Quora Answer: Why is Islam Not a Religion of Peace but Christianity is?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why is Islam not a religion of peace, Christianity is?” 

Christianity has a violent history, perhaps more so in that short period than many older religions.  And these events were predicated upon religious grounds, from the Crusades against the Muslims, the heretics and the pagans to the various inquisitions and pogroms, to the various religious wars throughout the Middle Ages that led to and resulted from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, to colonialisation which was explicitly to bring Christianity to the heathens.  There is unfathomable levels of violence.  But it is not the religion, but the people. 

Islam has a violent present.  And a violent history, particularly between various groups believing that they were true Islam and visited violence on the Muslims.  And then there were the wars against the colonial powers, and the current conflicts that are based on the issues that were brought about by the machinations of other powers.  But, again, it is not the religion, but the people. 

Islam is not a religion of peace or war, and neither is Christianity, nor any other faith.  A religion is simply a system of belief governing our interaction with Creation and the Creator.  Every religion, in every age; indeed, every philosophical system, whether theist or atheist, has its episodes of violence.  The atheist Bolsheviks, Stalinists, and Maoists, were violent.  Buddhism and Hinduism have their violent past and present.  And Judaism gave us the Zealots, an extinct extremist sect. 

How is it, that two people can read the same passage in the Qur’an or the Bible and one man finds tolerance, and another finds intolerance?  How is it that one can find peace and the other a justification of war?  It is not the text.  It is the people. Specifically, it is the heart.  From a spiritual perspective, we understand that the heart is like a cup.  If that cup is clean, then pure water poured into it is pure.  And if that cup is occluded by the rest of hate, of prejudice and anger, then the water is contaminated.  So is the problem the water, or the cup?  And that is why every spiritual tradition emphasises the cleanliness of the heart, the purity of the soul, and the sincerity of the intent.  And that is the purpose of spiritual practices.