Note: I’ve been working on this for some time, but due to the nature of the content have been slow to publish it.

It has become a refrain from the left (and the media) to hear how Islam is a religion of peace and those who engage in violence have are not “real” Muslims.   If one questions this premise the interesting moniker of Islamophobe is tied to the questioner.   However, the question “Is Islam a religion of peace?” is legitimate and should be considered.  However, the more I have looked into the issue, rather than get a simple answer I find it becomes ever more difficult to make simplistic answers.

To be a Muslim, a person simply has to agree there is only one God and Mohammad is his prophet.  Though the mantra does not expressly say so, the assumption is that one accepts the Quran as the literal words of the one and only God and that the Quran supersedes all other older religious texts. All that is beyond question.  The problem is that the Quran is not a book of systematic theology, nor is it a single narrative; but rather it is a book of various styles and subjects and content.  Muslims say this style is because it is divine and its unique style is due to that fact.  Secularist would respond that the lack of clarity is due to the fact that the Quran is nothing more than a mishmash of Persian, Arabic, Jewish and Christian ideas plagiarized by Mohammad and his immediate successors.

The divine or secular nature of the Quran is a matter of faith, but for this discussion the significance of this is that such a non-linier text is infinitely subject to interpretation.   Of course issues of interpretation is true with all religions; but it seems monotheistic religions struggle with variations in interpretation more than most. I would suggest that this is because practitioners tend to be far more dogmatic about the unique rightness of their theology than other religions. In the case of Islam the initial schism in interpretation goes right back to the origins of the religion itself as if to make the point that there is not just one Islam a prima fascia case.

To make matters worse, there is a second body of literature that shapes the Islamic world: the Hadith(s). The oldest version of this collection of sayings, anticdotes and commentary attributed to Mohammad goes back to a period about 200 years after the death of Mohammad. Oddly (miraculously?) the volume of Mohammad’s words in this record grew exponentially over the next 600 years.  And problematically, different groups of Muslims had different versions of the Hadith. The point being, that not only did Islam evolve, but so did the source material making it progressively harder to tell “real” Islam from pseudo Islam.

To be fair this is not unique to Islam. The same issues plagued the early Christian church. There were many more gospels than the four we now have. But unlike Islam, there was a powerful and unified government (Rome) that stepped in to first suppress then utterly annihilate all but one “official” set of texts.  On this vein, before I consider if Islam is a religion of peace or of violence let me ask the same question about Christianity.   This is particularly important because despite claims by both sides to the contrary, Islam and Christianity are brother religions with a high degree of overlap in history and world view.

So, is Christianity a religion of peace or violence?   Of course it depends on what version of Christianity you look at and at what time in history.   If you just read the Gospels there is no question that the religion that Jesus preached was all about peace and showing love to one’s neighbor here on earth. When asked why his followers did not fight to prevent his arrest he said “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”  In the gospels, Jesus was the preacher of the oppressed, teaching an existential vision of holiness through one’s own commitment to peace and love.  If you only looked at the words and actions of Jesus you could come to no other conclusion than Christianity is a pacifist religion.  To this day, certain Christian sects such as Quakers are committed pacifists.  So does that prove Christianity is a religion of peace?

Sadly no. The first reason is that most brands of Christianity over the ages put the Hebrew writings (they call the Old Testament) on equal footing as the words of Jesus; and, to put it mildly, those writings are very violent indeed.  According to these writings, the god of Moses and Joshua advocated execution for a variety of religious transgressions by their own people and wholesale genocide for those who occupied land they believed their god had given them. Thus, if these writings are indeed to be taken literally and implemented into the Christian framework, then Christianity could be very fairly called a religion of violence and oppression. But, once again, it is not that simple. There have been and continue to be groups who call for the implementation of the violent law of Moses under the name of Christianity, but they are a small minority.  On the other hand, there is a large group that would like to punish those who violate certain Mosaic laws (particularly those dealing with sex) in the name of Christianity regardless if those transgressing the religious laws even claimed to be Christian.  So the picture gets more muddy.

Few Christian groups truly try to implement the Old and New Testaments in their totality.  Though most claim not to, they nearly all pick and choose what parts they seek to enforce and blend that with both local culture and the political establishment. From the day Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity became enmeshed in culture and political power.   As noted before, even the creation of the biblical cannon was done as an exercise in Roman Imperial power.  From that day till today Christianity has been a tool of government for both good and evil.  It was political Christianity that drove slavery out of Europe in the first millennium, and political Christianity that brought slavery to the New World. For some 1,200 years Christianity was the nearly sole source of social services, social justice and healthcare in Europe.

On the other hand, Christianity persecuted every type of religious or political dissent for the same 1,200 years. People like King Olaf of Norway was declared a saint for violently stamping out the traditional Norse religion. Organizations like the Catholic Inquisition were brutal to the extreme, and the genocides in Central and South America were carried out in the name of Christianity. So, is Christianity a religion of peace? It all comes down to what version of Christianity you consider.  Today, most practicing Christians would insist that those who burned people at the stake for heresy were not “real” Christians; however, those who did the burning certainly thought themselves to be Christians.  Which one is right? It depends on who you ask.

Defining Islam as peaceful or violent presents the same question. It depends on when and where Islam has been practiced and who you ask.

