@Dragon
to cherry pick the parts I'm surprised to hear coming from a non-conservative major media outlet.
"the truth of the matter is that ISIS leaders and supporters can and do draw on a wealth of scriptural and historical sources to justify their actions"
...
"What then is needed is an alternative view of Sharia, one that argues that the scriptural sources that ISIS relies on must be seen in their wider historical context."
...
"But for an alternative view of Sharia to emerge and take root through modern consensus, Muslims must first acknowledge and confront the problem of having acquiesced to a traditional interpretation of Sharia and ignored alternatives that would condemn ISIS as un-Islamic."
TL;DR there are problems in Islam and Muslims need to change it. worded much less antagonistically of course.
of course I'm probably completely misrepresenting it, you should read it for yourself.
Ah, that. Well, to be honest, all (or almost all) instances of "Islam" in this thread should be batch-replaced with "Wahhabism" (or Salafism, if you feel respectful for them for whatever strange reason), for better accuracy. It's a particularly rigid, ultra-orthodox, short-sighted literal interpretation of Sunni Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia. Basically Arab version of Westboro Baptist Church, only more widespread. Ever wondered why you don't see Polish Lipka Tatars or even Crimean ones involved in all this? Well, this is because they're not Wahhabis. ISIS is Wahhabi, Al-Quaeda is (Bin Laden himself was from Saudi Arabia) and most of the radicals we see here are as well. Unfortunately, it's pretty common in the Middle East. You can't change Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia without it stopping being Wahhabism (if it was reasonable, it'd just be regular Sunnism).
And yes, it is considered un-Islamic by everyone who's not a Wahhabi, mostly because its highlights are: destruction of most Muslim historical sites in Saudi Arabia, destroying mosques, killing off a whole lot of people for not being Wahhabi enough, giving Muslims everywhere a bad name and causing disrespect towards women. Many others view Sharia completely differently, especially the more spiritual Sufi.
That said, this brings very little to the discussion. It narrows down who we're talking about, but given that refugees come from Syria, I would expect plenty of them to subscribe to this particular doctrine, as it's pretty common in that area, from what I know. Wahhabism is the worst form of Islam and not quite coincidentally, the form we're dealing with here. A quick look at Wikipedia (didn't do in-depth research) shows it spreading rapidly among Sunni Muslims, even among communities in Europe. Syrians are for most part Sunnis and usually either Wahhabist or at least influenced by Wahhabism.
