Over the last couple of months, as news of the vile and violent actions of the group calling itself
the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria (or in the Levant, as the Obama Administration likes to say) increasingly has dominated the headlines, several people have asked me if I still believe Islam is not an inherently violent faith. After all, the ISIS fighters are violent and they are Muslims. Is there not a connection?
My answer is this: despite everything ISIS has done, I still do not believe Islam is any more violent than is Christianity. This is not to say that there is absolutely no connection between Islam and violence. There is, but the connection only exists in the minds of a very few Muslims, including members of Isis and al Qaida, and a few crazy loners; for the overwhelming majority of Muslims Islam is a religion of peace.
When I wrote my book The Search for Truth About Islam, I crunched numbers and found that the chance that a randomly-selected Muslim, from the world’s population of 1.5 Muslims, would be an active member of a known terrorist organization, are roughly the same as the probability five cards dealt from a well-shuffled deck will render a straight flush, which is to say it could happen but don’t bet the farm that it will.
Four years after crunching those numbers, the proliferation of ISIS means that the chances of meeting a Muslim terrorist are slightly higher, but still, more than 99.9 percent of Muslims are not terrorists and not part of any kind of violent movement. A larger portion of the world’s Muslim population (maybe 10 percent) agrees with the political aims of groups like ISIS and al Qaida, but to say they are terrorists is like saying every serious environmentalist is a member of Earth First! or the Earth Liberation Front.
It’s also worth noting that on Wednesday September 24, a group of more than a hundred of the world’s top Muslim scholars released a fatwa—a religious opinion—condemning ISIS and it’s violence (http://lettertobaghdadi.com/index.php). It seems logical that the religious scholars and not the violent radicals should have the privilege of defining Islam for us.
We live at a moment in history when Muslims in the United States face increased scrutiny both by government and by private citizens. Misinformation about Islam abounds, even in the halls of government. What is needed is a well-informed Christian Church willing to speak truth to fear, willing to make and preserve relationships with Muslims, willing to walk in the way of peace, on the right side of history.
I’m happy to serve as pastor to such a church.
If you have any questions about Islam, don’t be shy to ask me.
Ben