Why an ordinary Muslim turns Jihadist
Imagine believing, without a shadow of doubt, that God despises those who don't follow your religion.
That He has commanded you to convert them, subjugate them, or kill them.
But you are not violent. You want to live in peace. You benefit from secular society. You have non-Muslim friends. You enjoy their freedoms. You admire their culture.
Yet every day, you recite prayers reminding you that those who go astray, Jews and Christians, are cursed.
You begin to feel it. The guilt. The contradiction.
You are not living your faith fully. The "true believers" tell you you're lukewarm. And they're right. You believe the text, but not enough to obey it.
You're not killing infidels. You're not fighting jihad. You're coexisting, and you know that's not what your religion demands.
So what do you do?
You compensate.
You cheer for those who do what you can't. You praise the mujahideen. You justify terrorism. Or you say nothing.
Silence is easier. You become the quiet apologist, the passive observer. The contradictions pile up. The dissonance eats at you.
And then, some snap.
Since 2001, over 60,000 Muslims have committed or attempted acts of terrorism. These are not just lunatics or radicals. Many are ordinary people who finally gave in to the logic of their beliefs.
They could no longer bear the tension between the text and the world. So they surrendered, to jihad.
They picked up the sword, the gun, the suicide vest, not because they hated life, but because they could no longer live in contradiction.
They chose death over doubt. They wanted to align their lives with their beliefs. To stop living a lie.
This is the psychological engine of jihad.
Dan Burmawi