About Muslim today

As of 2015, Islam has 1.7 billion adherents, making up over 23.4% of the world population.

I am unfamiliar with the Muslim practices, although I agree that fasting would be helpful to the body. Now I start a desk study and try to learn some of the reality of Muslims.

About terrorism and ISIS which was sadly created by the Iraq and other  wars, I think millions of ordinary Muslim people would be in a completely different place and context and have zero connection with terrorism, like Christians countered the Lord’s Resistance Army , or extremists like Dylann Roof, Anders Breivik, and Timothy McVeigh in US, or the Port Arthur massacre of 1996 in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded in Australia. How can  a few hundred radicals represent 1.7 billion Muslims ?

It seems that in Islam, like Christians, there are many different messages and muslims take them to mean different things. Religious arguments are said to be common with each party quoting his or her own sura with commentary by different imams supporting one side or another.

How should we humans communicate with each other today ?

Bill

Muslims which are united in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad. It is said that they have widely differing views about many other aspects of their faith, including how important religion is to their lives, who counts as a Muslim and what practices are acceptable, according to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been at odds for almost the entirety of Islam's history,  the sectarian divide in the Muslim world is almost as old as the religion of Islam itself. The split occurred after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the early 7th century. Abu Bakr ,a companion of Muhammad , His followers are now known as Sunni Muslims. The prophet’s son-in-law and cousin, Ali, should take on that leadership role while supporters of Ali are known as Shiite Muslims. It is said that the Shia were a movement - literally "Shiat Ali" or the "Party of Ali". They claimed that Ali was the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad as leader (imam) of the Muslim community following his death in 632.

Sunnis argue that the prophet chose Abu Bakr to lead prayers, however, Shiites claim that Muhammad, after his last pilgrimage stood before his companions and named Ali as the “spiritual guide and master of all believers,” , the BBC reports.

The great majority of the world's more than 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunnis - estimates suggest the figure is somewhere between 85% and 90%. In the Middle East, Sunnis make up 90% or more of the populations of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

 Most Shiite Muslims (between 68 percent to 80 percent, as of 2009) live in just four countries: Iran, India, Iraq and Pakistan. Shiite Muslims make up about 90 percent of the population of Iran. About one-fifth of the world’s Muslims live in a country where Islam is not the major religion.
Shia Muslims are in the majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and, according to some estimates, Yemen. There are also large Shia communities in Afghanistan, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
BBC reported that in countries which have been governed by Sunnis, Shia tend to make up the poorest sections of society. They often see themselves as victims of discrimination and oppression. Sunni extremists frequently denounce Shia as heretics who should be killed.
Shiite Muslims often group those into three daily prayers and are also identifiable by the small tablet of clay (often from Karbala, the site of Hussein's death) used during prayer, which they rest their forehead on during prostration.
There are three main branches of Shia Islam today - the Zaidis, Ismailis and Ithna Asharis (Twelvers or Imamis).

In Syria, Iranian troops, Hezbollah fighters and Iranian-backed Shia militiamen have been helping the Shia-led government battle the Sunni-dominated opposition. Sunni jihadist groups, including Islamic State (IS), have meanwhile been targeting Shia and their places of worship in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.


Sunnis and Shia: Islam's ancient schism - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709

Throughout history Muslim cultures have been diverse ethically, linguistically and regionally. Other Muslim cultures have also emerged in countries throughout the world where Muslims constitute the minority segments of the population.

Indonesia declared independence in 1945, it became the second largest Muslim-majority nation in the world; following the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, it emerged as the most populous Muslim country in the world. Today about 88% of Indonesia's 235 million people is Muslim. Indonesia is constitutionally a secular state (but the government officially recognises only six formal religions), with Islam being the dominant religion in the country.  Eventually, "Indonesia adopted a civil code instead of an Islamic one". In the New Order years (Suharto's presidency), there was an intensification of religious belief amongst Muslims. Under the Suharto regime, all Islamic parties were forced to unite under one government-supervised Islamic party, the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (Party for Unity and Development or PPP).[7] With Suharto's resignation in 1998, "the structure that repressed religion and society collapsed".
Muslim Indonesians in urban areas are uncomfortable to see women wearing burqa/niqab. When Soekarno, Hatta, and other founding fathers of Indonesia were trying to decide the future of the country in mid-1940s, realized that there were native Christians and Hindus in Indonesia too, and they did not want an Indonesia to be a country where non-Muslims are perceived as second-class citizens. It seems that  Muslim Indonesians are also among the most tolerant Muslims in terms of accepting religious pluralism, with many not identify with, nor sympathize with the Sharia law.
Just on March 24, 2017, Indonesian police fired tear gas to disperse hard-line Muslims protesting against the construction of a Catholic church in a satellite city of the capital Jakarta.
Several hundred protesters from a group called Forum for Bekasi Muslim Friendship demonstrated in front of the Santa Clara church in Kaliabang.

Islam and violence
Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including the use of violence within the family or household, the use of corporal or capital punishment, as well as how, when and against whom to wage war.

