The Myth of an Intolerant Islam

Islam is a massive faith with 1.6 billion followers spread across the Islamic world that stretches over 15,000 kilometers. A considerable section lives as a minority community in many countries, battling stereotyping, discrimination, and identity.
With the powerful influence of Islamophobic brigades, there has been a massive surge of hatred against Islam and its adherents. Muslims continue to be demonized and projected as uniformly fundamentalist, intolerant and violent. This perception is not based on rigorous evidence but springs from intermittent misreporting and speculation in the media. This powerfully flawed narrative and negative stereotyping continue to fuel distorted perceptions about Islam. In a climate where Muslims are already feeling alienated and marginalized, it is unfair to mock and ridicule their religion and identity.
Islam is a religion of peace: That is its aim and goal. The Quran’s powerful commandment should leave one in no doubt: “Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as though he had killed all of mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind” (Q5:32).
Commentators have often overlooked the history of religious coexistence fostered by Islam. The literalist, puritan approach to revealed texts has imposed austere interpretations of the Quran and Islamic law, or shariah, ones that run counter to moderate understandings, including tolerance for other faiths. Shariah is not a monolithic system of medieval codes, set in stone and based solely on cruelty and punishment. Since the seventh century, the body of law has co-evolved with different strains of Islamic thought — forgiveness versus punishment, tolerance versus intolerance, innovative versus literalist.
To believers, shariah is more than a collection of laws; it is infused with higher moral principles and ideals of justice. The weight of Islamic history skews toward moderate understandings, but several regimes and hardline Islamic thinkers have used their influence to breed intolerance in recent decades.
The Quran, in its essence, promotes justice, peace, and freedom. Compassion and kindness underpin its core message. To understand this, one has to read the entire Quran and not select verses. No verse in the Quran is a standalone commandment. Each not only has a bearing on the other but amplifies it too.
The voice of the text is the fruit of dialogue. For some, the peace of God is through His sword; for others, it is found in His unbounded mercy. The entire paradigm is built around human interpretation. The pacifists and the terrorists read the same text but present fundamentally different interpretations. It is important to consider the reader and interpreter of the Quran. The voice of the Quran heard by Islamic fundamentalists is not the same as the voice heard by progressive Muslims. The entire verses of the Quran must be read and understood in conjunction with each other. Reading and interpreting verses in isolation is a very incorrect way of engaging with the Quran. It would yield a meaning that conforms to your worldview.
For example, the current modern definition of jihad is contrary to the linguistic meaning of the word and the beliefs of most Muslims who equate it with religious extremism. The word jihad stems from the Arabic root word J-H-D, which means “strive.” Other words derived from this root include “effort,” “labor,” and “fatigue.” Essentially, jihad is a struggle to stand by one’s religion in the face of oppression and persecution. The effort may come in the form of fighting the evil in your own heart or standing up to a dictator. The first time the word is used in the Quran, it signifies a “resistance to oppression” (Q25:26) spiritual and intellectual rather than militant. The moralist approach espouses jihad through conscience (jihad bin nafs), while a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword (jihad bin saif). In mainstream Muslim tradition, the greatest jihad was not warfare but reforming oneself and one’s society. Prophet Muhammad explained that true jihad was an inner struggle against egotism.
There is a lot of misunderstanding on account of this verse: “slay them wherever you catch them” (Q2:191). But who is this referring to? Who are “they” that this verse discusses? The “them” are those terrorists who persecuted and killed innocent people for their faith. Some verses are very often “snipped” out of context by mischief makers for inflaming emotions, fostering misunderstandings, and perpetuating violence on all sides. Quran 3:8 preemptively calls out people who cherry-pick verses as “perverse” people, declaring, “…those in whose hearts is perversity seek discord and wrong interpretation of [the Quran].”
The permission given in Q22:40-41 to fight was only given to “those against whom war is waged.” Islam does permit fighting but only in self-defense – in defense of religion, or on the part of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. At the same time, it also lays down strict rules, including prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees, and livestock. We must understand this critical dimension of Islam.
First, Muslims cannot preemptively initiate a war. They are only allowed to act in defense. War can be waged if there is a situation where defenseless people are under attack. War is considered just when one party does not cease aggression despite a proposed truce. If the enemy inclines toward peace, Muslims have to follow suit: “But if they stop, God is most forgiving, most merciful” (Q2:192). Also read: “Now if they incline toward peace, then incline to it, and place your trust in God, for God is the all-hearing, the all-knowing” (Q8:61). Second, Muslims are not allowed to transgress divine injunctions: “fight for the cause of God, those who fight you, but do not transgress, for God does not love the transgressors.” (Q2:190). Third, Muslims have to treat prisoners of war with honor. Prisoners have to be released after the war, either in exchange for Muslims captives or only as a favor.
Historian Sir William Muir records how the Prophet Muhammad instructed his companions to treat prisoners of war. The refugees had houses of their own, received the prisoners with kindness and consideration. “Blessings on the men of Medina!” said one of them in later days: “they made us ride while they walked afoot; they gave us wheaten bread to eat when there was little of it, contenting themselves with dates.”
Contrary to what some historians have portrayed, Islam did not impose itself by the sword. The Quran says that “persecution is worse than slaughter” and “let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression” (Q2:190-193). This has been emphatically made clear in the Quran: “There must be no coercion in matters of faith!” (Q2:256). In words quoted by Muhammad in one of his last public sermons, God tells all human beings, “O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another” (Q49:13). Moreover, Islamic wars weren’t just to defend Muslims against persecution – but to defend Christians, Jews, and people of all faiths. All verses addressing fighting are preconditioned with rules of self-defense.
On his victorious rerun to Makkah after 20 years, the Prophet Muhammad bore no animosity for the locals who had persecuted him and his band, forcing them to emigrate to Madinah. He offered blanket forgiveness, the only condition being that Makkahans accept universal freedom of conscience.
In keeping with this spirit of tolerance that Prophet Muhammad demonstrated during his lifetime, today’s Muslim thinkers feel there exists no imperative to distance themselves from this tradition of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. They are plumbing Qur’anic resources to find ways to help them adapt to the modern world and to shape it on those lines. Muslim religious scholars are exhuming and popularizing principles and practices that allowed Muslims in the past to coexist with others in peace and on equal terms, regardless of creed and faith. They keep reminding themselves that the seventh-century Madinah accepted Jews as equal members of the community (ummah) under the Constitution of Madinah drawn up by Prophet Muhammad in 622 A.D.
There is no better testament to Prophet Muhammad’s credo of tolerance and forgiveness than the attestation of non-Muslim historian Stanley Lane-Poole: “The day of Muhammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the Quraysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn in which they had afflicted him and gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mecca.”
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