Raymond Ibrahim: The West is wrong about Islam’s relationship with extremism

Since 9/11, Western leaders have repeatedly insisted that radical Islam has little to do with the religion’s mainstream teachings — and that Islam, as a whole, is good.

But historian and author Raymond Ibrahim argues that this comforting narrative ignores centuries of religious texts, legal traditions, and historical precedent.

“Unfortunately here in the West, it’s become so mangled and, you know, apparently an impossible question to answer,” Ibrahim tells Freitas.

Islam, Ibrahim says, is “actually very simple, and every Muslim knows what Islam teaches.”

Some of what people believe is simply “radical Islam” are beliefs like “killing the apostate or having slaves, having sex slaves, concubines, treating the non-Muslim inferior, as an inferior subject,” and “killing someone because he blasphemed against Muhammad.”

“All of these are 100% Islamic. There’s no question to this, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise, be he Muslim or non-Muslim, is either an idiot or a liar,” Ibrahim says.

“This is just not even open to debate, OK, it’s in the scriptures. It’s in the Quran. It’s in the Hadith. All the scholars and schools of law have agreed to it,” he explains.

“The Muslim who does not do those things … they do exist, OK, he’s good, but he’s not the representative of Islam. We want to convince ourselves that Islam is by nature the good guys. And then you have the few crazy guys,” he continues.

“It’s, like you said, the opposite. Islam by nature is radical because it teaches things that are inherently antithetical to Western norms,” he adds.

Radical Islam, he says, “is the mainstream way.”

“It’s always been understood. You want to know what Islam is? OK, stop listening to the American apologist who no Muslim even has heard of,” he tells Freitas.

“Go to the Muslim world and see what happens there. You will find Christians are subjugated. They’re being persecuted. They’re sometimes being killed. They are not allowed to have churches. They’re being thrown in jail because they shared a Facebook post that’s negative about Muhammad, OK, that’s real Islam. It’s happening now,” he continues. “So why on earth would I think it’s not the real thing?”

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