Globalization
Muslims across the 39 countries and territories surveyed differ significantly in their levels of religious commitment, openness to multiple interpretations of their faith, and acceptance of various sects and movements.
Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, the distinction between Sunni and Shia appears to be of lesser consequence. In many of the countries surveyed in Central Asia, for instance, most Muslims do not identify with either branch of Islam, saying instead that they are “just a Muslim.” A similar pattern prevails in Southern and Eastern Europe, where pluralities or majorities in all countries identify as “just a Muslim.” In some of these countries, decades of communist rule may have made sectarian distinctions unfamiliar. But identification as “just a Muslim” is also prevalent in many countries without a communist legacy. For example, in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, 26% of Muslims describe themselves as Sunnis, compared with 56% who say they are “just a Muslim” and 13% who do not give a definite response.
The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity | Pew Research Center
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-executive-summary/

Muslims and ISIS
A few hundred radicals can't represent 1.6 billion Muslims.
Some especially in western context , said the Muslims dissociate themselves from ISIS. They therefore argue that many of the practices of ISIS are completely un-Islamic, even anti-Islamic and cannot be justified by the legal traditions that have been developed over many centuries.
A  Muslim leader  in Cambridge said  ‘They’re just a bunch of Marxists.’ And  Ben Macintyre wrote  ‘ISIS owes more to the Kremlin than the Koran,’ and argued that ‘Stalin is the godfather of Islamic State.’
 However, It would be more accurate to say that ISIS has a lot to do with Islam, but is an extreme expression of one particular kind of Islamism. The rank and file of ISIS fighters from all over the world have joined the movement for a whole variety of motives—related to idealism and the search for identity, meaning and adventure—and probably have minimal understanding of Islam. But the leadership says so clearly that it is trying to imitate some of the practices of the first generation of Muslims during and immediately after the life of the Prophet. And in interpreting the Qur’an, they use the principle of abrogation, which enables them to say that later verses calling Muslims to wage war on unbelievers abrogate, or cancel out, earlier verses which call for patient endurance of opposition, as in a document by Abu Bakr Naji that comes out of ISIS called ‘The Management of Savagery’.  I think only other Muslims may explain why they believe ISIS is completely wrong in its interpretation and application of Islamic sources.

At the other extreme there are many Christians—who believe that ISIS is much nearer to the spirit and practice of early Islam than moderate Muslims of today. They point to particular verses in the Qur’an (e.g. about beheading, crucifixion and slavery) and passages in Hadith literature, the biographies of Muhammad and legal texts to show the connections between the brutalities of ISIS and early Islamic texts.
 Tim Winter of Cambridge said that Islamist interpretations generally ignore the consensus in the Islamic legal tradition which developed over many centuries and insist on going directly back to the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet. Winter believes that the legal traditions of the four main theological schools (the madhhabs) are like a telescope that enables us to see the stars clearly which has been ignored by the Islamists.

ISIS: Un-Islamic or True Islam? | Zwemer
http://www.zwemercenter.com/isis-un-islamic-or-true-islam/#

The evidence also appears to debunk repeated claims by former PM Tony Blair that IS began in the Syrian civil war and not Iraq, positioning the brutal group’s rise clearly within Iraq’s borders.
The Chilcot findings were backed up by serving Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond. He told The Foreign Affairs Committee “many of the problems we see in Iraq today stem from that disastrous decision to dismantle the Iraqi army and embark on a program of de-Baathification.”
The documents show that by 2006 –  UK intelligence chiefs were increasingly concerned about the rise of Sunni jihadist resistance to the Western-backed regime of Shia President Nouri Al-Maliki.
A March 2007 JIC report" AQ-I will try to expand its sectarian campaign wherever it can, declared the establishment of the notional ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (including Kirkuk).”

Chilcot: Intelligence reports confirm Iraq war created ISIS
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.rt.com/document/577e0f88c3618845228b457d/amp


There, they are one part of a horrendously complicated regional conflict involving multiple countries, ethnicities, and religious affiliations.
You do know there are major conflicts within Islam, right? Iran is a major Shia power, which makes it just as much an enemy and target for ISIL, who are Sunni extremists, as you and me. More so, in fact, because Iran is a major player in the fight. We may not trust their motives and their influence in Iraq, and they may only be doing just enough to let ISIL remain a credible threat because it helps legitimize Bashar’s actions in Syria, but you asked what Muslims are doing to counter ISIL. Well, Iran is Muslim, and they’re fighting ISIL.

To say isis are muslim is just like saying that he lords resistance army is christian or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun was jewish.

To liken christianity to islam, you could read this :
" 7When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. -mark 13:7,8 "
and conclude that christianity.

But  you could read this and come to the opposite conclusion-
" 3Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; 4for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments - corinthians 10:3,4"

islam is the same way, there are many different messages and muslims take them to mean different things. among religious muslims, religious arguments are common with each party quoting his or her own sura with commentary by different imams supporting one side or another.

 https://www.quora.com/Is-ISIS-Muslim