Comment Re:As a former muslim (Score 3, Interesting) 880
The trouble is, modern civilised life doesn't really come online until every individual has rights.
Any empire can create peace within its borders, and any Imam or Priest can declare, "when the whole world is under the One True God, then there will be peace."
Whether the empire's leadership is currently moving for aggression, or moving for non-aggression, whether they are attacking, or biding their time to gain political influence, these are merely strategic issues, the aim remains the same, that there is One and only one true way and everyone else who resists is damned to hell.
If you're gay, if you're a woman, if you're the wrong race, or hold the wrong beliefs, then off to hell you go. Because you haven't been given equal rights.
For reasons unknown, the West made it to some semblance of modernity.
Currently, there is a concerted and deliberate effort by the leaders in the Moslem world to push to an Islamic revival, and ISIL is just one branch. The point isn't that the extremists are only tiny a minority (thousands v. 1.6 billion), the point is that the extremists are in positions of leadership and are trying to drag the majority of normal people, including all the Moslems, into a world war. It includes emphasising all the violent doctrines at the expense of the peaceful ones.
The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, written to oppose "Western" notions of human rights, and which says, yes you have human rights, BUT ONLY the ones permitted by Islam", that was written by the leaders of these Muslim countries. It is the Islamic leadership in its various branches which is causing the problems and dragging the 1.6 billion Moslems into it.