“ISIS is very similar to the Kharijites, who were a toxic off-shoot of Islam,” Yusuf told us. “It’s not Islam; it’s a perversion of Islam, and to label these militant externalities as Islam is to legitimize their actions.” The Kharijites were the 7th century self-proclaimed Muslims who sowed discord in early Islamic history. They were known for their extremist doctrines and their penchant for declaring other Muslims as disbelievers—an act known as takfir—and engaging in murderous violence against them. Amongst their acts was the assassination of the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was the first Imam of Shia Muslims and regarded as the fourth and final “rightly guided” Caliph by Sunni Muslims.

Yusuf adds that the continued presence of many religious minorities in the Middle East up to the modern age, whether they be Yazidis, Assyrian and other Christian denominations, Jews, Mandaeans, or Zoroastrians, is testimony to the tolerance that existed for centuries in Muslim-ruled lands and belies the claim that ISIS’s actions are consistent with Islam. While acts of persecution have occurred, at times at heightened levels, Yusuf states that unlike Europe, where non-Christian communities were actively wiped out over the centuries, the Muslim world was, for the most part, a place of religious acceptance and tolerance. Under the Ottomans, for instance, the rights of Jews, Christians and others were guaranteed by the state itself. “Historically Muslim societies have been multicultural environments, and Muslims have had far less abuse toward minority communities than other civilizations,” Yusuf explains.

Yusuf questions the media’s decision to spotlight the views of extremists, adding that it only serves to elevate their status. “They relish the media attention, but why are we even giving these people voices?” he asks. “We don’t see the media, for instance, give platforms to KKK leaders as authorities on Christianity, or Jewish extremists to speak for Judaism, and certainly not the neo-Nazis to address race relations.”

Yusuf also notes that the specific set of beliefs that binds together most so-called Islamic extremists is the most extreme version of Salafism—the starkly fundamentalist and exclusivist sect of Islam that originated in 18th century Arabia, and which groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda adhere to.

The Salafists “promote a self-righteous Islam that teaches contempt for others—the Prophet himself was not like that,” Yusuf says. “If you don’t have religious fallibilism, you have immense problems. This is what happens when you have these exclusivist, self-righteous monsters out there who are absolutely certain and who think God-given certainty enables them to act with impunity.”    »»» ThinkProgress (U.S.)

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