Koran cover. Photo: Wiki Commons.

The Koran contains passages that espouse peace and comity. It is theses passages, perhaps, that have enabled Presidents Bush and Obama, and several foreign political leaders, to mistakenly declare Islam a religion of peace.

The Koran also contains passages that call for world domination and that espouse violence, mayhem, and even murder as required for the promotion and protection of Islam, and its objectives. The direct effect of these verses is reported daily in our news media. In Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, and in dozens of other countries – more recently in France, acts of violence, mayhem, and murder are being carried out, in the name of Allah.

While many, if not most, Muslims do not ascribe to this behavior, it cannot be denied that Islam propagates a significant, controlling minority of those whose religious zealotry and savagery denies the peoples of the world -Muslim and non-Muslim alike – peace in our time.

We also cannot deny the practices, in much of the Muslim world, of discrimination against women, including genital mutilation and honor killing, and against the LGBT community.

In the interest of preventing Islamophobia and hatred for Muslims, our Government continues its claim that Islam is a religion of peace, and much of the media avoids calling incidents, and perpetrators, of terror, Islamic.

This well-intentioned deception is increasingly self-defeating, as people’s eyes are opened to the reality that Islam itself must be reformed. If Islamophobia is to be averted, Muslims, en masse, must clearly condemn acts of violence committed by Muslims, and expunge their mosques of radicals and the dissemination of hateful propaganda. Judaism and Christianity were once religions that included violence in the name of God.  They have reformed. So must Islam – for its own sake, and for the sake of peace in the world.