The fallacy of Islam as a peaceful religion.

After the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the general Muslim community attempted to put a face of peace on the religion of Islam. Our president and other non-Muslim individuals stood by the Islamic religion with the message that Islam is largely a religion of peace, and that people like Osama Bin Laden who support violence in the name of Islam are an extremist minority in this religion.
Anyone who looks at the modern day history of Islam would conclude otherwise.
In world of literature and art, there are 2 names that reveal the bubbling undercurrent of violence that exists in Islam, even among so-called peaceful followers who are not part of any extremist groups. Those 2 names are Salman Rushdie and Theo Van Gogh.
Rushdie's plight started after publishing The Satanic Verses in 1988, over a decade before the 9/11 attacks. The reaction of the Muslim community to Rushdie's book was a unified condemnation of the work. Ordinary Muslims took to the streets in protest over this work. A bookstore in the United States of America was firebombed for carrying this book! And, of course, a fatwa was ordered against the author. Mind you, Rushdie's book is a work of fiction - never identifying the religion as Islam, or the prophet as Mohammed, or the religious text as the Koran in the passages that were deemed offensive by Muslims.
In 2001, long after the fatwa against Rushdie was lifted, I was having a conversation with a physician colleague of mine who is Muslim. When the topic of Rushdie arose, he had a very quick reaction - "if I ever meet that bastard, I'll choke him with my bare hands."
Ask yourself, is Islam really a religion of peace? How could any religion be "peaceful" when a follower who is a physician, entrusted with healing fellow humans, quickly turns to talk about murdering others when his religion is attacked in words?
More recently, the brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, after the release of his short film Submission, follows a similar pattern of violent reprisals against any artistic criticism against Islam. In this instance, the film in question highlighted the abuse and oppression of women within Islamic culture. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch member of Parliament and the screenwriter for Submission, has received death threats and lives under constant police protection. The message from Islam is clear - do not criticize, satarize, or otherwise offend us, or we will murder you in defense of our religion.
In order for Islam to be truly accepted in the Western world, its followers must be willing to accept criticism in all forms, without resorting to violent reaction.
Those interested in reading for themselves the violent imagery that fills the Muslim holy book, the Koran, can view the Skeptic's Annotated Koran online.