Is Islam a Religion of Peace

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Islam is a religion of peace
Religion and peace are politically hot issues that most politicians worldwide would not want to answer questions about them directly. The addition of the Muslim or Islamic religion makes it a more difficult issue for non-Islam’s (non-believers). In many societies, there are two acceptable standards of describing the correlation of Islam and peace. In some instances, the society chooses to react to Islam in relation to their encounters with the religion. From the U.S through Europe, Asia and Africa, terrorists and extremist groups have one unique yet common characteristic among them; that is Islam, a presumption that is not only untrue but also offensive to peaceful Islam’s across the globe (Pal 14).
However, no matter how right it sounds or how convincing it may be that most terror and extremist organizations from al-Qaida, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and the Islamic caliphate are Muslims it is not enough to generalize Islam as a peace disrupting religion. Islam is the second-largest in the world after Christianity, and yet the population of Islam’s across the globe is not visible to persons depicting Islam as a religion of violence (Pal 53). Without going into detail about what the Quran teaches or not the population of Muslims against the population of extremist’s and terrorists is telling. In this era, it is not enough to say that all extremists are Muslims and thus qualify the whole religion as terrorists. If such were true, then there would be no Christians anywhere in the world cohabiting with Muslims. Away from the recent attacks on a satirical newspaper, Paris France has not be faced with any extremist attacks despite being the highest Muslim populated European city (Lewis 10).
Muslims have their prayer centers in the most remote areas in America and other parts of the world. Millions of Muslims worship and conduct their affairs peacefully and co-existing with the societies in this areas propagating peace and love amongst themselves and non-believers and as such qualify as a peaceful religion. To say that most attack victims are the root causes of what befalls them in an effort to cleanse Islam of terror tags is not right at all. Every human being deserves life, and no other mortal has the authority to deny another life because they are not the givers and thus have no authority over what they do not owe. Freedom of expression, worship, association and life are fundamental and acceptable to both Islam’s and non-believers (Hirsi 99). Yet, at some point and time, even Christianity has been embroiled in wars to win converts. The crusaders of the eighth century is a perfect example of how few Christians twisted the teachings of the Bible and went to war with alleged pagans. This did not earn Christianity the tag of violence whereas a few elements with twisted understanding of Islam have earned an otherwise peaceful religion the tag of violence (Maqsood 19).
To understand the parity between extremists and Islam’s there is a need to understand the motives of extremist groups who purport to kill and maim in the name of Allah while in truth seeking personal mileages. Osama bin Laden perhaps one of the most infamous jihadists in history responsible for the 9/11 shades light on the motives of terrorists and their actions. Terrorists seek power to control and rule over a caliphate that is attained through blood shade and destruction of lives. In an effort to gain popularity, personal wealth and power, bin Laden assembled a militia by the name of Allah to fight against western civilization in Iraq (Pal 114). If Osama had been true to this calling, his mode of waging war would have been totally different from the wanton destruction and killings witnessed when Taliban and al-Qaida were at their prime. Instead, provision of Islamic education to school going kids and allowing equal opportunities for both genders to acquire and education as well as easing freedom constraints on women under Islam. Islam advocates for holistic education to children not jihadist teachings that take the Quran out of context and thus terror and Muslim are not synonymous (Beckingham 47).
Extremists hope to use backlash from Christians against Muslims as grounds to recruit more fighters and advance their agenda of creating mayhem and conquering areas that peace and calm do not afford them. Recent terrorist attacks in Kenya and East African country by Al-Shabab and Al-Qaida affiliate based in Somali is an indication of how badly terrorist want to cause animosity between peaceful Muslim and non-Islam believers. According to survivors of a recent attack on an upmarket mall in Kenya’s capital, the haphazardly shooting terrorists who attacked the mall killed non-Muslims while letting Muslims got. What is the motive of such actions when those being let go do not support the terror activities by any means safe for the claim that they serve the same deity. Do peaceful non-Muslims support extremist in their regular prayers? No. Therefore, why then do terrorist employ such tactics in an otherwise peaceful city where thousands of Muslims stay peacefully with a huge number of Christians. Their purpose is to create tensions among these groups in order to weaken and penetrate the society as these groups thrive in lawless areas (Beckingham 111).
A common factor among extremists is that they are largely prevalent in lawless areas. Why then does the society question this tren...