"Nothing to do with Islam"?

by Judith Bergman • December 3, 2016 at 5:00 am

"Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution." — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
"The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar's programs... Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world. Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate. Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches... Al Azhar teaches stoning people. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?" — Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, a scholar of Islamic law and graduate of Egypt's Al Azhar University.
The jihadists who carry out terrorist attacks in the service of ISIS, for example, are merely following the commands in the Quran, both 9:5, "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them..." and Quran 8:39, "So fight them until there is no more fitna [strife] and all submit to the religion of Allah."
Archbishop Welby -- and Egypt's extraordinary President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi -- has finally had the courage to say in public that if one insists on remaining "religiously illiterate," it is impossible to solve the problem of religiously motivated violence.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (left), recently said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe "requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is 'nothing to do with Islam'... Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution." (Image source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

For the first time, a European establishment figure from the Church has spoken out against an argument exonerating ISIS and frequently peddled by Western political and cultural elites. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, speaking in France on November 17, said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe

"requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is 'nothing to do with Islam'... Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution."

Archbishop Welby also said that, "It's very difficult to understand the things that impel people to some of the dreadful actions that we have seen over the last few years unless you have some sense of religious literacy".