The title of this post is a question often asked these days. The so-called experts on Islam seem to almost concur on some link between Islam and violence. Though it’s hard to exonerate any of those experts from a political agenda or sometimes a pure hatred for Islam and/or Muslims, it still remains a valid question that every Muslim should be able to answer for himself or herself and for others. Does Islam condone violence? Is Islam to blame for the rise of terrorist activities? Even if we’re able to clear the name of Islam, clearing Muslims from it is another challenge.

In our times, the saying, “not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim,” has almost become a cliché. While we Muslims know this is not true, and some Muslims go to the extent of proving so by citing examples from the KKK to Timothy McVeigh, we still owe an answer to ourselves and to others. To me, whether non-Muslims are involved in terrorist activities or not is irrelevant, and certainly does not justify Muslims being involved in terrorist activities. Another weak argument is to say that only a small percentage of Muslims are involved in terrorist activities. To me, no small number is small. Some of those so-called experts would have us believe that it’s that small number of extremists who are following the literal injunctions of the Quran while the mainstream Muslims are being apologetic and are involved in acts of deception and double-talk, perhaps in attempts to dissemble and deceive (in Muslim terminology, practicing Tuqya) the non-Muslim masses. In this short article, I will try to address some of those Quranic passages.