Peace is defined as a lack of conflict and a freedom from fear of violence. It’s tranquility and harmony, and a critical component to happiness… and Islam my friends, is precisely not that…

For the purpose of clarity, I want to first put this assertion in a syllogistic form:

Peace is defined as a lack of conflict and a freedom
from fear of violence.
Islam acts according to and in seek of, peace. Therefore,
Islam is a religion of peace.

In my opinion, when someone employs this argument the first thing to do is to identify exactly how they’re
defining the word “peace”. The reason being is that there are two versions of this
argument;

The first is one in which the proponent is sincerely asserting that Islam is a religion of peace as defined colloquially, and the second is one in which the proponent is periodically using an Islamic definition of the word “peace”. Hence, this is why it’s important to get
them to define “peace” from the outset.

To debunk the second version first, it’s important that we first understand what exactly Islam means
within the Islamic world. The word “Islam” is derived from the Arabic word “salaam”, a word literally meaning “peace”, and Islam as a religious practice refers to a
person submitting herself or himself to the will of Allah in order to seek eternal peace and tranquility. Or to put it more bluntly, in the Islamic world, Islam is the definition
of peace, and therefore Islam is, by definition, a religion of peace.

Now if this isn’t an obvious example of *Circular Reasoning, I don’t know what is…



Defining Islam as peace and then asserting that Islam is peaceful is as circular as defining Nazism as love and thenasserting that Nazism is loving… not only is this confusing, it’s deceitful!

What’s more is that when the proponents of this argument use the colloquial definition of the word
“peace” within their first and third premises, but use the Islamic definition of the word “peace” for their second premise, they’re actually committing a classic *Equivocation Fallacy.



By interchanging between two different definitions of “peace” throughout their premises, their argument is incoherent and therefore invalid.

But what about those who assert that Islam is a religion of peace as defined colloquially? How exactly have these people come to the conclusion that Islam is indeed a religion of peace? Well, to begin, while they recognize that countless atrocities have been committed in the name of Islam, they nevertheless maintain that these acts are the result of fanatics, extremists and militants taking Islamic teaching out of context. But to raise an immediate objection, this claim is simply false. Flat out, demonstrably, false as the Quran and Hadith possess countless violent verses that instruct Muslims, and moderate Muslims do indeed endorse and commit many reprehensible atrocities with explicit reference to Islamic teaching.

What’s more is that they do incessantly claim jurisdiction over the experience of others, and so they are therefore not peaceful.

To name but a few examples, a poll of over 38,000 Muslims from over 39 different countries found that:
• 40% of moderate Muslims want the death penalty for those who leave Islam;
• 60% want Sharia law to be the official law of their country.


What’s more is that even 61% of “moderate” British Muslims believe that homosexuals should be punished…

[Source: Pew Research Centre: Religion & Public Life

So, as Sam Harris says, “the problem is not religious extremism, because extremism is not a problem if your core beliefs are truly non-violent. The problem isn’t fundamentalism. The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism, are the fundamentals of Islam.”

To hammer home this point, Harris often uses the example of Jainism as an actual religion of peace, as its central tenet is non-violence and respect towards all living beings… the more extreme a Jainist becomes,
the less we need to worry about them. But so far as I am aware, the same cannot be said for any other religion, and especially not for Islam.



To quote Harris again – “the problem is that Islam isn’t a religion of peace, and the so-called extremists are seeking to implement what is arguably the most honest reading of the faith’s actual doctrine.”

A second prominent objection that the proponents of this argument present, is that of contextualization. For example, to paraphrase Maajid Nawaz, “Muhammad and the history of Islam must not be judged by the standards of civilization that we, after an accumulation of thousands of years have arrived at. Islamic history must be judged by the standards of its time”.

But this is simply nonsense – and here’s why…

Islam has always uniquely claimed that its teachings are the final and unalterable revelation from the almighty,and that by extension its edicts are absolutely final!
Therefore, it can be said that because Muhammad practiced and Islam endorses and encourages
elderly men to take young girls as wives, this rule is final. For a Muslim to now contextualize this edict and practice is to reject that Muhammad’s example and revelation is final. In fact, it’s worth pointing out that in Saudi Arabia there isn’t an age restriction for marriage whatsoever… and of course, the reason for this is explicitly Islamic…

What’s more is that even if Islam didn’t claim to be the final and unalterable word of the creator of the universe, we still can and should judge its historical acts despite its context.
Future generations will most certainly look back at our actions today and judge us… and they should!

A third prominent objection that the proponents of this argument present is the assertion that Christianity
is not a religion of peace either – often by referring to the Crusades etc. Now of course, this is true – Christianity is definitely not a religion of peace, but to bring this up is simply a *Red Herring – it’s a distraction and a redundant use of energy. It’s the
equivalent of someone saying in a debate about Hitler’s atrocities that Stalin was worse…
it’s irrelevant, and a because of this it can be dismissed without serious consideration.



And finally, a small point I’d like to make before I recap is the fact that yes, pretty much any religion, or any ideology for that matter, can indeed be practiced peacefully – but this doesn’t mean that the religion or ideology is peaceful itself. To be a peaceful Muslim you need a very peculiar interpretation of the Islam indeed; you must reject the vast majority of its teachings and pick a mix the peaceful verses…


So, to recap, the second variation of the argument that Islam is a Religion of Peace is flawed because;
• It commits a Circular Reasoning Fallacy,
• It commits an Equivocation Fallacy.

And the first variation of the argument that Islam is a Religion of Peace is flawed because;
• Moderate Muslims do promote and commit atrocities in the name of Islam (not just fanatics)
• Contextualization is irrelevant,
• Some, but not all proponents of this argument, commit a Red Herring Fallacy.

Thank you kindly for reading and instead of leaving you with an overwhelming powerful argument to consider, I’m instead
going to leave you with a quote from Douglas Murry: “The fact is that Islam is many things…
many many things – but to say it’s a religion of peace is nonsense; it’s to ignore reality;
it’s to ignore very difficult, but necessary facts; not paradigms, but facts!”

*Circular Reasoning Fallacy: Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving"; also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

* False Equivocation Fallacy: equivocation is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses throughout an argument leading to a false conclusion.

* Red Herring Fallacy: Red herring is a kind of fallacy that is an irrelevant topic introduced in an argument to divert the attention of listeners or readers from the original issue. In literature, this fallacy is often used in detective or suspense novels to mislead readers or characters, or to induce them to make false conclusions.




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Lol...they will come for your head ehn!

When they say Islam is peace everyone knows that it is used in the settings to absolve it from acts of "terrorism" being committed in it's name.You conveniently left out the stats of support in this regards but brings up the percentage of how we don't like gays expanding their b*tts- what fallacy is this called again...attacking the strawman or the red-herring fallacy like you said.