Nigerian Kidnapping: A ‘Gross Misinterpretation Of Islam’ Or Part Of The Rhetoric?

The Nigerian kidnapping three weeks ago of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria has been denounced by some of the biggest and most influential Islamic scholars and human rights officials in the Muslim world.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) echoed those denunciations of the radical group Boko Haram by leaders and officials in Nigeria and in other Muslim countries.

The OIC’s International Islamic Fiqh Academy said:

This crime and other crimes carried out by such extremist organizations negate all human principles and moral values and stand in contradiction to the clear teachings of the blessed Koran and the rightful examples set by the Prophet (Mohammad). The secretariat of the academy, shocked by this ugly act, strongly demands the immediate release of these innocent girls without causing any harm to any of them

Furthermore, the OIC’s human rights commission condemned outright “the barbaric act of abducting the innocent schoolgirls” and the “misguided claim of Boko Haram” that selling them as slaves was Islamic.

Nigeria’s security forces also came under significant criticism from Jama’atu Nasril Islam, Nigeria’s national umbrella group of Muslim organizations, which said they should not have allowed the mass kidnapping to take place as a: “huge amount of resources earmarked for security operatives,” should have stopped it.

But the recent Nigerian kidnapping has raised a number of questions due to the sometime significant support, or at least lack of condemnation, that Islamic terrorist groups enjoy from the Muslim world as a whole; condemnations of terrorist acts often come too late or not at all.

It remains to be seen whether or not a negotiated settlement can be reached between the Boko Haram terrorists who carried out the Nigerian kidnapping or, like so many of these horrific situations, it will end in mass bloodshed and the needless loss of human life.