The terrorist organization ISIS, also known as Daesh, claims they represent Islam. Therefore, they named themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Moreover, they say they represent the true Islam, and the Muslims, who do not side with the ISIS are non-Muslims and deserve to be killed. We, as Muslims, believe ISIS does not represent Islam because of their actions such as the killing of innocent people, Tkfeerism, and their extremist ideology.

Muslims are forbidden from killing an innocent person and in Islam the killing of an innocent person is like killing the entire human race. Thus, saving even one innocent person is like saving the entire humanity. Islam also forbids Muslims to kill themselves because it respects the gift of life. Thus, we Muslims do not believe in either killing an innocent person or ourselves while ISIS has killed many innocent people simply because either the victims did not agree with the ISIS ideology or they were simply non-Muslims. For example, they killed Druze for no valid reason. The Druze were not Muslims, and the ISIS killed Druze for simply being who they were. ISIS also planned a terrorist attack on a Shiite Mosque in Kuwait to cause a Civil War between the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims but, fortunately, the ISIS failed due to the strength of the friendship between the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims in Kuwait. ISIS has also been guilty of similar terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia. It is difficult to understand how an organization with the human rights record of ISIS can claim to represent Islam when their actions have gone against the most important teachings of Islam.

Tkfeerism is an Arabic word with many meanings and is usually used to describe the people who do not believe in your religion. But ISIS has manipulated the real meaning of the word. ISIS even calls the Muslims ‘Kfeer’ just because such Muslims do not agree with the ISIS ideology. According to the ISIS, such Muslims or ‘Kfeer’ deserve to be killed. Islam strictly forbids the Muslims from calling each other ‘Kfeer’ because calling a person ‘Kfeer’ means you are labeling that person a non-Muslim.

In Islam, no one can be forced to be converted to Islam because Islam gives people the freedom to believe whatever they want to. A person can only be Muslim if he believes in Islam voluntarily and not by force. Muslims also do not hate other religions. On the other hand, ISIS believes everyone with a different ideology deserves to be killed, even if the person is a Muslim. Thus, ISIS ideology is in complete conflict with Islam because they do what the Islam strictly forbids and still claim to represent Islam to the world.

In the end, most Muslims believe ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. Muslims consider ISIS ‘Kharijites’ which means ISIS claims to represent Islam but does the exact opposite of what Islam teaches. The main issue is not what Muslims think about the ISIS but what non-Muslims think about Islam and the ISIS. Muslims already know ISIS does not represent their religion, but many non-Muslims tend to believe ISIS is a true representative of the religion Islam, which is not true. Therefore, I invite the non-Muslims to learn more about Islam so that they can understand ISIS and Islam are two very different things and have nothing to do with each other.