Why is Islam so often associated with violence?

Because people who call themselves Muslims commit violence, not because Islam teaches it. Violence is not the core of Islam, nor of any other religion, and whoever acts against their religion cannot represent it.

Many people have the impression that wherever Muslims live, there is war. Yet fighting and cruelty exist all over the world, including places where hardly any Muslims live. Even followers of religions that teach not to harm so much as an insect have committed terrible violence. This shows something fundamental: people often act differently from what their religion teaches.

When Muslims commit violence, it is not because they are Muslims, but because in that moment they are not true Muslims. The hadith above makes the standard clear. A true Muslim is one from whom others are safe. Whoever acts against this teaching has no right to speak for Islam.

How then does this image arise? Every religion begins pure. Christianity too began with forgiveness and with turning the other cheek. Over time people drift away from the sources of their faith. Then some of those who should be guarding the religion use it for their own prestige and for political power.

But political rule in the name of God and a godly character do not go together. No human being may put himself in God’s place and claim to defend God’s truth by force. The Holy Qur’an says that there is no compulsion in faith and that a single life weighs as much as the life of all mankind.

Anyone who wants to judge Islam should therefore measure it by its teaching, not by the behaviour of those who have abandoned it.