Controversies related to Islam and Muslims

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Part of a series on Controversies related to Islam and Muslims
Theological conflicts
Criticism of Islam Islamism \| Qutbism \| Jihad Dhimmi \| Kafir Islam and antisemitism
Human conflicts
Historical persecution by Muslims Persecution of Muslims Islamic extremist terrorism Women in Muslim societies
Events
September 11, 2001 attacks Muhammad cartoons controversy Qur'an desecration controversy CPT hostage crisis Fox journalists kidnapping Brussels riots Pope Benedict XVI controversy
People
Theo van Gogh v • d • e

This article list Controversies related to Islam and Muslims.

1 Overview
2 Terms
3 History
- 3.1 600s
- 3.2 800s
- 3.3 1000s
- 3.4 1100s
- 3.5 1200s
- 3.6 1900s
- 3.7 2000s
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Overview

It is hard to draw a line that distinguishes between political motivated and religious motivated controversies regarding this issue, since politicians are known to use religion as a tool, and also since Islam has within itself a political system.

As an example of controversies by a Muslim, a message attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi propagated that Shi'a Muslims in Iraq should be killed since they are heretics^{[citation needed]}. While Shi'a may attribute the motivation of this message to politics, other may put a true religious motivation to it ^{[citation needed]}. This does not become more clear with some people alleging he was used as a propaganda tool. The same goes to controversies by the non-Muslim, for example how religious motivated is the Iraq war? The US president has a voters base of conservative Christians ^{[citation needed]}, and people in his administration has used what has been term as a Tenth Crusade, yet they officially deny any religious motivation for their political actions^{[citation needed]}.

Another example the 2001 destruction of Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan. While the Talibans claimed they were on a campaign to crack down on "un-Islamic" segments of Afghan society, the government of Iran was among those urging them to not do so ^[1]. This does not get less muddy due to the fact that the same Taliban government had ordered the restoration of the same statues in 1999.

The same difficulties apply to whether a controversy is related to Islam (the religion) or Muslims (the adherents), since Muslims themselves are not in agreement in exactly what is Islam. For example, some (Sunnis) view that a Caliph chosen by the people holds religious authority, while others, for example Shi'a, reject that idea. If a Muslim claims that he acted on the order of a Caliph, is the act related to Islam or the Muslim?

On the same token, while one Muslim may do one action and attribute it to Islam, some other Muslim may denounce the same actions, also referring to Islam.