Islam and Christianity are two religions that are well entrenched in all countries in the world. However, other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism have only a marginal presence in most countries. Obviously, the reason why Islam and Christianity have spread all over the world and remain deeply entrenched is due to the aggressive campaign of the propagandists of these two religions, who have the goal of multiplying the number of followers of the religions by fair or foul methods. On the other hand, it appears that Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism and a few other religions are “passive religions” and in the case of these religions, little efforts are made to spread the base of these religions around the world. On the other hand, the focus is more on keeping the flock together.

While Christianity has definite and declared the objective of spreading the religious base by conversion of people from other religions and opposing abortions, Christianity does not seem to follow the path of conversion by force but only by subtle methods, which include conversion of gullible people to the Christian religion by enticing them with money or extending other forms of benefits.

While this is so in the case of Christianity, in the case of Islam, there appears to be a systematic methodology of spreading the religion by any method including by use of force and violence.

While it is true that there are a large number of followers of Islam and Christianity, who are moderate in outlook and approach and who follow the religious tenets silently and with fervour, they are not vigorous propagandists of religion. However, it is certainly a fact that there are aggressive extremists in both Islam and Christianity, who believe that their religion alone is the gospel of truth and shows the path of divinity to the world and therefore want everybody in the world to be followers of their religion. These propagandists seem to be under the impression that it is their duty to make their religion the only religion in the world.

While the spread of Christianity happened silently and steadily, it is not the case of Islam.

The Islamic extremists (who are called  by President Trump as Islamic terrorists) have been indulging in violence and subtle warfare, with the declared objective, that no religion should exist in the world except that of Islam.

Such objective and trend of thinking of the Islamic extremists are becoming too evident and obvious that the world cannot but take note of it. Such an approach has resulted in violence, terrorist attacks, as these Islamic extremists, seem to think that everyone not belonging to Islam are anti-Islam and have to be wiped out.

In such circumstances, world opinion seems to tend to think that Islamic extremists are really no different from Hitler’s Nazis, who believed in eliminating every opponent. That is why millions of Jews were annihilated by Nazis and this was the root cause for the 2nd World War.

A few days back, even as the world is battling against COVID 19 and there is huge concern and anxiety everywhere as to what would be the fate of the world’s health in the future, terrorists  (reported to be Taliban) have shot down more than  20 persons belonging to the Sikh faith in a gurdwara (shrine of Sikhs) in Afghanistan.  This incident has shocked the world and the world is highly concerned about the ruthlessness of the terrorists.

The world is now veering to the view that the unchecked growth of Islamic terrorism has to be fought against and in view of such a trend of thoughts, the reputation and glory of Islam as a religion of peace is getting tarnished. A careful study of tenets of all religions, including Islam and Christianity, would show that all religions preach love and compassion and show the path to realize God and purpose of life. The goal of all religions is the same as per the original and undistorted concept. This has been pointed out by several scholars and thinkers including Indian philosophers like Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda.

While the basic concept of Islam advocates charity, amity and love and do not advocate violence of any sort, the militant preachers of Islam, who seem to believe that their loyalty to Islam religion is total, is adopting aggressive postures that result in wanton killings of innocent people.

At the same time, there are millions of moderate followers of Islam who do not approve the violent methods of extremists but who remain largely silent, probably fearing extremist reprisals.  Moderate Muslims do recognize that the world opinion is gradually evolving, where many seem to think that defeating religious extremists is the pre-condition to attain a state of peace in the world.

As moderate people belonging to  Islam  remain largely silent and passive and the voice of extremists are heard everywhere, and the violence unleashed by them are seen everywhere, there is a sense of fear amongst the moderate people belonging to Islam that they could be viewed with suspicion and stigmatised at social gatherings.

Given the sound philosophy of peace, amity and charity advocated by Islam religion, it has a great and necessary role to play in the progress of the global civilization. The question is whether the moderates in Islam will assert themselves and defeat the misguided Islamic extremists to restore the pristine glory of Islam religion.

 Islam is at crossroads now. With extremists seem to be getting the upper hand,  the global Islamic movement is moving towards a decisive phase.

(The writer is Trustee, NGO Nandini Voice for the Deprived, Chennai. He can be contacted at nsvenkatchennai@gmail.com)