Does Islam Promote Violence?

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Unfortunately, the Muslim world's support of faith-based violence is not limited to governments and their non-state proxies. Consider a June 2006 Pew Global Attitudes poll that showed a majority of Muslims in Jordan, Egypt and Nigeria, as well as roughly a third in France, Spain and Great Britain, felt violence against civilians can be justified in order to defend Islam. Worse, a July 2005 poll found 22 percent of British Muslims believed that the rush-hour bombings of London's metro system, which killed 52 people, were justified because of Britain's support for the war on terror. This included 31 percent of young British Muslims.

But while experts assure us that only a small percentage (perhaps 10 percent) of Muslims approve of or are willing to participate in terror, with 1.2 billion Muslims globally, that's more than 100 million jihadists. The “minority view” argument loses even more credibility in light of a recent Vatican report finding that Muslims have soared to constitute nearly 20 percent of the world’s population, overtaking Catholics as the world’s single largest religious denomination.  

What’s more, whether violence and terrorism are supported by a minority of Muslims doesn’t matter much since most Muslims remain conspicuously silent about their co-religionists support for terror and have thus far been unwilling to press the violent minority to stop its violent ways.