Whether it be the Taliban in Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, or Islamic state in Iraq, Syria and even as near as Paris, the term Islamic extremism is all too unpleasantly found on the front pages of our newspapers. But can Islam, the religion that has over 1.6 billion followers, nearly all of which are peaceful and law abiding, be held responsible for the actions of a deranged few? In the minds of (at least some) members of the British public there is a clear link between ordinary followers of the religion, and the extremists who also claim to belong to it. After the barbaric murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby there was a surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes, both verbal and physical. But while targeting abuse at innocent civilians is undoubtedly wrong and misguided, can the same be said for holding Islam responsible for Islamic extremism?

To blame the holy book that both the most peaceful Muslim and Osama Bin Laden claim to base their life on for the actions of the latter is to completely misunderstand the complex situation. The Bible calls for slavery, genocide, and holy war, but how many Christian terrorists do you see? There are (currently) fewer Christian terrorists not because the teachings of the bible are inherently more peaceful than the teachings of the Qur’an, but because of the different environments that Muslims and not Christians are in.

Take the various mujahideen groups such the Taliban that sprung up in Afghanistan in the late 1970’s and which eventually seized power. They were a reaction by the people of Afghanistan to the Soviet invasion. In fact, before the invasion by the USSR, Afghanistan was a stable country with very liberal values and laws with women going to school and some going on the hold political office. But the influx of foreign arms and destruction of Afghan villages and lives unsurprisingly warped many into more violent and hateful people, and with it, so did their religion. Just as most Christians, and Muslims, don’t slaughter or enslave people (anymore) because they are reasonable and morally good people, Islamic extremists do because they are not. People do not derive their values from their scriptures, they insert their values into their scriptures. The same extremist views and violence happen in similar situations, their followers just commit them under another name.

Reza Aslan explained this brilliantly while being interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

But to say that Islam has no part to play in the violence and extremism of the Middle East is similarly untrue. The majority of Muslims belong to either the Shia or Sunni branch. While both groups are still Muslim, the followers of both groups often have a deep rooted hatred responsible for much of the current violence. Iraq and Syria are in many ways just proxy wars being fought between the Shia powers of the region such as Iran and the Assad regime in Syria, and the Sunni powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Religion undoubtedly causes these divides between peoples and is responsible to an extent for the violent clashes between them. Religion is as much a cultural identification as it is an identification of beliefs or practices. In a YouGov poll in March 2011 only 29 per cent of those who identified with a religion said that they were religious. Many of the fighters who go off the join ISIS “have hardly got past the first chapter of Islam for Dummies”. It is a cultural link that they have with the region that causes them to sympathise with the extremist groups there, many of whom are seen as freedom fighters standing up to the West.

Although Religion adds fuel to the fire of conflicts and civil wars, it is only partly responsible for the situations that causes. It was the coalition’s (of which we played a leading part in) invasion of Iraq that de-stabilised the country and the region. Blaming Islam for the extremism that festers and the jihadists that thrive as a result from it is blatantly misconstruing the situation to downplay our own involvement.

So while we shouldn’t hold the Qur’an more responsible for jihadists then we would the Bible for the Klu Klux Klan, we should acknowledge that it has its part in extremism and religious conflicts. But before allocating any blame to Islam, we have to first acknowledge our own large part in the current conflicts. It is only then that we can move forward and look for solutions to problems like Sunni-Shia violence, and end the plague of conflict that has engulfed the Middle East for years.

What do you think?

Is Politics or scripture to blame for extremism? How should we deal with ‘Islamic’ terrorism?

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