Guest guest Posted October 14, 2001 Report Share Posted October 14, 2001 Dear friends, The cover article in the Oct 13 issue of Newsweek makes the following statement (online http://www.newsweek.com): To many, bin Laden belongs to a long line of extremists who have invoked religion to justify mass murder and spur men to suicide. The words thug, zealot and assassin all come from ancient terror cults -- Hindu, Jewish and Muslim, respectivelythat believed they were doing the work of God. I always thought that the "thug" was a tribe of professional robbers and had little to do with Hinduism. Can someone comment what connection with Hinduism if any existed? Is this author Fareed Zakaria being metaphorically poetic? Where does the word come from? Thank you for any analysis. Bijoy Misra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 15, 2001 Report Share Posted October 15, 2001 INDOLOGY, Bijoy Misra <bmisra@f...> wrote: > > Dear friends, > > The cover article in the Oct 13 issue of Newsweek > makes the following statement (online http://www.newsweek.com): > To many, bin Laden belongs to a long line of extremists who have invoked > religion to justify mass murder and spur men to suicide. The words thug, > zealot and assassin all come from ancient terror cults -- Hindu, Jewish > and Muslim, respectivelythat believed they were doing the work of God. > > I always thought that the "thug" was a tribe of professional robbers > and had little to do with Hinduism. Can someone comment what connection > with Hinduism if any existed? Is this author Fareed Zakaria being > metaphorically poetic? > > Where does the word come from? > I don't know where the word comes from, but there is a dissumulation and dishonesty by Fareed Zakaria here. There were Hindu and Muslim thugs who prayed to Hindu gods/goddesses and Allah repectively, but they cannot be called religious fundemenntalists. Thugs had no political ambitions Today, we are concerned with the phenomenon of Islamic terrorism whose main goal is political in nature and which uses religious symbolism and incentive to overthrow politcal order. Even the most ruthless thug -Hindu or Muslim- had no ambition to drive out Britsh from India or did not take sides in the politcal struggles. Even the most violent thug would rather save his life given a chance than plan and plot his own destruction for his own intentions which was only a loot. Col. Sleeman, who tackled thugs, did it in the most legal way possible. Most thugs were imprisoned, tried by a due process of British law as it existed in mid-19th century and hanged or jailed. Farid Zakaria is no stranger to woolly thinking when it comes to Islamic terrorism Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 18, 2001 Report Share Posted October 18, 2001 A good article on thugs at http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/yale/9.1roy.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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