There are only two words to describe the suicide attack in a Pakistani mosque on one of Islam’s holiest days — utterly depraved. The 56 worshippers who perished in the blast at Charsadda in the North West Frontier Province had gone to the mosque to celebrate Eid. They stepped from a violent and troubled world outside into a building where they rightly expected to be at peace with each other in the worship of God. It was a time of hope and prayer. It was a time of happiness, of families coming together for the feast. In a split second, the sanctity of the mosque was shattered with bodies and bits of bodies being strewn and scattered all around what suddenly became a bloodstained chamber.
Why? What possible purpose could be served by the slaughter and maiming of so many innocent people who were at prayer? The individuals who planned this terrible crime claim to be acting in the name of Islam, but who, but madmen could possibly believe that a deed of such barbarity could in any way whatsoever be justified by Islam?
The terrorists proved by their action just how untrue they are to the ideas they claim to be promoting. They also demonstrated what it is that they are really about, which is power and money. Their agenda has nothing to do with Islam. If it did, the awful slaughter at the mosque in Charsadda would never have happened. Indeed, they would be seeking to protect Muslims, rather than blowing them apart.
Organizations such as Al-Qaeda draw their power from threats, not doctrine. They terrorize the communities in which they move and they butcher those who oppose them. No one’s life is sacred, not even the lives of children as the blasts two weeks ago on a school bus and at a road checkpoint demonstrate.
Where terrorist organizations hold sway, there are few who dare to challenge them. In other areas where terrorists sneak in to mount their attacks, there is a dignified resignation toward the mindless violence. Indeed, the strength with which assailed communities in Pakistan are coping with the terrorist mayhem is by itself a victory over the terrorists.
Whatever justification the like of Al-Qaeda may have originally had has been blown apart — all too literally — by appalling crimes that completely contradict any claim to be acting in the name of Islam. These terrorists have nothing to offer the world save misery and bloodshed. If it can be said that there was anything good about this latest crime, it is that it provides proof positive that they are morally bankrupt and a total contradiction to the cause they pretend to uphold.
Decent people must not lose heart in the face of this terrifying onslaught. The seeds of terrorists’ destruction are growing through their own savage lust for power and domination. With every new enormity, the resistance to the bigotry stiffens and the revulsion deepens. The deviants offer neither hope nor promise, neither justice nor solutions.
