Unlike the fact that Muslims have not killed all non-Muslims in their territory, there is very little else that they are proof that Islam is a peaceful, tolerant religion. Where Islam dominates (as in the Middle East and Pakistan), religious minorities suffer brutal persecution and have little support. Where Islam is in the minority (as in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe), the threat potential is high due to the violence of the Muslim minority as long as their demands are not fulfilled. Every situation seems to be a justification for religious terrorism, which is persistent and endemic to Islamic fundamentalism.
The reasons are obvious and can be found in the Koran, the Holy Scripture of the Muslims. Few verses of the most Islamic sacred text can be interpreted as corresponding to the contemporary virtues of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood. They are the early "Meccan" verses, which are obviously lifted by later ones. They can serve as an example that Islam is a religion of peace when Muslims do not have sufficient power and are in the minority. As soon as this situation changes, their behavior also changes.
Many Muslims are peaceful and do not want to believe what the Koran really says. They prefer a closer interpretation closer to Jewish-Christian ethics. Some ignore harder passages. Others reach the "textual context" over various surprises to subjectively mitigate these verses with others so that the message corresponds to their personal moral preference. Although the Koran itself claims to be clear and complete, these advocates speak of the "risks" of the attempt to interpret verses without their "help". These idiots attribute to an omniscient and omnipotent God that the latter is incapable of expressing himself clearly and clearly so that everyone can understand it. But the truth is elsewhere. The Koran was not written by Muhammad himself, since Muhammad himself was an illiterate, but by his successors. This also contains the reason why the Koran contradicts itself. It was written by man and man, and therefore contains the power of the ruling class and not the words of God.
The violent verses of the Koran played a key role in the very real massacres and genocide. This includes the brutal murder of a hundred million Hindus over five centuries, beginning around 700 AD with Mahmud of Ghaznis of bloody conquest. Both he and the later Tamerlane (Islamic Genghis Khan) murdered an innumerable number, only to defend their temples from destruction.
Buddhism was almost exterminated by the Indian subcontinent. Jews and Christianity suffered the same fate, even slower, in areas conquered by Muslim armies. Including the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe, including today's Turkey. Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of a proud Persian people, is despised by Muslims and can hardly survive in modern Iran.
Violence is so deeply rooted in Islam that it has never really ceased to be in war, whether it be with other religions or with itself.
Muhammad was a military leader, besieged cities, massacred the men, raped their wives, enslaved their children and took the property of others other than his own. On several occasions, he rejected offers of capitulation from the beleaguered inhabitants and even murdered captives. He inspired his followers to fight, if they did not feel that it was right to fight, he promised them slaves, spoils, and threatened them with hell. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women, who were caught in battle. This usually happened the day their husbands and family members were massacred.
It is important to emphasize that, in most cases, Muslim armies have undergone aggressive assault wars and dramatic military conquests in the name of religion by the actual followers of Muhammad in the decades after his death.
The early Islamic principle of warfare was that the civilian population of a city should be destroyed (men got killed, women and children ended up as slaves) when defending themselves and resisting Islamic hegemony. Although modern advocates of Islam often argue that Muslims are only "attacking in self-defense," this oxymoron is clearly disproved by the reports of Islamic historians and others reporting from the time of Muhammad.
Some modern scholars are more honest than others. One of the most respected Sunni theologians is al-Qaradawi, who justifies terrorist attacks against Western goals by noting that there is no civilian population at a time of war:
It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al—Harb [ie. non-Muslim people who resist Islamic conquest] is not protected... In modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in the war, to aid its continuation, and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies. Every citizen in society must take upon himself a role in the effort to provide for the battle. The entire domestic front, including professionals, laborers, and industrialists, stands behind the fighting army, even if it does not bear arms.
