Every time there’s a terrorist attack somewhere – like the one in Paris on Friday night which claimed more than 120 lives – the conversation moves away from the perpetrators of the crime to their religious and ethnic background. Muslims around the world are constantly asked why they don't condemn the violence (they do, in huge numbers) and why their societies are so violent.

Even as investigations are ongoing and there are reports of a Syrian passport being discovered near the body of one suicide bomber in France, the conversation is already shifting to what some see as the larger issue: Islam. And of course, it's the same thing that happens everytime there is Islamic terror, while incidents of mass shooting in America rarely bring up discussions of whether white American culture is inherently violent.

A case in point here is the much talked about HBO show from last year where American comedian Bill Maher made the argument that the “Muslim world has a lot in common with the ISIS [Islamic State]” since a large number of people from the community around the world “believe that people should die” for merely holding a different opinion or behaving differently.

These arguments, however, were completely destroyed by Professor Reza Aslan from the University of California, Riverside on a debate show on CNN. “Islam doesn’t promote violence or peace. It is just a religion and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you are a violent person, your Islam, your Christianity, your Judaism is going to be violent.” As Aslan points out, even Buddhism has marauding violent monks. Does that mean Buddhism promotes violence? He points out the fallacy in labeling a vast swath of countries, from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia under the 'Muslim nations' tag, as if to suggest they're all the same. “Islam is not represented by Saudi Arabia,” Aslan argued.

The whole segment on CNN, from last year, is below.

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