Is Islam a Religion of War?

Islam is allegedly a religion of peace. But is Islam really a religion of peace? Not everyone concurs. This is due to acts of terrorism perpetrated by "Muslims." It is also due to the violent character of the sharia, which prescribes death penalties for apostasy, adultery and blasphemy. In so far as none of these acts is punishable by death in the Book of Allah, administering capital punishment for blasphemy, apostasy or adultery in fact itself constitutes a crime: the crime of murder. It represents a gross miscarriage of justice. The sharia is there to protect us from crime; not to cause or even require the perpetration of crimes for actions not treated as crimes in the Book of Allah. If by "Islam" we understand what the Book of Allah teaches, then Islam is a religion of peace. For the Book of Allah teaches Islam as it should be understood. If by "Islam" we mean what traditions tell us, we should expect a different answer. This is true of the writings of hawkish ulama, too. For the hawkish ulema, at the request by hawkish rulers reinvented Islam as a religion of war. As al-Baghdadi remarked, "Islam was always a religion of war." The misrepresentation of Islam as a warlike religion is a misrepresentation of Islam. It is raising tensions between the Muslims and non-Muslims. It is also fuelling Islamophobia. The ulama reinvented Islam as a "religion of war" to further the political aims of rulers. The verses of reconciliation restrained rulers to act as they wished. The rulers required a reinterpretation of Islam that would render unlawful wars lawful. The ulama reinterpreted Islam through the weaponization of the exegesis and jurisprudence of Islam. "Weaponization" of exegesis and jurisprudence refers to their recalibration to enable them to further the political agendas of the rulers. The weaponization of exegesis and jurisprudence was expedited by the repression of reason. The weaponization of exegesis and jurisprudence required two steps: the treatment of tradition as revelation and recourse to the teaching of abrogation. The first enabled tradition to replace parts of revelation. The second enabled the militant verses to replace verses that teach peace. Verses that teach reconciliation were as "abrogated." Unfortunately, taking these two steps could not take place without falling into two errors: shirk and kufr. In different words, the reinterpretation of revelation through the weaponization of exegesis and jurisprudence required a defiance its teaching. Treating tradition as revelation entailed falling into shirk because to treat tradition as a "part of" revelation is to ascribe an "equal" to the Book of Allah. This is tantamount to scriptural shirk. Expecting embracing the teaching of abrogation, on the other hand, with its expectation to cease believing in verses that were allegedly "abrogated," is an expression of kufr. For rejecting verses of the Book of Allah entails falling into kufr. The weaponization of exegesis required treating tradition as revelation to enable precedent or the ways of the predecessors to become authoritative, even in defiance of the teaching of revelation. This represented a corruption of the teaching of revelation. The abrogation of revelation by tradition enabled the replacement of the verses that teach justice by the spurious tradition according to which "the blood of the kafir is halal for the believer." Following this hadith in preference to the Book of Allah enticed the Abbasid rulers to slaughter Mongol traders and ambassadors. The reprisal of these crimes was the utter destruction of the Abbasid empire. The Book of Allah teaches that there will never be a change on the sunna of Allah.