Why blaming Muslims for ISIS is a bad idea

Post Paris attacks, one may find a number of people blaming Muslims or Islam, as a religion, for atrocities in the world. As pointed out by a number of online sources, hating Muslims because of what the Islamic State has done is a bad idea. Here are some of the reasons:

That's exactly what ISIS wants people to do

Anti-Muslim crimes have significantly increased in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January. After the Friday attacks, a Canadian mosque was set on fire.

Arie Kruglanski, who studies how people become terrorists, believes ISIS wants people to commit crimes against Muslims.

“This is precisely what Isis was aiming for — to provoke communities to commit actions against Muslims,” The Independent quoted the psychology professor at the University of Maryland as saying. “Then ISIS will be able to say, ‘I told you so. These are your enemies, and the enemies of Islam.’”

ISIS is committed to its leader, not Islam

Many Islamic scholars have pointed out that ISIS does what its mastermind Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi says; it does not necessarily follows what is preached in Islam. A group of Muslim scholars wrote an open letter to the ISIS leader and asked him who had given him authority over Muslims.

The letter gives 24 reasons why ISIS should not be considered an Islamic organisation. It criticises ISIS for using Quran verses to justify their killings. "One cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith," it says.

The open letter also says it is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent, emissaries, ambassadors and diplomats. That is why it was against Islam when ISIS killed U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines.

Muslims hate ISIS

Muslims consist of the largest number of ISIS victims. ISIS has beheaded Sunni Muslims in Iraq for failing to pledge loyalty to them, The Daily Beast reports. The terrorist organisation executed Imams for not submitting to them and killed an Imam in Iraq for denouncing them.

As many Muslim leaders and online commenters declared, Muslims hate ISIS. They suffer because of the extremists. It's the common Muslim who falls prey to hate crimes, not the militants.

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