Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • There is violence in the Muslim world, ISIS and Al Qaeda are proof of that, but the media

  • often

  • conflates that to imply that Islam is violent. For example, on his show a while back Bill

  • Maher

  • implied that all Muslims holdperniciousbeliefs. That was his word: “pernicious”.

  • Which means

  • having a harmful effect”.

  • Ben Affleck, who agreed to be on the show for some reason, said that Maher’s statement

  • was

  • grossandracist.” Because he thought Maher was implying that Muslims have a harmful

  • effect. That they are dangerous or evil. And he knows that there are over 1.6 billion Muslims

  • in

  • the world and that generalizing about a large group of people isracist and gross.”

  • Which it is.

  • But Maher, who WAS implying most of that, didn’t back down from his argument because

  • there IS violence and evil in the Muslim world, and he DOES believe that organized religion

  • is

  • pernicious. He made a documentary about it. He also believes that Islam is more pernicious

  • than other religions. He argues somewhat reasonably that the Koran does say some very

  • outdated and potentially dangerous things about how people should be treated. Teachings

  • that are proven to have a harmful effect when interpreted by ISIS or Al Qaeda, who are Islamic

  • groups that, Maher would argue, share a lot of the same beliefs as everyday regular Muslims.

  • Therefore, all Muslims have a lot of the same beliefs as ISIS.

  • Which is true....and terribly misleading. Muslims and ISIS both teach from the same

  • Koran, but

  • to get some actual perspective on what that says about Islam, we should bring in the ideas

  • of a

  • real life expert on religion, Reza Aslan. He argues that both Ben Affleck and

  • Maher are wrong. ...Sort of.

  • Aslan argues that Muslims who distance themselves from the extremist elements of the Muslim

  • Community by claiming that those extremists are notreal Muslimsare denying that

  • religious

  • violence has a religious motive. And it obviously does. So, Maher is right: Islam is a part

  • of this.

  • But Maher is also wrong because, and I quote, “Islam doesn’t promote violence or peace.

  • Islam

  • is just a religion. And like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring

  • to it.” End

  • quote.

  • So, if you find yourself talking about the pernicious effects of Islam, you should really

  • be talking about the pernicious effects of ISIS or Al Qaeda. Not Islam itself. Because

  • Muslims are a group of people largely defined by their following Islam, but they are also

  • many different groups and cultures. Saudi Arabian Muslims are different than Turkish

  • Muslims and Turkish Muslims are different than Indonesian Muslims and theyre all

  • different than Militant Jihadist Muslims. So, let's not talk about Muslims in general

  • terms;

  • let’s talk about them individually by the name of their exact group. ISIS oppresses

  • women. Turkey, in 1993, elected a woman as their prime minister. That sort of thing.

  • If you found this video informative please subscribe and to see another one of our

  • videos on common misconceptions about the muslim world please click now.

There is violence in the Muslim world, ISIS and Al Qaeda are proof of that, but the media

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it