The Islamic community has been saying it for months, but finally A.P. has uncovered the truth about ISIS: the violent terrorists who claim the banner of Islam know little to nothing about the religion’s actual teachings.
Who are the people who make up ISIS if not devoted members of the faith? As it turns out, the majority of those who become a part of the terrorist group admit they know little to nothing about the teachings of Islam.
Surprisingly enough, ISIS uses a recruitment form when bringing in new members from all over the globe. On that form is a question about religious knowledge which asks recruits to self-report their knowledge of Islam on a scale of 1 to 3. Out of the 3,000 surveys, a shocking 70 percent reported they had “basic” knowledge of Shariah, the lowest possible rating. Only five percent considered themselves to be advanced students of Islam and five claimed to have memorized the entire Quran.
The A.P. report on the members of ISIS found that while recruits had all sorts of reasons for joining up, they almost never came from a deep desire to carry out Islamic beliefs.
In fact, according to those same surveys, those who actually did have the most knowledge about Islam were the least likely to want to become suicide bombers, indicating that a knowledge of the religion made people less likely to blow themselves up, not more. This of course flies in the face of all general, stereotypical knowledge about terrorists and Islam.
Why does this information matter? We have seen a massive amount of conflation between ISIS and the Muslim religion as a whole, with many people (including Trump) attempting to draw a strong correlation between the religion with 1.6 billion members and a small group of violent militants numbering around 100,000.
Obviously, the massive percentage of peaceful Muslims outweighs the violent few, but you wouldn’t know that at all by listening to a Trump rally or a Fox News segment.
