unwillingness to impose Sharia law within their nations. This internal “jihad” has taken place historically with the Iranian Revolution’s removal of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat, and the overthrow of Sudanese President Jaafar Nimeiry. External “jihad” against foreign occupiers of Muslim lands has taken place many times throughout history, recently in the Afghan fight for independence against Soviet occupation and Palestinian and Lebanese liberation movements against Israeli-occupied territories. Modern “jihad” has become a war with the goals of reshaping Islamic society by ridding it of Western influence and presence, economically and politically.

What has been described as jihad, and then reported by worldwide media, is far removed from classical jihad described in the Qur’an. Terrorist attacks that aim at killing large numbers of civilians, including women and children, are unilaterally condemned under Sharia law. Their fights do not comply with the rules outlining when physical jihad can take place and how it may be fought. It is not wrong for people to believe jihad can be violent, but it is wrong to only hold this belief without an understanding of the other aspects of jihad. Some modern Muslims have provided this misinterpretation and perpetuated the fear that Islam as a violent religion able to wage wars at any time, on any grounds.

Jihad is popularly misunderstood in today’s world as a synonym for holy war. This misunderstanding has been prevalent for decades but has become more widespread because of a handful of terrorist attacks being labeled as jihad against America and Europe by radical Islamists. By examining jihad, as defined by the Qur’an, and analyzing historical accounts of jihad, it becomes clear that jihad can involve physical violence if all the rules outlined by the Qur’an are followed, including only the use of conventional warfare and killing of combatants. The modern interpretation of jihad does not consider the context of the Qur’an or classical Islamic law, and it ignores the other aspects of jihad. Jihad is the internal struggle Muslims face to fight off evil, the striving effort to become a better person, a more pious follower of Islam. Jihad focuses primarily on internal struggles, with external struggles such as warfare being secondary, and only if physical force is necessary and legitimate. It is very unfortunate that the true meaning of jihad has become lost in today’s society. Jihad is one of most admirable and good-natured duties within Islam, from which many could learn from to better themselves and their lives.

References

• Ali, Afroz. Overcoming Misunderstandings: Understanding Jihad http://alghazzali.org/resources/articles/jihad.pdf, accessed 20 May 2010.
• Bonner, Michael. Jihad in Islamic History, Princeton, 2006, p. 39.
• Bonney, Richard. Jihad: From Qur’an to Bin Laden, New York, 2005, p. 27.
• Chittick, William and Murata, Sachiko. The Vision of Islam, St. Paul, 1994, p. 21.
• Esposito, John L. “VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM.” In What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam. Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/article/book/islam-9780195157130/islam-9780195157130-chapter-5 accessed 25 May 2010.
• Gerges, Fawaz. The Far Enemy, New York, 2009, p. 43.
• Greenberg, Karen. Al Qaeda Now, New York, 2005, p. 213.
• Kelsay, John. Arguing the Just War in Islam, Boston, 2007, p. 41.
• Muhammad, Noor. “The Doctrine of Jihad: An Introduction,” Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 3, no.2, 1985, p. 395
• Napoleoni, Loretta. “Modern Jihad: The Islamist Crusade,” SAIS Review, vol. 23, no. 2, 2003, p. 53.
• Tibi, Bassam. Political Islam, World Politics, and Europe. New York, 2008, pp. 41-42.
• Vahide, Sukran. Jihad in the Modern Age: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Interpretation of Jihad, at http://www.nur.org/en/nurcenter/nurlibrary/Bediuzzaman_Said_Nursi_s_Interpretation_of_Jihad_168, accessed 22 May 2010.

As religion cannot be the source of happiness and misery at the same time, we examine these two perspectives. Among the examples typically cited to support the misery argument are Islam’s expansion (seventh to sixteenth centuries), the Crusades, and Europe’s ‘religious’ wars. While seemingly plausible at first glance, further analysis reveals that this argument overlooks key historical information and misrepresents others. In the following article, we examine this argument from a theological and historical perspective.

The Holy Scriptures

First we look at the religious sources: the holy Scriptures. The Qur’an condones war only in self-defense and preventing injustice and aggression, and equates killing one person unjustly with killing humanity (5:32). Examining early Islam’s so-called ‘religious wars’ reveals that each one was fought in self-defense or to prevent injustice. The total number of people killed in any battle of Prophet Muhammad never exceeded several hundred.(1)

The phrase holy war, the common translation for jihad, is a misnomer. Jihad essentially means struggling in God’s cause, of which war is only one form and allowed only under clearly defined circumstances. The New Testament tells victims to embrace aggressors with love or restore justice in the most appropriate manner (Matthew 5; Luke 17:1-5), while the Old Testament says: ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17) and ‘He that kills any man shall surely be put to death (Leviticus 21:17).

Any aggression not conducted for self-defense or preventing injustice is not based on true religion. A good treatment of this in the context of Islam can be found in Prophet Muhammad as Commander.(2)

The Twentieth Century

The claim that religion is responsible for much of the bloodshed and death from a historical and statistical perspective is incorrect. The majority of deaths throughout history occurred during the twentieth century, and the majority of those happened during wars stemming from nonreligious motives.(3) World War II tops this list: 15 million soldiers and 25.5 million civilians. World War I is a close second: 9 million soldiers and 9.7 million civilians. Other examples include the Russian civil and the Russo-Polish wars (1917-21: 2 million soldiers, 7 million civilians), the Korean War (1950-53: 2 million soldiers and .9 million civilians), the Franco-Vietnam and US-Vietnam wars (1945-73: 1.3 million soldiers and 1.4 million civilians), the Sino-Japanese War (1937-41: 1 million soldiers and 1.2 million civilians), and the Soviet-Afghanistan War (1979-89: 500,000 soldiers and 1 million civilians).(4) These wars, which are responsible for the great majority of human loss through history, cannot be attributed to religious zeal.

