Catholic World News

Islam is ‘religion of the sword,’ Jesuit scholar tells Vatican newspaper

April 18, 2017

In an interview published by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, an Egyptian Jesuit has warned that the dominant strain of Islam is “a religion of the sword.”

Father Henri Boulad, a native of Egypt and former rector of the Jesuit college in Cairo, said that there is a marked contrast in the Qu’ran between the verses that Muhammad wrote in Mecca and those that he wrote after moving to Medina. The former are peaceful, he observed, but the latter—which make up most of the Qu’ran—“are an appeal for war, violence, and the struggle against Christians.”

The more bellicose form of Islam has come to dominate the life of the Muslim faith, Father Boulad said. “Moderate Islam is a heresy” from this perspective, he said.

The Jesuit scholar said that although most Muslims are “very open, kind, and moderate,” the religious ideology that is proclaimed in mosques is “a continual incitement.”

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