Can you ever really pin down the fundamentals of a religion, especially when most religions have a multitude of sects? From Jonathan Cook at unz.com:
Isn’t Islam inherently violent? What stopped the Islamic world having an Enlightenment? Why are some Muslims so into head-chopping? And isn’t Hamas the same as Islamic State?
A recent conversation with a friend highlighted to me how little most westerners know about Islam, and how they struggle to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. This lack of knowledge, cultivated in the West to keep us fearful and supportive of Israel, creates the very conditions that originally provoked ideological extremism in the Middle East and ultimately led to the rise of a group like Islamic State.
Here I examine four common misconceptions about Muslims, Islam and Islamism – and about the West. Each is a small essay in itself.
Islam is an intrinsically violent religion, one that naturally leads its adherents to become Islamists.
There is nothing unique or strange about Islam. Islam is a religion, whose adherents are called Muslims. Islamists, on the other hand, wish to pursue a political project, and use their Islamic identity as a way to legitmise efforts to advance that project. Muslims and Islamists are different things.
If that distinction is not clear, think of a parallel case. Judaism is a religion, whose adherents are called Jews. Zionists, on the other hand, wish to pursue a political project, and use their Jewish identity as a way to legitimise efforts to advance that project. Jews and Zionists are different things.
Notably, with the help of western colonial powers over the past century, one prominent group of Zionists had great success in realising their political project. In 1948 they established a self-declared “Jewish” state of Israel by violently expelling Palestinians from their homeland. Today, most Zionists identify at some level with the state of Israel. That is because doing so is advantageous, given that Israel is tightly integrated into “the West” and there are material and emotional benefits to be gained from identifying with it.
The mistake is viewing Islam as a religion. If you read the Quran, it becomes obvious it is an ideology, a dangerously violent ideology. which must be completely destroyed.