The Atlantic’s big Islam lie: What Muslims really believe about ISIS

posted on: Feb 20, 2015

Imagine a group of people who rape.  Enslave.  Maim.  Murder.  Ethnically cleanse.  Extort.  Burn.  Behead.  But then imagine this—they don’t lie?  Can’t lie.  Won’t lie.  That’s what Graeme Wood’s recent Atlantic essay, “What ISIS Really Wants,” really wants us to believe.

That a movement that has earned the world’s nearly universal opprobrium for its grotesque violence and wickedness is nevertheless honest in describing why it does what it does.  I beg to differ.  The only Muslims who think ISIS represents Islam, or even Muslims, are ISIS themselves.

That’s the first thing everyone needs to know about “the Islamic State.”  And the second?  If you want to know why ISIS exists, don’t bother searching Islamic texts, or examining Islamic traditions.  The real reason ISIS happens is because of what keeps happening to Muslims.

The Incomparability of Civilizations

There’s almost no comparison between Islam and the West.  For one thing, Islam is a religion.  The West obviously is not.  But even the countries of the world that are Muslim-majority don’t compare to the West.  For all this fearful talk of a global Muslim Caliphate, it’s the West that has made real progress in creating transnational institutions.

There’s no Muslim counterpart to the European Union, the Schengen Treaty, NATO, the G-20—a Western initiative—or the many bilateral and multilateral agreements and processes that make the West what it is.  Nor is this exclusively a mark of the Muslim world: You think China, Brazil or India enjoys the alliances we do?  The kinds of integration that make our societies so prosperous and powerful?

The world’s Muslim-majority societies are remarkably diverse—much more so than the West, I’d argue.  Which is all fine, in theory, until you get to the practice.  These very different peoples are going through our equivalent of the dark ages, the consequence of centuries of colonialism, occupation, authoritarianism and extremism.

As Muslim societies struggle to find their way forward, everything is up for grabs.  What kind of government should they have?  What role should religion play?  How should power be divided?  Very little is agreed on.  One of them is this: Among an incredibly diverse, astonishingly fractured and contentious community, ISIS is anathema.

Source: www.salon.com