Islam and Violence: Debunking Myths on the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 — A Presentation by Dr. Asma Afsaruddin

Remember the early days after the 9/11 attacks? Americans rushed to bookstores and bought Korans, eager – maybe desperate – to understand the motivation driving the terrorists who were identified in the news as Muslims. Unfortunately, that willingness to learn about others quickly morphed into a drive to punish them and anyone we could link to them, however tenuously.

Fifteen years later, it’s high time we return to that initial instinct to read, listen and learn about Islam. In this video, Dr. Asma Afsaruddin takes up the issue of violent jihad and convincingly explains why such a belief is a misreading of the Koran. With meticulous scholarship she demonstrates that Muslims who commit atrocities in the name of Islam suffer under the same misconception as Westerners who accuse Islam of being a religion which endorses violent jihad against non-believers.

This video was recorded at the Colloquium on Violence and Religion in July, 2016.

MP3:

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