In an interview, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the hereditary imam of Shiite Ismaili Muslims, argues that today’s Middle Eastern terrorists are fueled by political motivations and not religion.
Your majesty, the world is shocked by terrorist attacks that are carried out by people who claim to be fighting for Islam. You, as a prominent Muslim leader, have claimed that Islam is a religion of peace. Does that mean that Islam has two faces?
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV: No, I don’t think so. For one thing, you have to think about the fact that this is just represents a very, very small minority of the world’s Muslim population. Also, these people are primarily driven by political and not religious motives. It would be wrong to consider them representative of Islam. The Western world has to take a close look to see which forces are in play in order to differentiate between belief and things that have nothing to do with belief. We as Muslims could also ask the same things: like what’s happening in Northern Ireland. If I as a Muslim came to you and were to say: What’s happening in Northern Ireland reflects Catholic and Protestant beliefs, then you would say: you’re uneducated.