The problem is not the Fanatics but rather the Fundamentals of Islam

Andrew Bolt the Australian journalist, newspaper columnist, radio commentator, blogger and television host, has come up with a little list entitled “Just one week in the world of Islam” where he writes …

What the hell is the problem with Islam? In the past week..

In Kenya:

At least 34 people have been killed after unidentified armed men stormed the coastal city of Mpeketoni, setting hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices on fire and spraying bullets in streets.

Kenyan army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir …  blamed al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked militant group… “They were shouting in Somali and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,” he added, meaning “God is great”, in Arabic.

In Nigeria:

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement in north-east Nigeria near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted nearly 300 girls in April, most of whom are still missing.

In Iraq:

Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.

In Syria:

The Al-Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some neighborhoods in an eastern Syrian city, an activist group said Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said … an offensive by ISIS in eastern Syria against rival Islamic rebel factions has killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000 since the end of April.

In Spain:

Spanish police arrested eight people in a pre-dawn raid in Madrid on Monday, breaking up a jihadist recruitment network led by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, the government said…

Spain’s government has said it fears battle-hardened Islamist fighters may return to Spain from Syria… Spain this year marked the 10th anniversary of the March 11, 2004 Al Qaeda-inspired bombing of four packed commuter trains in Madrid, which killed 191 people.

In Belgium:

The fourth person to die after a gunman opened fire on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was to be buried in a Muslim cemetery in Morocco.

Alexandre Strens, whose mother is Jewish and father a Muslim Berber, was to be buried near his grandparents’ graves in the cemetery in Taza, north-east Morocco… A suspect, Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in Marseille, southern France, 11 days ago …

In Indonesia:

Radical Islamists in Indonesia have been celebrating and swearing allegiance to ISIS on line, raising concerns that more potential terrorists will be attracted to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria… Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones says Indonesians are known to be fighting in Syria, and that Indonesians attracted to ISIS are more radical than the Bali bombers.

In Sudan:

The retired Libyan general Khalifa Heftar who is leading the military campaign dubbed as ‘Operation Dignity’ against Islamist militias accused Sudan directly of providing aid to these groups… Heftar says that these militias have wreaked havoc in the North African nation.

In China: 

China today sentenced three people to death over a deadly attack at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last October, state television reported, an incident blamed by the government on Islamist militants….

Five people were killed and 40 hurt when a car ploughed into a crowd at the northern edge of Tiananmen Square and burst into flames…

All of those sentenced appeared to have ethnic Uighur names. Xinjiang is the traditional home of the mostly Muslim Uighurs, and China has blamed previous attacks on separatists… China has been on edge since a suicide bombing last month killed 39 people at a market in Urumqi. In March, 29 people were stabbed to death at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming.

In Australia:

ON a hot summer’s day earlier this year, a beautiful young Pakistani girl named Amina stood in the living room of her western Sydney home, listening in horror as her father explained how he planned to ­murder her.

“I am going to kill you now, right here!” he shouted at the 16-year-old. “And no one will say anything about what I do to you. I am too powerful in the community.” Amina’s parents had promised her to a man 13 years her senior and she had made the mistake of refusing to marry him…

For years, child marriage in this country has been hidden under layers of culture and tradition in tight-knit communities… Then came news of a 12-year-old girl who was “married” in January to a 26-year-old Lebanese university student in an Islamic ­ceremony at the girl’s home in NSW’s Hunter ­Valley, and the layers of secrecy began to peel away.

In Britain:

The Prime Minister[’s] ….  stance appears to be a direct response to the ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal which revealed Islamist extremism in schools in Birmingham…

The Trojan Horse scandal found some schools had enforced “a culture of fear and intimidation”, with Ofsted’s chief inspector for schools for England Sir Micheal Wilshaw, adding head teachers had been “marginalised or forced out of their jobs” in an “organised campaign to target certain schools”…

Inspectors found boys and girls had been segregated and were told Christian celebrations including Christmas had been scrapped while Muslim festivals went ahead. At one school teachers told pupils they didn’t believe in evolution…

In Israel:

This past Thursday night, three Jewish teenagers — one of whom is a dual American/Israeli citizen — were abducted on the West Bank. The Israelis are certain that Hamas is responsible…

For the moment, we can also observe the reaction of the Palestinian Authority, or the Palestinian authorities. Via the Times of Israel, we learn that the Fatah Facebook page features the image below.

He asks a very good question.

If it was any other product or a non-religious organisation or club that produced such a horrendous outcome across the planet like this, then there would be a rapid exodus … but this is different, it is a belief, and so it gets a free pass from those inside.

The problem here is not that a few individuals have gone off the rails and misunderstood the Quran, but rather the complete opposite has happened. They have embraced quite literally what the quran says, and have fully immersed themselves in the fundamentals.

So yes, Mr Bolt is quite right to ask the question.