Does Islam sanction terrorism?

Being a summer and fall resident of the Myrtle Beach area, I recently read a column in The Sun News entitled, “Why Islam isn’t like other faiths,” written by Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

I wish everyone would read it. His only premise seems to be that a woman wearing a Hajib demonstrates this point; it’s full of fallacies.

His argument does not support or explain why Islam isn’t like other faiths.

He wrote, “... in Muslim communities, and some Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, the majority of Muslim women cover their hair.” That means that in these countries that many woman do not cover their hair, which in their belief, does not diminish their faith.

He also wrote that “asking women to take off their Hajib is akin to asking them to violate their connection with God.”

And this is true - but only to Muslim women who wish to follow that practice.

Many religions have clothing requirements and customs, handed down in their bibles or books that help with their “connection with God.”

And, just as is in Islam, many don’t practice those 100 percent either but does not in anyway eliminate their connection. The wearing of a hajib is a demonstration of that person, nothing more. Not wearing one by a Muslim woman is not any different than me not fully observing the dietary demands of Judaism, my faith, and has nothing to do with my not being able to have a connection with God.

Of more importance and worry is one sentence in Hamid’s article: “Muslims believe the Koran is not only God’s word, but God’s actual speech. In other words, every single letter and word in the Koran comes directly from God.”

From that, can one conclude that what the rest of the world views towards terrorism as perpetrated by who we have called radical Islamists is therefore not radical at all but the word of God as spoken in the Koran?

These “radicals” are using the Koran as their basis for what they are doing.

Do I believe all Muslims are radicals and support this worldwide attempt by radical Islamists to convert everyone to Islam through terrorism? Of course not. But to read such an article from the Brookings Institution fellow, one has to wonder just where he stands.

To take him at his word, it - terrorist acts - “come directly from God.”

The writer lives in Ormond Beach, Florida.

This story was originally published September 29, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Does Islam sanction terrorism?."