cheers, I think that actually adds to the debate.
I agree that 99% of people interpret it peacefully! but that's because they are good people.
I don't agree with you in that we're "good people" and they're "bad people". I don't think things are that black and white. Push comes to shove, people can act in ways that will surprise you. A "good" person that was fortunate enough to grow up in a stable environment (with all the trappings of a healthy society),may not neccessarily act the same way, and hold the same moral values, if he had instead grown up in a region ruled by an oppressive regime, with limited freedoms, where family members and friends might occasionally "disappear"-never to return again, and tommorow held as little promise for change as yesterday did.
Nonetheless, people still make a
choice to commit evil, regardless of the environment, and they should still be held fully accountable. But it's far harder making the right choice in distressful situations than it is in comfortable situations.
I agree that 99% of people interpret it peacefully! but that's because they are good people.
People interpret religious texts in the way that makes sense to them.
If 99.9% of Muslims interpret Islam in a peaceful manner, could we not consider that the reason
why they've interpreted it in a peaceful manner is
because Islam is peaceful in it's true intepretation? Surely if Islam was split 50-50 between being peaceful and evil,
far more of us would have interpreted the religion in an evil way? It's far too simple to just claim that we've ALL interpreted Islam in a peaceful manner simply because we're ALL good people. 1.6 billion people, spread across the world and made up of various cultures, habits, languages, and backgrounds, and we've all interpreted it the right way because we're all "good" people?
It makes far more sense to claim that the 0.0001% that have interpreted the religion to be solely about violence might have had their own agendas in interpreting it that way. And it's more a case of
them, than it is the religion.
However, I think that more could be done by the Islamic community to promote the peaceful message above the violent interpretation of these passages.
I agree with you on that, and that's a challenge we're facing. One of the first things we have to do, is understand
why the 0.0001% interpret religion the way they do. Is there something they have in common? Have they faced similar challenges? etc
As Muslims, we can't simply be going on and on repeating the same mantra that "Islam does not justify the actions of terrorists", and expect these sort of crisis to stop. Are there verses that discuss going to war, historical battles etc? Absolutely. But the fact that there are Muslim extremists/terrorists picking verses (and ignoring any form of context, or deeper explanation of that verse) and quite comfortably using them to justify atrocities means we haven't done our job well enough.
It's one thing for people to present verses from the Quran in the most negative light possible and claim
that is what Islam preaches, it's quite another issue when it's Muslims doing that on Muslim soil (or majority Muslim soil) whilst committing atrocities. I don't neccessarily expect the former group of people to have a strong understanding of Islam, but surely in the latter situation the failure to understand the religion shouldn't be an issue?
So why is it that seemingly Muslims outside of the Middle East are not misinterpreting and twisting verses to commit various forms of ethnic clensing, as is currently the case in the Middle East(the very cradle of Islam) ? I have my own theories, which I've already posted before, but regardless, we still need to continue educating.
And on a side note, the current rulers of Saudi are failing their own people, and Muslims in general. If the heart of Islam (Mecca) is in a country where there are very, very limited debates on Islam, where they
only follow an ultra conservative interpretation of Islam and impose that on their people, a country where Imams can be expelled if they offer an alternate (less conservative) stance, it sends the wrong message to neighbouring countries, and can help fuel another generation of Muslim youths that follow their religion as per "Saudi culture", instead of as per the guidlines of the religion.
There is a strong debate among Muslims in Europe (especially the scholars within Europe) if it would be far better to make their own central Islamic institutions of education
within Europe that offer the same
value and prestige as the Islamic education in Mecca and Medina. When I was younger, I used to favour maintaining the status quo, that you could get educated in Islamic institutions in Europe but you wouldn't have the same prestige as someone graduating from Saudi. In time I have changed my stance, and I think a lot of other people have also switched stances. And as long as the ultra conservatives in Saudi are laying the law as far as religion is concerned, we'll be facing an uphill battle to present the core interpretation of Islam. Both to Muslims and nonMuslims alike.