Warning: incoming wall of text.
View attachment 395903
SIGHS.
I figured I'd post this here with an explanation as to why the rhetoric is wrong because some of you guys may be able to use it in any future arguments you might have. Also, while I'm using ISIS as an example, this explanation can be applied to basically all Is;amic
People (both Muslim and non-Muslim) often claim that, because most of ISIS's victims are Muslim, ISIS itself therefore can't
possibly be Muslim. While it's indeed true that ISIS has slaughtered tens of thousands of Muslims and Muslims make up the majority of their victims, that doesn't render ISIS un-Islamic. In fact, ISIS themselves would tell you that, by killing "heretical" Muslims (ie, all Muslims who don't ascribe to their death cult ideology), they're upholding "true" Islam.
Moreover, ISIS is a Sunni Muslim organization. There are two major branches of Islam: Sunni and Shia (there are plenty of others, too, but these two are by far the most prominent). Sunnis compromise about 85% of the Muslim population and Shias are about 10%. You can
read more
about the
Sunni/Shia split and their
ideological differences elsewhere, but the most important fact is that the schism happened
literally right after Muhammad's death. Sunnis and Shias have been fighting for 1,400 years and it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
Both hardline Sunnis and hardline Shias believe that the opposing group is non-Muslim and must conform to their version of Islam if they're to be saved. In fact, a lot of extremists view "wrong sect" Muslims as even more contemptible and worthy of punishment than Christians, Jews, atheists, and other non-Muslims because they've "perverted" Islam and are therefore far worse than someone who doesn't adhere to Islam at all. This is why ISIS
heavily targets Shia Muslims; in fact, the picture above of the mosque that was destroyed was a
Shia mosque. To ISIS, Shia Muslims are filthy heretics who should be wiped off the face of the Earth for corrupting "true Islam."
So that explains why ISIS kills Shias, so what about Sunnis? Many Sunni casualties are rationalized away as "collateral damage." Actually, according to ISIS and other terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, it's actually a
good thing that these innocent Sunnis die;
they'll be recognized as "martyrs" by Allah and are destined to enter Islam’s paradise. As for the Sunnis who are intentionally killed by ISIS, they have an explanation for that, too. Here, the jihadis rely on
takfir, the act of one Sunni group denouncing another Sunni group of being
kafir—that is, non-Muslims, infidels, whose blood can be shed with impunity.
TL;DR: To Sunni jihadis (not just ISIS, but al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, etc) non-Sunni people are all infidels and thus fair game. As for fellow Sunnis, if they die accidentally, they are martyrs and that's actually a good thing because they get to go to paradise. If fellow Sunnis intentionally get in the way, they are denounced as infidels and killed accordingly.
