This question represents one of Islam’s most popular defenses: because not all Muslims are violent, intolerant, or sponsor terrorism (a true statement), then Islam itself must be innocent.

Let’s briefly consider this logic.

First, there are, in fact, many people who identify themselves as Muslims but who do not necessarily adhere to or support Islam’s more supremacist and intolerant doctrines. If you have ever lived in a Muslim-majority nation, as I have, you would know this to be true.

The all-important question is, what do these nonviolent Muslims represent? Are they following a legitimate, “moderate,” version of Islam — one that is more authentic than the “radical” variety? That’s what all the talking heads would have us believe.

Good Deeds and Bad Creeds

Let’s try to answer this question by using an analogy.

German Nazism is a widely condemned ideology, due to its supremacist elements. But the fact is, many Germans who were members or supporters of the Nazi party were “good” people. They did not believe in persecuting Jews and other “non-Aryans,” and some even helped them escape, at no small risk to themselves.

Consider Oskar Schindler — a German and formal member of the Nazi party who went to great lengths to save Jews from slaughter.

How do we reconcile his good deed with his bad creed?

Was Schindler practicing a legitimate, “moderate” form of Nazism? Or is it more reasonable to say that he subscribed to some tenets of National Socialism, but when it came to killing fellow humans in the name of a supremacist ideology, his humanity rose above his allegiance to Nazism?

Indeed, many Germans joined or supported the National Socialist Party more because it was the “winning” faction, one they believed offered hope for their country and less because of its racial theories.

That said, other Germans joined the Nazi party precisely because of its supremacist theories and were only too happy to see “subhumans” eliminated.

Many Factors

Now consider how this analogy applies to Islam and Muslims: First, unlike most Germans who chose to join or support the Nazi party, the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world were simply born into Islam; they had no choice. Many of these Muslims know the bare minimum about their religion — the Five Pillars — and are ignorant of Islam’s supremacist theories.

Add Islam’s apostasy law to the mix (i.e., the fact that leaving Islam can earn the death penalty), and it becomes clear that there are many nominal “Muslims” out there who simply do not want to rock the boat.

That said, there are also a great many Muslims who know exactly what Islam teaches — including eternal hate for and war on the kafir, or infidel — and who happily follow it precisely because of its supremacist teachings.

In both Nazism and Islam, we have a supremacist ideology on the one hand, and people who find themselves associated with this ideology on the other — from those born into it, to those who join it for its temporal boons, to those who are sincere and ardent believers.

The all-important difference is this: when it comes to Nazism, the world agrees that it is a supremacist ideology. Those who followed it to the core were the “bad guys.” As for the “good Nazis,” who helped shelter persecuted Jews and performed other altruistic deeds, the world acknowledges that they were not following a “moderate” form of Nazism, but that their commitment to Nazism was less than total.

This is the correct paradigm for understanding the relationship between Islam and Muslims: Islam does contain violent and supremacist doctrines. This is a simple fact. Those who follow it to the core were and are the “bad guys” — the radicals, the terrorists. Still, there are “good Muslims.” Yet they are good not because they follow a “moderate” form of Islam, but because they are not committed to Islam in the first place.

Put differently, was Oskar Schindler’s altruism a product of “moderate Nazism” or did he act in spite of Nazism altogether? Clearly, it was the latter. In the same manner, if a Muslim treats a non-Muslim with dignity and respect, is he doing so because he follows a legitimate brand of “moderate Islam,” or is he doing so in spite of Islam, because his own sense of human decency compels him?