The Soviet Union

While the motives of certain wars and other acts of aggression can be debated, certain self-proclaimed atheist, fascist, or otherwise nonreligious regimes, such as pre-World War II Germany and the Soviet Union, committed unprecedented crimes against their neighbors and citizens. According to Laqueur: ‘One of the cardinal features of the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century was internal terror, the huge number of ‘enemies”and potential enemies’interned and executed. A striking example of this phenomenon is the era of Lenin and Stalin in Soviet Union. The atrocities committed during the time of Stalin are well documented.'(5)

According to the most conservative figures, allegedly based on secret KGB archives, between 510,307 and 1,727,970 Soviets were in labor camps between 1934 and 1950. A further 457,000 to 1,145,000 people were sentenced to labor colonies during roughly the same period. According to numbers released by Major General Anatoli Krayushkin, head of the Ministry of State Security’s archives, 3,853,000 arrests and 827,995 death sentences were made between 1917 and 1990. According to official KGB sources, 681,692 persons were killed between 1937 and 1938. In addition, 1,053,829 persons died in the Gulag between 1934 and 1953. To these numbers, one should add such figures as the Polish officers killed in 1940 in Katyn and other camps (15,000 to 20,000), and the Kazakhs who disappeared during the 1930s (1.5 to 2 million).

These are conservative estimates, given their source. Some researchers put the total number of deaths under the Soviets at between 10 and 20 million. According to Alec Nove, there were some 11 million ‘excess’ deaths between 1927 and 1937. Steven Wheatcroft, another Soviet-era researcher, says between 4 and 5 million people died.(6)

While Stalin remains notorious for internal terror, Lenin has been viewed differently’as a visionary whose ideals were betrayed by his followers. Is this correct? Recently declassified Soviet documents tell a different story. The following is a letter from Lenin to his comrades in which, appallingly, he mentions a specific number of people to be hanged: ‘Comrades! The uprising of the five kulak districts should be mercilessly suppressed… Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks.'(7)

In 1922, Moscow sought to confiscate all valuables of the Russian Orthodox Church and its monasteries to secure badly needed assets and to break the Church’s power over the peasants. Lenin hoped that the terrible famine sweeping Soviet Russia and Ukraine in 1921-22 would turn the peasantry against the Church. In the industrial city of Shuia, soldiers fired and killed several civilians (devout Christians) trying to protect their church. This event prompted the Politburo to delay further confiscation. When Lenin learned of this, he urged Politburo members to continue the campaign ‘mercilessly,’ as the time was ripe for such an action:

It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most savage and merciless energy… to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles.

One wise writer on matters of statecraft (8) rightly said that if it is necessary to resort to certain brutalities for the sake of realizing a certain political goal, they must be carried out in the most energetic fashion and in the briefest possible time because the masses will not tolerate prolonged application brutality…. the struggle against us will be made more difficult if right at this moment, precisely in connection with the famine, we suppress the reactionary clergy with maximal speed and ruthlessness.

Therefore I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come.(9)

In another letter, Lenin openly instructs his comrades to terrorize the state’s enemies:

To Comrade Krestinsky:

I propose to form a commission immediately (initially this can be done secretly) to work out emergency measures (in the spirit of Larin: Larin is right). Let us say you+Larin+Vladimirsky (or Dzerzhinsky)+Rykov? Or Miliutin.

It is necessary secretly’and urgently’to prepare the terror. And on Tuesday we will decide whether it will be through SNK (the Council of People Commissars) or otherwise.(10)

These letters demonstrate that Stalin’s internal ‘cleansing’ campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s only continued Lenin’s policy and practice, and were not, as some claim, a betrayal of his high ideals.

While love and respect for fellow human beings is an essential principal of all major religions, in practice this has not always been the case. Aggression in the name of religion has long been exploited to show that religion brings tyranny and misery. Certain individuals, organizations, states, and regimes have used religion to justify the suffering they have caused, but this does not prove that religion by itself is to blame. As a matter of fact, nationalism, ideological extremism, or simple greed for power and material gain have caused incomparably larger suffering, as shown by documented statistics of wars and internal terror.

Conclusion

We looked briefly at the former Soviet Union, an atheist regime that committed some of the worst crimes against its own people in the name of communist ideology.

The twentieth century saw unprecedented advances in science and technology and, unfortunately, unprecedented human misery and suffering. Most crimes against humanity, as documented by statistics and recently revealed secret archives, were committed by totalitarian regimes during the twentieth century. Thus it is to claim that religion is responsible for most of history’s bloodshed and death. This responsibility lies with modern racist, atheist, or simply greedy regimes and not with religion, which was revealed to guide people to true happiness in this world and in the next through their own will.

Footnotes

1. Ali Unal, ‘Killing for Religion?’ The Fountain, no. 2 (Apr.’June 1996), 14.
2. M. Fethullah Gulen, Prophet Muhammad as a Comman der (Truestar: 1998).
3. Richard F. Mollica, ‘Invisible Wounds,’ Scientific American (June 2000).
4. Ibid.
5. Walter Laqueur, The Dream That Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union (Oxford University Press: 1994).
6. Ibid.
7. Letter to V. V. Kuraev, Ye. B. Bosh and A. E. Minkin, August 1918. Located in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin (Yale University Press: 1996).
8. Editor Note: Lenin is referring to Machiavelli (1469-1527), an Italian political philosopher and statesman synonymous with placing politics above everthing else.
9. Ibid., Letter to the Politburo, March 1922.
10. Ibid., Memorandum to N. N. Krestinsky, Sept. 1918.