There’s an oversimplified narrative that’s really taken hold of late.
"Islam is to blame for terrorism. Why, have you read their holy book? They’re just doing what the Koran tells them."
There are three problems with this line of thought…
- It’s not useful or valuable information. Even if it were true, what would it mean? Must one billion Muslims, the world over, be exterminated?
- It’s not true. There’s the sticky problem that, unlike car accidents, terrorist attacks in places like Belgium, Paris, and San Bernardino are rare enough to be news. If it was the religion, and there are a billion adherents to it, these attacks should be more frequent than car accidents.
- The claim is too broad to offer useful information. There are different sects of Islam, just as there different sects of most anything that has more than a couple-dozen followers. There are fundamentalist fire-breathing Wahhabis, flower-child Sufis, and everything in between. Is it really Islam that’s the problem? Once again, with a billion Muslims, why aren’t there far more attacks?
Know Your Enemy
It should first be pointed out that, most people who claim that Islam is inherently terroristic haven’t actually read Islam’s scriptures holy books (the Koran and Hadith). Instead, they read excerpts presented by others and shaped by their commentary.