That's a first-class ticket to a misleading metanarrative. Ideally, one studies different aspects of a phenomenon using different frameworks to capture the totality of the phenomenon.
But all that is secondary to a sensible grounding in primary (or as laymen, we usually have to be happy with secondary) sources. To what degree one can study a religion as an ideology, the study of how the tenets of that ideology results in certain tendencies in society is a monumental undertaking. A great deal of controversy persists to this day about the effect and nature of some of the most thoroughly researched ideologies, including ones that are far, far less complex and developed than a world religion.
It is overwhelmingly clear that the most important cause of the "violence" you talk about is fairly recent political events and conflicts concerning, essentially, material issues and somewhat generic exercises of power (such as imperialism). I would go as far as to say that these causes are almost completely succesful in explaining the violence. Only once we have identified areas that cannot be easily reconciled with such far more mundane causes does it become interesting and useful to ask questions concerning less concrete influences, such as culture and religion.
That is, unless there is some absolutely overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Studying "radical/political Islam" as a religious phenomenon first and foremost is, in my view, grossly misleading. No one could possibly doubt that religion affects how people think and act, but those effects can only be understood by first carefully studying the more immediate causes of the conflicts. You simply cannot take some generalizing first-principles approach based on your understanding of Islam and directly apply that (or, you can, but it's a terrible approach). Before you even think to study how Islam at large fits into a historical or current event, the event must be carefully contextualized and immediate, major factors must be controlled for.
The type of thinking you propose is how someone like Gibbon ended up with the ludicrous conclusion that Christianity caused the "fall of the Western Roman Empire", or how western academics long contorted themselves into believing the Ottoman Empire somehow managed to "decline" for 300 years straght. It's putting the cart before the horse.
You are talking about the need for “evidence”, and to quote your above words you are claiming that
"It is overwhelmingly clear that the most important cause of the "violence" you talk about is fairly recent political events and conflicts concerning, essentially, material issues and somewhat generic exercises of power (such as imperialism). I would go as far as to say that these causes are almost completely succesful in explaining the violence".
You make that above quote without adding any caution as if to present it as unarguable fact, but what evidence do you produce to show how much or how little violence and persecution has been perpetrated in pursuit of Islam at various times from the 7th century until today? And how accurate do you think anyone can be today about what was actually happening in ancient history? Especially a history of something like a religion where there is an enormous self-interest from the followers of that religion and it's sympathetic “historians” to paint the religion in an especially favourable light?
Keep in mind that written histories like that are not science (often very far from it). It's accuracy is almost certainly very poor for many events. And the people who write about religious history are often hugely biased one way or the other. For example; in the threads here on the “Historicity of Jesus”, most of the writers that are being called “historians”, are actually “bible scholars”, theologians, and other interested active Christians in general. And the other thing that slowly became apparent in those “Historical Jesus” (“HJ”) threads, is that passages quoted from the holy books were usually presented as a fact of direct translation, but where it often turned out that specialist translators frequently disagree about what the correct translation of the words should actually be, and what certain key words really meant. So that when people today quote such passages from the bible, presenting the passage as evidence for either good and benevolent sentiments or else bad and vindictive sentiments, it has turned out that the translations themselves are often disputed or unreliable. And on top of all that, it is also the case that all (that's “All”, i.e. 100% of them) of those quoted passages from the earliest known biblical writing, come from copies made by Christians themselves many centuries after the claimed events (i.e. many centuries after Jesus and all the other main characters such as Paul and Pontius Pilate were all said to have died). And afaik, all those same problems will apply to whatever has been written about the history of Muhammed, the Koran, and the conduct of Muslims in pursuit of spreading Islam throughout the ages.