Consider the example of the Qurayza Jews, who were completely extinguished five years after the arrival of Muhammad in Medina. Their leader decided to stay neutral as their city was besieged by a Meccan army, which was to take revenge for Muhammad's deadly caravan raids. The tribe did not kill anyone from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Mohammad after the Meccans were repulsed. But the Prophet of Islam had decapitated every male member of the Qurayza tribe, enslaved every woman and child, even raped one of the prisoners themselves (which Muslim supporters could call "marriage on the same day").
One of the most revered modern scholars of Islam, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly condemns jihad:
In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way.
Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life.
The widely acclaimed dictionary of Islam defines jihad as:
A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad.. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur’an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims ...
Quoting from the Hanafi school, Hedaya, 2:140, 141:
The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the traditions which are generally received to this effect.
Dr Salah al-Sawy, the top member of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, declared in 2009 that "the Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time," and reaffirmed legitimacy The cause of violence of Islamic rule - tied only by the ability to succeed. (Source)
Muhammad's mistake to leave a clear line of succession led to an eternal internal war after his death. Those who had known him best fought to prevent distant tribes from leaving Islam and returning to their favorite religion (ridda or "apostasy wars"). The spiral of violence continued to turn.
Early converted Meccans fought later as an enmity had developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad to Mecca and the Ansar in Medina. Finally, there was also a violent struggle within Muhammad's family between his favorite wife and his favorite daughter - a jagged schism that has left mutual traces on the shafts of the Shiites and Sunnis.
The most alien and untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a religion of peace. If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual oppression, war ...) is equally applied to Islam, the verdict would be devastating.
Islam never gives what it has conquered, be it religion, culture, language or life. Neither does he make excuses nor does he make real efforts in moral progress. Islam is the least open to dialogue and mostly self-absorbing. Islam is convinced of its own perfection and prevents brutal self-examination and suppresses criticism immediately.
This is the reason why the Koran verses are so dangerous. They are given the weight of the divine command.
While Muslim terrorists, like everything else in their holy book, literally take, they understand that Islam is incomplete without jihad. The moderates offer little to disagree with their personal opinions. What do they really have? Speaking of peace and love one can win ignorant. But if every twelfth verse of Islam's holiest book either speaks about Allah's hatred of non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced to convert or subjugate, it is hardly surprising that the sympathy for terrorism is so deeply rooted in the broad community. Unfortunately, this also works if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.
Also scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, one of the most respected philosophers in Islam, has understood that "the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force". Many other Muslims are either unaware or intentionally ignorant of the lack of verses in universal non-violence in the Koran. Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others.
In the West it is typical for the faithful that their religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam is superior in every respect. They are then surprised and embarrassed to find out that this is disproved by the Koran and the bloody history of the emergence of Islam.
Others simply accept violence. In 1991, a Palestinian couple in America was condemned to have stabbed her daughter because she was too westernized. A friend of the family came to their defense and clarified the jury that they did not understand the "culture" and claimed that the father was following "the religion" and said that the couple "had to discipline their daughter or lose respect." (Source).
In 2011, the Palestinian terrorists who were expressly responsible for the brutal murder of civilians, women and children in the name of Allah were rewarded by the Saudi king with a luxurious "holy pilgrimage" to Mecca. Not a single Muslim voice rose to protest.
The most prestigious Islamic university in today's world is the al-Azhar University of Cairo. While the university is very fast with the condemnation of secular Muslims criticizing religion, it has never condemned the Islamic state (IS) as a group of infidels, despite the terrible slaughter in the name of Allah. When asked about Why, the Great Imam of the University, Ahmed al-Tayeb declared: "Al Azhar cannot accuse any [Muslim] of being a kafir [infidel], as long as he believes in Allah and the Last Day -- even if he commits every atrocity."
The Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical thinking to the God of political correctness, or to search for reasons to degrade other religions to the level of Islam, just to avoid the existential truth that this is both different and dangerous.
There are just too many Muslims who take the Koran literally ... and too many others who care less about the violence done in the name of Islam.