Islam and violence

Some apply all or a majority of the sharia, and these include Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen and Mauritania, respectively.

[40][41] According to orientalist Bernard Lewis, "the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists", and specialists in the hadith "understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense.

The first forms of military Jihad occurred after the migration (hijra) of Muhammad and his small group of followers to Medina from Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam.

The first revelation concerning the struggle against the Meccans was surah 22, verses 39–40:[45] The main focus of Muhammad's later years was increasing the number of allies as well as the amount of territory under Muslim control.

"[47] Tina Magaard, associate professor at the Aarhus University Department of Business Development and Technology, has analyzed the texts of the ten largest religions in the world.

[50] Ghazi (غازي) is an Arabic term originally referring to an individual who participates in Ghazw (غزو), meaning military expeditions or raiding; after the emergence of Islam, it took on new connotations of religious warfare.

"[56] According to Dipak Gupta, "much of the religious justification of violence against nonbelievers (Dar ul Kufr) by the promoters of jihad is based on the Quranic "sword verses".

[66] For example, according to Diane Morgan, Ibn Kathir (1301–1372) asserted that the Sword Verse abrogated all peace treaties that had been promulgated between Muhammad and idolaters.

[84][85][86][87] In a number of Islamic countries, especially Sunni-dominated nations, Ahmadis have been considered heretics and non-Muslim, and have been subject to various forms of religious persecution, discrimination and systematic oppression since the movement's inception in 1889.

[157][158][159][160] The apostate (or murtadd مرتد) term has also been used for people of religions that trace their origins to Islam, such as those of the Baháʼí Faith founded in Iran, but who were never actually Muslims themselves.

The Hanafi jurist Sarakhsi also called for different punishments between the non-seditious religious apostasy and that of seditious and political nature, or high treason.

[139][175] Some modern scholars also argue that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment,[176][177][178] inconsistent with the Quranic injunctions such as Quran 88:21–22[179] or "no compulsion in religion";[180] and/or that it is not a general rule but enacted at a time when the early Muslim community faced enemies who threatened its unity, safety, and security, and needed to prevent and punish the equivalent of desertion or treason,[181] and should be enforced only if apostasy becomes a mechanism of public disobedience and disorder (fitna).

[248] Other Muslim jurists have established an ijma ruling which states that those persons who are committing homosexual acts should be thrown from rooftops or other high places,[249] and this is the perspective of most Salafists.

In Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, homosexual acts carries the death penalty.

[255][256][257][258] Same-sex sexual intercourse is legal in 20 Muslim-majority nations (Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Lebanon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Niger, Tajikistan, Turkey, the West Bank (State of Palestine), and most of Indonesia (except the province of Aceh), as well as Northern Cyprus).

[262][263][264] Most Muslim-majority countries and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights at the United Nations in the General Assembly and the UNHRC.

In May 2016, a group of 51 Muslim states blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting on ending AIDS at the United Nations.

[270][271][272] Upon further review, investigators indicated that Omar Mateen showed few signs of radicalization, suggesting that the shooter's pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State may have been a calculated move which he made in order to garner more news coverage for himself.

[273] Afghanistan,[274] Algeria,[275] Azerbaijan,[276] Bahrain,[277] Djibouti,[278] Egypt,[279] Iraq,[280] Iran,[281] Pakistan,[274] Saudi Arabia,[282] Turkey,[283] Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates condemned the attack.

[299] Many scholars[16][300] claim Shari'a law encourages domestic violence against women when a husband suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.

[302] Some conservative translations find that Muslim husbands are permitted to act what is known in Arabic as Idribuhunna with the use of "light force," and sometimes as much as to strike, hit, chastise, or beat.

[318] In a number of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, these terrorists have been met by armed, independent resistance groups,[319] state actors and their proxies, and politically liberal Muslim protesters.

[citation needed] Pew Research in 2010 found that in Jordan, Lebanon, and Nigeria, roughly 50% of Muslims had favourable views of Hezbollah, and that Hamas also saw similar support.

[337] The Pew Research Center also found that support for the death penalty as punishment for "people who leave the Muslim religion" was 86% in Jordan, 84% in Egypt, 76% in Pakistan, 51% in Nigeria, 30% in Indonesia, 6% in Lebanon and 5% in Turkey.

It suggests, firstly, that individuals who dislike America and consider the September 11 attacks to be "perfectly justified" form a statistically distinct group with much more extreme views.

[339] Philip W. Sutton and Stephen Vertigans describe Western views on Islam as based on a stereotype of it as an inherently violent religion, characterizing it as a 'religion of the sword'.

"[341] Juan Eduardo Campo writes that, "Europeans (have) viewed Islam in various ways: sometimes as a backward, violent religion; sometimes as an Arabian Nights fantasy; and sometimes as a complex and changing product of history and social life.

A total of 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. soil since the 9/11 and their content coverage (in 1,638 news stories) in the national media had been analyzed "through frames composed of labels, common themes, and rhetorical associations" (Powell 94).

[349] The key findings are summarized below: Genocide: Massacres, torture, expulsion: Other incidents: Islamophobia denotes the prejudice against, the hatred towards, or the fear of the religion of Islam or Muslims.

"[360] Similarly, Chandra Muzaffar, a political scientist, Islamic reformist and activist, says, "The Quranic exposition on resisting aggression, oppression and injustice lays down the parameters within which fighting or the use of violence is legitimate.