For over a decade, it has become apparent that decontextualization of texts is an integral part of extremist groups’ operational tactics, regardless of their intellectual orientations or ideological trends. Whether religious, non-religious, theocratic, political, or even discriminative extremism, all these forms tend to take texts out of their context for manipulative purposes. The type of manipulated text differs from one extremist group to another, as highlighted by their motivations, which may include religious grievances, rebellion against societal or economic conditions, unemployment, poverty, or even economic deterioration.
Manipulation of texts is an act of subverting the original meaning to serve a certain agenda. Its danger lies in its ability to deceive, control, and harm others. Let us have an overview of the potential dangers associated with text manipulation, particularly religious ones:
- Misleading and recruitment: The text becomes a tool to mislead and recruit the targeted audience.
- Fabricating new doctrines and concepts: Taking a religious text out of its context, ignoring its historical, literary, and cultural context, is a malicious tool used to produce other content that has nothing to do with the genuine meaning of the original one.
- Justifying violence and hatred: whoever reconsiders history finds that twisted interpretations of religious texts have been used to justify discrimination, conflict, violence, and even wars.
- Manipulating and Controlling Followers: They use texts to demand unquestioned loyalty and blind imitation or isolate followers from the social environment.
- Misquoting and raising controversial issues: Selecting unrelated phrases that support their points of view, neglecting the context as well as all other citation which run to the contrary.
A frequently cited example concerns the fifth verse from Surah Al-Tawbah in the Glorious Qur’an, which addresses a specific historical context of armed conflict following the violation of a peace treaty. Allah says, “And (qātlū) fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively. And know that Allah is with the righteous [who fear Him].” Extremist intentionally misinterpret this verse. In the original text in Arabic, Allah speaks of qital, which in English means combat, not qatl, meaning to kill. There is a great difference between the two in meaning and usage. The verb kill means to attack an innocent person and put an end to their life, but the accurate verb is to combat, which means to be involved in a battle to defend yourself. This context in this verse relates to a specific situation where a peace treaty was violated. The period of four months is to re-negotiate, but if this period is over, Muslims should fight non-Muslim attackers to defend themselves. It is a mere sense of self-defense, nothing else.
In conclusion, manipulation of texts is catastrophic as it poses grave threats. It severs the essential link between language and meaning. It easily weaponizes words, exploiting them as tools for manipulation in favor of whatever agenda the twister serves. Hence, correcting misconceptions and misinterpretations will always be AOCE’s ultimate mission to save souls, promote peace, and enhance social cohesion.