One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide-bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.
On the other side are those fed up with the innumerable daily horrific acts throughout the world that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam.
In all fairness, there needs to be a distinction.
Numerous criminal acts are also committed on a daily basis by non-Muslims. The critical difference is that non-Muslim criminals do not hoist a religious banner to justify their misdeeds, while the Muslims proudly claim that they commit their heinous acts in obedience to the dictates of their religious faith.
Would someone please explain what motivated Nidal Hasan, who at taxpayers' expense was educated from college all the way through medical school and post medical-school training, to turn his deadly weapons against the nation that gave him everything he had?
If Islam had nothing to do with what Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did, then why:
* did he repeatedly preach the ascendancy of Islam over the U.S. Constitution?
* did he publicly support Islamic suicide-bombing?
* did he proclaim his highest loyalty to Islam?
* was he in contact with violent anti-U.S. Islamists and a virulent Yemeni Imam?
* did he distribute copies of the Quran to people the morning of his bloody attack?
* did he keep screaming "Allahu akbar" as he heartlessly sprayed over a hundred bullets, killing thirteen and injuring some thirty innocent men and women?
Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be: Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslims' holy book, the Quran, in many suras:
Quran 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."
8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."
9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."
47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
And the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word-for-word literal edicts of their god, Allah.
Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. For one, the Prophet's son-in-law cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery.
With the assistance of one or two of his thugs, Ali beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day.
This man, highly esteemed by the prophet of Allah, carried a sword that had its own name -- Zolfaghar. Ali's portrait, holding the menacing sword, adorns the homes and shops throughout Shiite lands. And Ali is revered by the Shiites at the same level as Muhammad.