Counter-Terrorism

January 09, 2008

The Hard Truth for Islam: No Other Religion Produces Such Numbers of Mass Murderers

People frequently try to excuse Islam by saying that those who commit murder in its name are radicals who are corrupting the true teachings of that religion. Islam bears no responsibility for the actions of such radicals, claim the apologists.

But what is not even remotely debatable, is that Islam is the only religion that produces such numbers of mass murderers who kill in the name of their religion. It is time for the apologists for Islam to be held to account for this.

I was recently having a discussion on the comments section of this site with a poster who argued that with regard to the subject of abortion, Christianity was comparable to Islam. I responded:

Per the site religioustolerance.org, the total number of murders or attempted murders committed with regard to abortion clinics, from 1989 to 2004, was 24. Compare this to 4,989 killed an injured by radical Islamists in just the past two months.

Compare it to the 142,174 (56,000+ killed, 85,000+ injured) killed or murdered by radical Islamists since 9/10/01. (Link to source - and supporting spreadsheet).

Citing numbers from the same link (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com), Say Anything posts:

More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. (source)

More civilians were killed by Muslim extremists in two hours on September 11th than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. (source)

Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 50 years. (source)

19 Muslim hijackers killed more innocents in two hours on September 11th than the number of American criminals executed in the last 65 years. (source)

The notion that Islam is not unique among religions in the number of such extremists it produces is comforting, but inaccurate. Only Islam produces mass murderers in such numbers. This is a hard truth for which apologists for that religion must be held to account.