Why is it that while not every Muslim is a terrorist every terrorist is a Muslim?

Answer 1

There are two operative pieces here. (1) Not every Muslim is a terrorist, and (2) Every terrorist is a Muslim. As has been noted by the Community Answers, (1) is correct while (2) is incorrect. However, two is incorrect because of the logical requirement that "every" mean that terrorism is exclusively something done by Muslims. Since there are terrorist incidents performed by Non-Muslims, the exclusivity is incorrect. However, Muslims are disproportionately responsible for terrorism. In the last ten years, over 85% of terrorist incidents and 85% terrorist-related fatalities were perpetrated by Muslims. Considering that Muslims are roughly 23% of the world population, this is quite an amazing statistic and merits some explanation.

There are numerous factors involved:

Islamism and Jihadism
Islamism is not a religion; Islam is the religion. Islam is a religion and Jihad is a religious concept within Islam. Islamism and Jihadism, however, are political ideologies whose goal is to bring the religious tenets of Islam into the daily functioning of a government and its laws. Jihadism is a form of Islamism that not only wishes a particularly repressive version of Islamic Law to be instituted, but believes that violence in defense of the faith is the preferred way to do this. Jihadism, like Islamism, is a political ideology rooted in Islamic religious concepts. There are certainly Qur'anic verses that can be read by those seeking to be intolerant and violent of good grounds to do so. Q: 3:19 claims that the only religion that is acceptable to God is Islam. Q: 3:110 claims that Muslims are the best people in all history. Q: 8:55 claims that those who disbelieve are the worst of animals. Q: 9:29 argues for the repression and inequality of Jews and Christians before Muslims. Q: 2:216 argues for fighting against "enemies" even if you would prefer not to. There are numerous other verses that support this connection. While it is only a minority (between 10-20%) of Muslims who are Islamists and a far smaller number (<3%) who are Jihadists, almost all Islamists and Jihadists are Muslims and these small percentages still translate into millions of people. It is important to note that the validity of Islamism and Jihadism exist as only one reading out of many possible readings of the Qur'an, which is why there are many legitimate readings that condone secularism.

Western Foreign Policy
Muslims have a strong sense of humiliation over Western colonization, the subsequent repressive and authoritarian secular regimes that were supported by Western countries, and the numerous wars fought by Westerners in Islamic countries. That form of rage is easy to exploit in convincing young men and women to perform violent acts.

Economic Disenfranchisement
In many cases, the lower rungs of terrorist groups are made of people who literally have no money. They see their joblessness and unemployment as hopeless scenarios and see the possibility of religious, political, and social goals being achieved through violence as being a unique form of personal relevance.

General Unrest
The Middle East and many other parts of the Islamic World are inherently unstable societies because they are ruled by authoritarians and/or the countries are divided into numerous factions.

Points Raised in the Community Answer
I simply wanted to address the particular points raised in the Community Answer:

1. you can't judge a whole nation through a member. -- First of all, the Muslim self-identity as part of a nation, which has an inherent political component, tracks back to the parts of Islam that give support to Islamism. However, the point raised here is correct, whether what particular Muslims are doing is in concordance or in disagreement with Islam should derive from what the texts of Islam say are permissible, not the percentage of people who engage in such acts. The texts are open to multiple readings and the more violent ones are certainly permissible and popular with a sizable minority (as discussed previously).

2. during the history there have been terrorists & criminals of many religions or even without religions. So don't generalize !! -- Yes, but this ignores that disproportionate percentage of current terrorists who are believing Muslims (by their own admission).

3. A Religion is innocent from the crimes of any of its followers as long as the religion doesn't command or allow these crimes. -- Completely correct, but you never seriously analyze this point.

4. The Qur'an says in Q: 5:32: "...if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people..." -- Yes. However, the term "spreading mischief in the land" is very vague and has been used quite commonly to justify violence and terrorism as being exempt from this provision because the violence and terrorism are being used against people who are "spreading mischief in the land".

In another one of the Community Answers we have: Not Every terrorist is a Muslim the Us media wich is controled by Jews wich have a very long and historic problem with mulims just makes it look like that.... -- And voila, to finish this list we have the lovely accusation of Jews controlling the media. As if we needed more information to see the slant and lack of analysis in this answer, we can see the clear Anti-Semitism coming from its petitioner.