Question One
ISIS can be said to be in a state that is under demented utopia. They show a lot of love and affection to the fellow Muslims, who obey and adhere to their rules and teachings. ISIS takes a different form of terrorism unlike others who indiscriminately attacked varied groups and cause a lot of death and destruction of property; The organization has adopted a new style that is very deceptive, showing affection to those that only support and oblige to their rule and command. Berger and Stern view things differently, though, and by claiming that they are better terrorists than those that have been existing before such as Taliban, and al-Qaida, they are wrong.
A terrorist is just like any other terrorist regardless of the time that they existed. Terror activities are more the same. ISIS by being kind and good to their sympathizers is a new technique that they have adopted that will easily win the hearts of people making them join them willingly and increase their numbers reasonably as a result. They have learned from the mistakes that their predecessors made in their aim of acquire new members to join the terror groups. When they win the hearts of people, they will be easy to command. ISIS wages jihad to anyone who does not follow the Islam faith. They conduct murder, torture and suffering to innocent people merely because they are not Muslims.
Jihad is a holy war which is meant to protect the Islam faith. ISIS attack those individuals who do not even pose any threat to their faith depriving them of their right to have faith that they believe in just like they do. I believe everyone has a right to worship, and no religion or faith should undermine the other. Jihad comes from the word striving or being in a state of surviving. According to the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, jihad is an external as well as internal efforts made by a person to be a better believer or Muslim, but these are not the doctrines that the ISIS are teaching, they show hatred to other religions which contradict the Quran itself. In case, a military jihad has to be conducted to protect their faith there are other forms which it can be performed such as diplomatic, legal and political to economic means, which ISIS does follow, to them, violence is the only solution. ISIS is a purely demented state.
Question Two
Social media is a platform whereby people can interact and share ideas from all over the world. This is a platform that the predecessors of ISIS failed to exploit fully to extend their boundaries and influence to other people from all continents.ISIS is a terror group or state as some may call it which is mainly found in Iraq and Syria. Due to logistics, financial constraints and other factors, it might be tough to recruit people from other regions such as California, London or even Paris. They found the best way to achieve that goal is by using the social media platform which can be very useful in conducting their heinous activities and also tap it to their advantage. There are many channels in social media which can be utilized such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many others, with all this at their disposal they could easily influence masses within a very short period and mostly evade being noticed by the security agencies such as CIA, together with the counter-terrorism agencies.
Some social media platforms allow one to hide privacy. A good example is a telegram. Telegram is an application which was launched in the year 2013.The application can be set up on almost all the devices available; they also have some features that allow someone to send messages to a lot of people at the same time maintaining high levels of privacy. ISIS has been using the telegrams to their advantage due to this reason. The security agencies find it hard to get them through telegram. They find it easier compared to Twitter and Facebook, which can easily be monitored and disrupted.
Counter narratives have been for decades the tool used by the security agencies to curb the extremists who turn out to be violent and dangerous to the civilians. Since the telegram has proof to this they can easily target their sympathizers and with minimal efforts recruit them. ISIS has used telegram to spread propaganda and hatred which create tension and spread violence and animosity to people; they poison the minds of individuals easily without being tracked of their exact locations. Telegrams have been used to spread training manuals and the ways of obtaining and making weapons and bombs that will be utilized in their terror activities and even how to conduct single jihadi attacks to civilians. The key point is to incite violence.
Facebook has been another platform form for them to recruit people mostly their sympathizers. It is very easy to attract the attention of a person and even exchange personal details such as phone numbers and emails via Facebook. This becomes the starting point, and people get easily recruited. Fan pages and groups in Facebook attract millions of innocent people who later receive friend requests from strangers, and they easily become friends shortly. ISIS has considerably used Facebook to its advantages by posting videos and images of the group to attract people from various parts of the world.
Shortly after the infamous Paris attack, ISIS released an audio and also a written statement stating that their members conducted the attacks, and the attacks were masterminded from their command central. This information was widely and very systematically broadcasted across all the available social media platforms available .The message created fear and to others it was a manifestation of the might and power of the group. ISIS militants and sympathizers took this as a major success and achievement made by their group thus becoming more loyal to it and also attracting masses to join it.
