Opinion: The violence is not a distortion of Islam, it is rooted in its doctrine
By Easton Martin | December 16, 2025
After the Bondi Beach terror attack, officials and media figures rushed to repeat a familiar line. “This was not real Islam! The attackers were extremists who twisted a peaceful faith!”
That explanation may be comforting, but it isn’t honest.
Violent jihadist movements do not arise in a vacuum, they emerge from a religious tradition whose sacred texts and legal history explicitly sanction violence against unbelievers, apostates, and Jews, and which divides the world into believers and enemies of God.
The Quran contains repeated commands to fight those who do not believe and promises spiritual reward for those who wage jihad. These passages are not obscure or fringe. They are part of the canonical text recited daily across the Islamic world. Classical Islamic jurisprudence, developed long before modern terrorism, codified these teachings into law, including armed expansion, subjugation of non Muslims, and execution for apostasy.
None of this means that all Muslims commit violence. Clearly they do not. Many reinterpret or ignore these teachings. But the existence of peaceful Muslims does not erase what the doctrine itself permits. An idea can be dangerous even if not every adherent acts on it.
The Bondi attackers did not invent their worldview, they did not rely on obscure propaganda. Rather, they drew from well established Islamic concepts such as martyrdom, holy war, scriptural antisemitism, and the belief that violence in defense of Islam is righteous.
Western leaders insist on separating Islam from Islamism, but this distinction collapses under scrutiny. Islamism is not an external corruption of Islam. It is Islam taken literally and seriously, as it has been understood by millions throughout history.
This is why similar attacks keep occurring across countries and cultures. Different actors, but the same theological justifications.
Criticizing Islamic doctrine is not hatred of Muslims, It is recognition that ideas have consequences. Dismissing this reality as Islamophobia does not protect lives. It silences debate. Until societies confront the ideological roots of jihadist violence honestly, these attacks will continue.
The problem is not that Islam is misunderstood, the problem is that some understand it all too well.
