Karen Armstrong in the Guardian:
People do not robotically obey every single edict of their sacred texts. If they did, the world would be full of Christians who love their enemies and turn the other cheek when attacked. There are political reasons why a tiny minority of Muslims are turning to terrorism, which have nothing to do with Islam. But because of the way people read their scriptures these days, once a terrorist has decided to blow up a London bus, he can probably find scriptural texts that seem to endorse his action.
Right….the reasons why all these people turn to terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There are, it seems, compelling political reasons for blowing people up in buses. Or tube trains. Or cafes, or clubs. Or for flying aircraft into tall buildings. These compelling reasons, by chance, only happen to apply to Muslims. And once they’ve decided to commit mass murder, they then look up the scriptural text for the justification.
And, from the author of “Islam: A Short History“, and, according to Amazon, “one of the world’s foremost commentators on religious affairs”, there’s no need, in an article about sacred texts, to point out that the Koran in Arabic is, unlike the Bible, believed to be the literal word of Allah.
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