Muslims are not terrorists – Muslim professor

June 25, 2017 Metro BLISTT

A professor cautioned not to tag all Muslims as terrorists.
“Terrorists are terrorists,” stressed Dr. Cihangir Arslan, president of the Pacific Dialogue Foundation based in Metro Manila and at the Icad Foundation for Filipino-Turkish tolerance school, one of the speakers during the “Awareness is the best deterrence” conference organized by the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB) at the Baguio Country Club, June 16, attended by HRAB and non-HRAB members, local government unit representatives, law enforcement units, school representatives and security officers. 
Arslan explained that the ongoing terrorism activities perpetrated by a few Muslim terrorists belonging to the Maute group have nothing to do with their being Muslim. “Terrorists are terrorists but do not put all the Muslims in one category. If you do it, you will create another problem,” he said.
Arslan discussed Islamic Radicalism during the seminar with the theme “Awareness is the best deterrence”.
In differentiating terrorists from Muslims, he likened those who create atrocities saying that either Muslims or Christians, if they kill, they are murderers. “Murderers are murderers, they don’t have any place in paradise, this is our belief.”
In the Muslim Holy Bible, the Quoran, he further explained that Muslims cannot be terrorists.
“If you kill one person unjustly, in effect you are killing all mankind. If you save one person, in effect you are saving all mankind,” and the incident in Marawi is nothing about being Muslims.
Arslan said that the top three root causes of religious extremism are internal levels differing sects and schools of thought, western colonialism and occupation of Muslim lands and unresolved movements and militant tendencies.
He added that the “three problems that arise to terrorism are ignorance, conflict and power”. TARLA F. TINGAL/ PNA / ABN