Thoughts on Islam

I’ve been rethinking some of my thoughts on Islam, and I thought it was worth writing about on here. So. My position has long been that we need to be sure and distinguish between Islam and Islamic extremism, that to cast all of Islam as evil based on the actions and teachings of a select few is wrong. I think this was largely a reaction, on my part, to the fairly obscene amount of anti-Muslim bigotry that seemed to become acceptable and commonplace following 9/11. I had (and still have) a major problem with tagging all sorts of innocent people as “evildoers” because they happen to share a religion or color of skin with a relatively small group of terrorists.

Lately, though, I’ve become a little uncomfortable with some of the more misogynistic aspects of Islam. Hearing stories about honor killings, etc––it bothers me. I’m not buying into the “all of Islam is evil” mentality by any means, understand. At the same time, though, I can’t deny that the people committing these atrocities are justifying their actions with the Qur’an. This reminds me of certain people in America––cough––Pat Robertson-JerryFallwell-James Dobson-George Bush––cough cough––who justify their bullshit with the Bible. So, you’ve got definite parallels between Christian and Islamic extremism. The thing is, though, that I personally have problems with Christian ‘moderates’ as well. For me, just because you’re not out bombing abortion clinics or accusing children’s television of promoting ‘the homosexual agenda’ doesn’t mean you get a free pass. It’s the Sam Harris thing, right? If I call bullshit on ‘moderate’ Christians (really, Christianity as a whole), I should call bullshit on ‘moderate’ Muslims/Islam, shouldn’t I?

It’s tricky. I think maybe I should read the Qur’an to see if there’s some of the more outlandish stuff like there is in the Bible, so that I can have a legitimate basis from which to call bullshit (or not) on Islam. The defense I hear often is that “Islam is a religion of peace.” I’ve supported this assertion, but then I started to think of people who say the same thing about Christianity, and when it comes to Christianity, I damn well know better. Anyway. I have no real thesis or summing up for this post, hence the “Thoughts” title.