There are some striking differences between Islam and Christianity. Islam was not founded as the peaceful religion of the oppressed. Islam was the religion of violent Arab nationalism that was spread nearly exclusively by conquest of Christian lands and the lands of many other established religions & cultures.  Whereas early Christians were the victims of military violence, the early Muslims were the perpetrators. “The Sword of Islam” was both a metaphor and a literal threat.  However, like Christianity, the early form of Islam gave way to new forms.  In the Middle Ages, if one wanted religious freedom, one fled to Moslem lands, not from them. The Ottoman Empire that controlled most of Islam for over 500 years was, for most of that time, the most religiously tolerant empire in the world.  Art, literature and scholarship flourished.

So, was Ottoman Islam a religion of peace? Not quite. Nearly the entire time the stated goal was to use violence to conquer all of Europe for Islam.  These efforts continued right up until the balance of military power shifted after the Muslims failed to capture Vienna in their final great offensive in 1683. Yes, 1683, well past the medieval period.

It is odd that many people point to the Christian Crusades as proof of the violent nature of Christianity, yet, they simply ignore the fact that the Crusades failed while the Muslim “crusades” continued for 400 years after the Christian gave up on their efforts.  To this day, Muslims still control most of the land they conquered. Yes, modern Muslim countries are weaker and poorer than the West, but over the twelve-hundred year conflict between Islamic and Christian nations, Muslims have had the upper hand most of the time, and were on the offensive almost continually.

Now, one might fairly ask if it is fair to equate the Islamic conquests to Islam itself. Or was Islam secondary to imperialism?  Well, is it fair to equate Spanish conquests of the New World to Christianity? The answer is difficult.

In addition to efforts to conquer Europe, Muslims conquered eastward as well. The Muslim Tamarinds were conquering India at roughly the same time as the Spanish were conquering Central and South America. While we have all heard of the evils of the Western actions in the Americas, I find it odd that I have never heard anyone decry Islamic conquests, colonialism or eradication of local culture in Asia? If you look at the globe, Muslims have displaced just as many local cultures as has the Christian West.

The nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh are what remains of the Islamic conquest and colonization of India. Significantly, like Christianity morphed as it moved into new cultures. So did Islam. Islam in  Pakistan (until very recently) was almost exclusively of a variety called Sufism which bares virtually no resemblance to the kind of Islam exported by Saudi Arabia or Iran. It is very much at ease with other religious beliefs and seeks to find and show divine love via a personal relationship with God (yes it sounds a lot like evangelical Christianity).  And, predictably, both the  Saudi Arabian Mullahs and the Iranian Ayatollahs condemn Sufism.

That brings us to the real issue. Is today’s Islam a religion of peace or a religion of violence? To answer that we must look at the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governmental/religious impact on modern Islam.  To understand Saudi Arabia, you have to understand it’s government is effectively just one extended family, the family of Saud. And that family embraces a highly intolerant, violent and hateful version of Islam that a century ago was only an odd and obscure sect. But, in the last seventy or so years, the family of Saud has been awash in oil money.  In that time they have been using that money to set up schools all over the Islamic world to export and promote that brand of Islam (usually called Wahhabism).  In many places their schools are the only schools where poor locals can learn about Islam. Thus what was a tiny sect now has world-wide influence due to oil money.

Imagine if the family that runs Westborough Baptist Church (you know the “God hates fags” people) had unlimited money to set up schools around the world to teach their hateful vision of Christianity. And, imagine those schools were backed up by thugs who were willing to kill anyone who tried to impede them.  That is exactly what the family of Saud has done. Consequently, they have influence across the Islamic world, all driven by the money the West has been sending to buy their oil.  And yes, this brand of Islam is violent and dare I say evil. The simple fact is that ISIS and all it is doing is directly linked to the Saud family’s export of their view of Islam.  There is a reason Saudi Arabia doesn’t use it’s huge military power to crush ISIS; they are joined at the hip.

And then there is Iran. Iran is an odd duck because it was never part of the Ottoman Empire and has long seen itself as the oppressed minority version of Islam (Shiaism). With the rise of Wahhabism, they became more concerned since one of the chief aims of Wahhabism is the eradication of Shia worship.  This combined with the “westernization” of Iranian culture and resentment to the US lead to the 1979 revolution and creation of the Iranian Islamic Republic.  Since that time, the Iranian government has used violence in the name of Islam as a policy of state. They fund violent groups as proxies so as to counter the influence of the Saudis.

So, does this mean Islam is violent by nature? After all Iran is the center of Shia Islam, just as Saudi Arabia is the center of Sunni Islam.

Hence we return to the issue of “What is Islam?” “Who speaks for Islam?” When the two centers of Islam are actively using Islam to export hate and violence it is absurd to say that “real” Islam is peaceful and all other forms are false. I particularly hate the term Islamaphobia, because that suggest that fear of violence in the name of Islam is unfounded or irrational.  The simple truth is that nowhere in the world is it safe to aggressively critique Islam in the same way we critique other religions. To publicly declare Mohammad was a fraud (or never existed) is dangerous anywhere in the world. In many places it is a death sentence. Even in Europe critical attacks on Islam have lead to the killing of the critics. So, the fear of violence in the name of Islam has real foundations, any other conclusion is willful ignorance.

While the governments that control the centers of Islam promote an oppressive and violent view of Islam, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims that practice versions of Islam that are dedicated to what could fairly be called liberal values of mutual understanding and peace.  However, they are themselves under the most threat of violence from the brands of Islam that are pervasively violent.  I would conclude that it is false to say either “Islam is a religion of peace” or to say “Islam is a religion of violence.”   Islam today is neither just a religion of peace or just a religion of violence; it can be either.  Just like Christianity, it depends on the individual practitioner how the religion is lived out.