ISIS really is a Muslim organisation

I’ve seen numerous posts pop up on Social Media with the claim that ISIS are not Islamic, for example we have this quote …

Those who shed the blood of the innocent have nothing to do with islam

That was a claim made by the leader of an Islamic sect that is denounced as “not true islam” by about 99% of the Muslims on the planet. To be frank that really really does not help at all, but instead is simply a manifestation of sectarian religious thinking that divides the world into “us with the truth” vs “everybody else who is dammed to hell”.

However, I do also see some very sensible posts as well from all quarters.

The following was highlighted by the Godless Spellchecker, and while I have no idea who Sulaiman Daud actually is, he — as a Muslim — truly does articulate it as really is. It has been shared over 38,000 times, and if you read it now (below), then you will understand why …

I want to thank well-meaning non-Muslims who, in the wake of these attacks, have emphasised that they have been carried out by a small, twisted minority. A terrorist’s goal is to sow hatred and discord, and by not giving in, you are defeating their plans.

But I want to say that as a Muslim, I wish that we weren’t so quick to emphasise that this has nothing to do with us. While I personally have never killed anyone and none of my friends and family have ever resorted to violence, radicalism has everything to do with Islam. And the failure to address that out of a well-intentioned commitment to tolerance is making the problem worse.

ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and it is an Islamic problem. Let me say it again to be perfectly clear. ISIS is a Muslim organisation, and they are a cancer at the heart of Islam. And the problem will not go away until Muslims confront that.

ISIS attackers scream ‘Allah hu’akbar’ during their attacks.
ISIS recruits cite Qur’anic verses as justification for the rape and enslavement of women.
ISIS soldiers kill archaeologists, gay men and women, and people who refuse to convert to Islam because they are blasphemers.

There are no Christians in ISIS. There are no Buddhists, Jews, Pagans, Taoists, Houngans, Catholics, Wiccans, Hindus or even Scientologists in ISIS. ISIS is a Muslim organisation and they kill in the name of Islam.

So don’t say that ISIS aren’t ‘true Muslims’ or that they are ‘not really Muslims’. Like any large organisation, ISIS exists in a spectrum. You have the aimless, restless teenager who never amounted to anything in his life and traveled to Syria because he can’t find a job and doesn’t know if the Qur’an is to be read from left to right or right to left. But you also have pious professionals, businessmen, and academics who read their Qur’an cover to cover, pray every day, were seduced into radicalism, and truly believe that the Islamic State’s goal of conquest is a noble one. The so-called ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has a doctorate in Islamic studies.

So if you feel that Muslims are being oppressed or killed in Muslim countries, I expect you to also be just as outraged by ISIS. Because they have killed more Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Jordan than the entire US army. They have done more damage to the name and reputation of Islam than any Western nation. ISIS is Islam’s biggest enemy, not the US, not Israel or France or Germany or the Russians.

We have to own the problem. We have to admit that this is a religious problem, and we need to renew our commitment to a secular country which treats all religions equally. I have believed in the importance of secularism all my life, and with every day that passes that belief grows stronger. Religion is no way to govern a nation. Not any religion, and not any nation.

ISIS is not America’s problem, nor the British, nor the French. ISIS is not Syria or Iraq’s problem. ISIS is a problem for Muslims. And if you can’t admit that, you’re not really a good Muslim either.

‪#‎LibertyFraternityEquality‬
‪#‎LongLiveTheRepublic‬

As has been pointed out by others, the above posting sets the gold standard, and I salute Sulaiman for posting that.

We might indeed live in a world of “us” vs “them”, but in this case “them” is ISIS, and “us” is everybody else including both the religious and the non-religious. We, all of us, need to come to terms with the fact that ISIS are clearly a variation of Islam, because once we do that we are then empowered to directly ridicule, mock, and attack their specific variation of facist Islamist ideology, at the same time recognise that they do not represent anybody else, and they most certainly do not represent the vast majority of Muslims on the planet.

A terrorist’s goal is to sow hatred and discord, and by not giving in, you are defeating their plans. – Sulaiman Daud