After 9/11, like many Americans, I began learning about al-Qaeda and the militant movements that claimed to act in Islam’s name. It was the first time I understood that Islam contains two major branches — Sunni and Shiite — and that their differences are theological, historical, and political. The shock of the attacks produced a crude narrative: “they hate our freedom.”
It was unsettling, and it was woefully incomplete.
Al-Qaeda certainly rejected important aspects of Western society. But its grievances also involved American troops in Saudi Arabia, American policy toward Israel, Iraq, and U.S. support for governments throughout the region. Religion mattered. So did politics, history, nationalism, and power.
Today, most Americans know that Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite, while Saudi Arabia and much of the Arab world are predominantly Sunni. What we still struggle to understand is why the distinction matters — and how much contemporary Sunni-Shiite conflict has been shaped not simply by theology but by geopolitics.
The modern Middle East did not invent the Sunni-Shiite divide. It began with the dispute over succession after Muhammad’s death and acquired profound theological and political meaning over fourteen centuries. But neither can today’s conflicts be explained by an argument that began in the seventh century. Modern borders, colonialism, oil, the Iranian Revolution, dictatorship, foreign intervention, and competition among regional powers have repeatedly given old religious identities new political meaning.
And now, with the war in Iran, those alignments are shifting again as countries confront a conflict not entirely of their making.
Islam, like any religion, can be used for war or for peace. Fundamentalism in any tradition — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or secular — can be weaponized. Religion can help motivate violence without making violence the essence of the religion.
That distinction matters.
ISIS was not pretending to be Islamic. Its adherents believed they were acting according to Islam. Christian extremists who invoke Christianity are not necessarily pretending either. People can sincerely derive terrible ideas from religious texts. But one person’s interpretation does not define a faith for everyone else who practices it.
The Qur’an, like the Bible, contains passages that can be read as peaceful or warlike. History, circumstance, leadership, and the reader himself help determine which passages become important.
And nearly two billion Muslims do what Jews, Christians, Hindus, atheists, and almost everyone else does most days: go to work, raise children, worry about money, complain about government, celebrate holidays, fall in love, and try to live their lives.
We tend to forget all of this when religion provides a convenient explanation for our enemies.
Saudi Arabia is a revealing example. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government has long been associated with an exceptionally conservative form of Sunni Islam. And the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi hardly suggested a liberalizing respect for dissent.
Yet the United States has maintained a close strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, including under President Trump.
Apparently Islam explains the conduct of our enemies more readily than it explains the conduct of our friends.
That should tell us something.
Foreign policy does not actually divide the Middle East into Muslims and non-Muslims. It divides countries according to interests, alliances, resources, security, and power. Religion suddenly becomes a comprehensive explanation when it is useful to make it one.
The same inconsistency appears at home.
A Muslim following sharia in his personal religious life is no more inherently a threat to the Constitution than a Catholic following canon law or an Orthodox Jew following halakha. The constitutional problem begins when anyone attempts to use the power of government to impose religious law on others.
And that standard applies to Christians too.
Freedom of religion is a good thing. Inevitably, it permits people to believe things the rest of us find strange, misguided, or even offensive. That is part of the bargain. A free society does not protect only religions whose doctrines receive majority approval.
Nor are majority-Muslim countries inherently threats to world peace. Governments can be dangerous. Leaders can exploit religious identity. Extremists can manipulate scripture. Religious populations can embrace intolerant ideas. None of that should be ignored simply because we are trying to avoid prejudice.
But neither should nearly two billion people inherit responsibility for the most frightening people who claim their faith.
Religion can inspire extraordinary kindness and extraordinary cruelty. So can nationalism, ideology, race, and political power. Islam deserves neither a special exemption from scrutiny nor a special presumption of guilt.
When a Muslim commits violence, we should be willing to ask what role his religion played. But we should also ask about politics, history, grievance, nationalism, power, and the people who taught him what his religion required.
We routinely grant ourselves that complexity.
Muslims deserve it too.
Defending Islam does not require pretending that nothing terrible has ever been done in its name.
It requires refusing to make nearly two billion people answer for everyone who has.