SPIRIT OF ISLAM MAY 2O18

30 Spirit of Islam Issue 65 May 2018 In it, Kalashnikov stated that he was suffering “unbearable spiritual pain” about whether he was responsible for the deaths caused by the weapons he created. “I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I, a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?” he asked. “The longer I live” he continued, “the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression.” This is true also of terrorists. Terrorism begins with hate and ends with repentance. If the suicide bombers were questioned after carrying out their attacks, they would acknowledge that they had committed a very heinous crime. But, unfortunately, we never have the chance to speak to them. However, there are some examples of perpetrators of terrorist acts who were not themselves killed and who suffered pangs of remorse. One such example is that of Lee Boyd Malvo; a Jamaican-American convicted murderer who along with John Allen Muhammad, committed murders in connections with the Beltway sniper attacks in the Washington Metropolitan Area over a three-week period in October 2002. Malvo said in a letter to CNN that he was still ‘grappling with shame, guilt, remorse and my own healing, if that will ever be possible’. And a social worker who worked extensively with him said he drew self-portraits that often showed him with a tear running down his cheek. Terrorism always ends in repentance. Terrorism thus has a self- deterrent characteristic—that is, after engaging in a terrorist act, the extremist immediately realizes that he had erred. For this reason, terrorism should have come to an end. But not all would-be terrorists think in this way; very few of them desist from violence in order to lead a peaceful life. Terrorism is still rife because extremists do not reflect on the act they are about to commit. If they realized beforehand what the result of their violent activities would be, they would never follow this course of action. Rather, they would throw away their guns and bombs and lead a peaceful life. The terror culture is a recent phenomenon. It has become prevalent only since the major upswing in the armaments industry which has turned weapons into readily available commodities.