Question Three
Modernity has significantly affected the values, norms, structures and social institutions of the Jews since the beginning of the radical changes of their political and legal status especially in Western European countries of France, Britain and Germany. These changes have brought about shifts in religious, social, cultural and financial systems, structures and activities of the Jewish people. In the past, Jews regarded the concept of belonging to a given community with the highest esteem. These changes were first observed two hundred years ago, and this laid the foundation of the current characteristics of the Jewish people. The current modernity trends have ultimately affected almost all aspects of the Jews including the Jewish identity, ways of expression, how genders relate, marriage institution, interfaith dialogues, universalism attitudes and new forms of Judaism have sprung (Ellenson).
The political and legal status of the Jews first started to change following dictatorial rulers who ruled Europe including the Nazi Party in Germany. The Nazis centrally believed that Jews were dangerous people in the global society and needed to be eliminated so that the world would survive and prosper. They were therefore condemned to death with no one to escape. They were seen as a threat to the flourishing of other societies in Europe. They were terrorized and crushed to death by the Nazis and their allies in France and Britain. The behavior of the Jews around this time was they believed and lived in communities that were proud of their identity. One would die for a whole community even where there was a threat. While this was happening, the Jews had no country they called home, no military to protect them and were generally unrecognized people who needed to be imprisoned or deported to death camps. They had no political or legal rights.
This, however, changed when they gained independence; they had the means for self-defense and legal and political rights. The Jews now can interact with modernity as they are free to live anywhere around the globe and especially in Germany where hitherto they lived in fear. The Jews now have multiple options in making choices regarding their lifestyle. In most cases they have ended up be assimilated into the cultures of new communities they live in. Take for example the ancient Jewish religion culture where Rabbis were an authority in inducing people to strictly observe dietary laws or give for charity (tzedakah) (Ellenson). Since modernity started to influence the Jewish people, the Rabbis inherently have no religious and the coercive legal means through which they can exercise their commands and desires on the Jewish people. The Rabbis presently have influential authority without legal means to assert it.
In the ancient days, the Jewish community was dependent on community government structures and Jews internalizing values. Such norms and values were passed on from one generation to another through Jewish education system which neutralized everyone’s preferences and choice. This has since changed with modernity and changes of Political and legal status of Jews. The Jewish government including its structure collapsed when French revolution separated religion and state. Jews always believed religious laws also guide political views. Modernity questioned this and hence Jews are now not obliged to use religious laws in Business and political activities. Modernity has also made possible for Jews to opt out of the Jewish mainstream and adopt a neutral stand which calls for the abandonment of some norms and forms of Judaism. This has led to rise of secular Jews that have influences from western cultures.
Question Four
The Idea of Islamic Banking began as a result of the challenge that arose which equated riba to be the same as interest. The concern of Islamic Economists was that Islamic economy needed to incorporate Islamic ethical commands. Their main areas of reference were the Zakat which needed to be paid by the rich as directed in the Quran and riba which God had forbidden in the Quran. Zakat was a general levy that wealthy citizens needed to be taxed and redistributed to the poor in the country (Tripp 126). This levy was what was needed to redefine the economy and no one individual would hold too much property while their neighbors would remain poor. Islamic economy they saw as a way through which God wanted to level ground and direct people on higher grounds to use their property to support and sustain the less fortunate. The original intention of Islamic bankers was that there was need for mutual social responsibility that lied with all members of the community.
Founders of the Islamic Banking were thus empowered to start a new banking system that would be based on the principles and tools of Riba and Zakat. The challenge that has arisen on the Islamic banking concept is that though it offers ethical principles of Islamic religion in the economy, it has not produced evidence of resources redistribution and economic growth benefits. In fact it has been shown that secular world offers better and effective means through which wealth is redistributed than in Islamic banking. Economists agree its effects in redistributing funds in parts of the economy where there are productive to the less privileged areas such as the countryside are negligible (Tripp 138).
Islamic banking on one hand only served as means through which money circulation is channeled from the rich to the poor hence reducing incidences or poverty and unemployment to the poor members of the society but on the lower end the system was developed because of the fear that Islamic Economists had on the overall dominance of the capitalism in the global economy (Tripp 149). Most of the Islamic Banking founders had become genuinely frustrated and disappointed by the global financial system and were therefore looking at an alternative with distinct features and tools for economic empowerment of the poor. In practice Islamic banking has become an advanced form of capitalism and is only effective in dominating in the Islamic faith landscapes. It may be effective in enabling Muslims carry out their financial obligations but the bottom line is that it was designed to rival capitalism.
Works Cited
Ellenson, David. "How Modernity Changed Judaism - Interview With Rabbi David Ellenson". Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs. N.p., 2016. Web. 8 May 2016.
Tripp, Charles. Islam and the moral economy: The challenge of capitalism. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
