Have your views on Islam changed since the Orlando Terror Attack

[All Along The Watchtower]

FTR Islamism is not necessarily a violent ideology (in fact the vast majority of Islamists don't practice violence - there are plenty of Islamist parties in many established democracies, some more conservative or more mainstream than others). The ones engaged in violence are usually the Qutbist takfiris and Wahhabist dissidents (i.e. those who condemn governments in Muslim-dominated countries for not being extreme enough). And these movements are motivated every bit (if not moreso) by explicitly political grievances as they are by religious ones. Moreover, many people would be surprised to find that a significant number of Al-Qaeda and ISIS members know next to nothing about their own religious and cultural traditions other than what Angry Charismatic Cleric at their mosque says or what certain verses of the Qu'ran say (ripped out of any context and unmediated by any serious scholarly interpretation).

Note also that many of the young Muslim men (and let's be real; most of these people are young men) who actually engage in terrorism come from relatively secular or non-devout backgrounds, and they often have had contact with Western cultures. In fact, many of them were either born in, raised in, or at the very least, have lived in Western countries. They often feel a sense of "dual alienation": on the one hand, they feel alienated from Western culture (for rather obvious reasons), but on the other hand, they often feel alienated from their own cultures, as well. Searching for identity, belonging, meaning, and a means of alleviating their political anger, social disaffection,  and oftentimes, extreme boredom, some of these people end up turning to terrorism.