Hot Topics

Terrorists lack Islamic knowledge

Researcher and author Lars Gule.Photo: Vegard Wivestad Grøtt / NTB scanpix

NRK news reported that a new German study, in which researchers at two universities had gone through nearly 6,000 messages sent between terrorists,concluded that Islamic terrorists have little knowledge of Islam. The study was first reported in Vårt Land newspaper.

 

Researcher of ‘extremism’, Lars Gule, at Oslo and Akershus College (Høyskolen i Oslo og Akershus), isn’t surprised.


‘They don’t display any particularly profound insights into Islam. They relate to Islamic interpretations that they find on the internet, and that they discuss among themselves, but without going deeply into literature, or discussion with scholars, either in a Norwegian or international setting’, he said.


Basim Ghozlan, chairman of the Islamic federation in Norway, also isn’t surprised by the findings from Germany.


‘For us, there’s been no doubt for many years that the vast majority of extremists are only Islamic by name. They are criminals who become religious, but continue on their criminal path. They have little knowledge, and use cut and paste from the Quran and elsewhere to customise their own agenda’, he told Vårt Land newspaper.

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today