The question you need to consider is not about Islam, itself.It's cultural interpretation of the Koran and societal-political movements.Middle-Ages had some rough interpretations that brought a lot of the polemic (anti-X sentiments).Then 19th Century (Ottoman Empire) created reforms. (Islamic Modernist Reform)Further, in the 20th century, societal interpretation, by people who decided to take away women's rights.By extremists. This is where we began to see political nightmares such as terrorism.Currently, there is another Modern Islamic movement running against extremists and terrorists; but you tend to hear more about the negative than the positive. People will see terrorism and see a skin color and hear a name and make assumptions. They jump and say oh this must be someone from X country and must be of X religion; even if that's not the case.I would suggest to look up Islam on TEDtalks, there are some great ones to help to understand this.It's society, culture, and misinterpretation of the religion; the misinterpretation of the Koran.Then you get extremist groups, and terribly oppressive political control.Islam is actually very similar to Christianity and Judaism with a great deal of parallels.However, there are multiple translations of the Koran just as their are of the Bible, and the Torah; any/all holy book will have multiple translations on top of translations.People who use Christianity to decry women's rights, gay rights, etc; are extremists, but it's usually just called 'being non-Christian' (other than the anti-women's rights thing; that is very much a thing, Church-owned hospitals won't help for certain problems related to reproduction and they are under no obligation to because they have church-related funding/etc.; where I live all hospitals are this way and not all of them disclose this...)...( Here's a TEDtalk that's mostly amusing, but has a great point behind it: www.ted.com/talks/naif_al_muta…