Have you listened on YouTube to the debates with Sam Harris on this subject? Perhaps you are one of those people who denounce Sam Harris as some sort of bigoted ignorant Islamophobe? There are quite a lot of so-called “atheists' on these forums who try dismiss people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins with silly insults like that. However, if you have listened to any of what Sam Harris says in all those interviews and debates, then if you are honest about it, you should accept that Harris is clearly a very patient and careful commentator on this entire issue of Islam and religion in general. He always makes highly reasoned and very careful precise arguments (when his opposition is invariably doing the exact opposite and making all sorts of wild and inaccurate claims in defence of Islam and Christianity). And he is clearly very well informed on the issues that he talks about … it's clear, and I would say to you that it's unarguable, that Harris has done some proper research on this subject of Islam and it's history in the context of current day Islamic terrorism, and he has clearly checked his facts.
But if you listen to all those numerous interviews with Harris on this subject, where he is arguing with people who like you are claiming that Islam has a largely benign and un-warlike history in comparison to Christianity, you should, if you are at all honest with yourself about what you are seeing and hearing in those interviews and debates, notice very early in their discussions that the opponents of Harris are in almost every single case very obviously being caught-out in making all manner of untrue statements and wild accusations etc., whereas in contrast Harris is entirely convincing in presenting an accurate properly researched/checked description of all of the events under discussion.
If you have not honestly paid much attention to what Harris says in those YouTube films, then you really need to do that. And you need to do it without prejudice.
The main points that Harris is making, are – (1) Islam is significantly different to Christianity, in that it strongly encourages it's male followers to partake in a “Jihad” to spread the religion following the example of Muhammed, who was according to Harris, less like a saintly religious leader/preacher and much more of a conquering warlord, and (2) by waging that Jihad as a physical fight, all those who die in that religious fight for the supremacy of Islam are promised by Allah a place in “paradise”, and iirc that automatically also gives a place in paradise to the dead fighters family too, so that (3) even today in mainstream Islam so called “martyrdom” of that kind (i.e. dying whilst fighting for Allah) is regarded in Islam as the most wonderful and noble thing that can happen to any Muslim. And in fact on that very point, in some of the UK court cases, the defendants were found to have written notes to various people saying how it was their dearest wish that they will be killed in their Jihad, how that would be the most wonderful thing that could ever possibly happen, and how they cannot wait to meet Allah in paradise etc.
Further points that Harris makes include, (4) all of the supposedly very radical or fundamentalist statements and actions taken by people like IS and Al Qaeda in their pursuit of an Islamic Caliphate, are actually direct acceptance of the words in the Koran … they are far less of a so-called “interpretation” than what is being said by the so-called “moderates” in Islam. IOW – one the main reasons why it's relatively easy for the leaders of those fundamentalist branches of Islam (i.e. the terrorists) to recruit pious young muslims to a cause of fighting a religious war/jihad, is because the passages which make those commands on the faithful, actually
are in the Koran. Whereas, the so-called “moderates” are actually the ones who have to disregard many of the passages in the Koran and claim that those passages should not be taken literally because the moderates have now re-interpreted them to mean something other than what the words (the words of God himself!) actually say!
Point 5 is that we should take note of what the terrorists actually say themselves about their own actions and their own aims. And as I think I've pointed out to you several times now, all of their many hundreds of mission statements say exactly the same thing. They always insist that their aim is to create religious rule across all of the lands where they fighting, specifically in order to impose by force direct rule from a literal reading of the Koran … effectively taking the governing of those lands back to the way people were forced to live around the time of Muhammed. That's their only stated aim. No other aim is ever mentioned at all. That's their entire purpose. And their reason for doing that is that they insist that a direct “honest” reading of the Koran makes that goal a necessity and an absolute requirement for all true Muslims.
You can easily find for yourself on YouTube many dozens of examples of Sam Harris in debate & discussion on all these factors involved in what we now see as Islamic terrorism around the world since 9-11 (2001), covering exactly all the same discussions and points that have been aired in this thread, inc. all the same issues that you have raised (TubbaBlubba), but here is just one example where he's just giving some of his views on exactly this subject (t's quite a long discussion from Harris, but given what you have said in this thread, it's important that you take proper note of what people like Sam Harris say on this issue in film clips like this ... and by the way most of the serious academics & security analysts who I have heard talking about this in the UK, make all the exact same points that Harris makes) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ToLv3rt1M
