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Do Most Muslims Really Oppose Islamic Terrorism?
Front Page Magazine ^ | 17 Sep, 2026 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 09/17/2026 7:34:40 AM PDT by MtnClimber

We’re told that most Muslims oppose Islamic terrorism and that it’s only a tiny fringe of radicals and extremists who practice “radical Islamic terrorism” (as opposed to‘moderate Islamic terrorism’ in which the moderate participants moderately detonate bombs, moderately stab civilians and moderately ram cars into pedestrians) and that their actions don’t reflect Islam.

Even those who correctly identify the roots of Islamic terrorism in the Koran and Islamic teachings still firmly insist that most Muslims oppose terrorism and only a minority support it.

Is that really true? The answer is that it depends on which Islamic terrorism we’re talking about.

There are four categories of Islamic terrorism.

Caliphate Terrorism – These are terrorist attacks carried out by groups like ISIS which claim that their leader is the Caliph of all of Islam and Muslims who refuse to obey him may be killed.

Islamic Terrorism Against Muslim Countries – Domestic terrorism by Muslim terrorists fighting to replace an insufficiently Islamic government, e.g. Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda.

Islamic Terrorism Against Western Non-Muslim Countries – Terrorist attacks against America or Europe, where large numbers of Muslims live and can become collateral damage.

Islamic Terrorism Against a Non-Muslim Religion – This includes Islamic terrorism targeting a country seen as defined by a non-Muslim religion such as Israel or India and it also includes Muslim violence inside Muslim countries against non-Muslim minorities such as Christians in India or Hindus in Bangladesh or violence against Christians in mixed countries such as Nigeria.

Most Muslims oppose ISIS and ‘Caliphate’ terrorism directed at Muslims, smaller numbers of Muslims oppose Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood violence that is directed at Muslim governments, significant numbers of Muslims support Al Qaeda terrorism directed at Western countries and majorities of Muslims support violence directed at non-Muslim religious groups.

Qatar’s Doha Institute (Qatar is a state sponsor of Hamas) released a poll after the Oct 7 attacks which found that 67% of those polled in 16 Arab countries supported the attacks and 69% supported Hamas. That same year, 1 in 3 Muslims in America admitted to supporting Hamas, while by 2026, 44% came out ofthe Hamas closet. Since supporting Hamas is still illegal in America, unlike the Middle East, this is likely to be an undercounting in the U.S.

Many insist that Israel is different and the large Muslim support for terror there isn’t reflective of any broader Muslim backing for terrorism, but Muslim support for terrorism in Israel is actually consistent with Muslim support for terrorism against non-Muslim religious groups.

For example, a survey found that 53% of Pakistanis supported Islamic terrorism against Hindus by Lashkar-e-Taiba, but only 34% supported similar terrorist attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. What was the difference? Lashkar-e-Taiba is covertly backed by the Pakistani government and only targets Hindus, but does not kill Pakistani Muslims, while Tehrik-i-Taliban also carries out attacks against the Pakistani government and kills other Muslims.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has made a point of distinguishing between non-Muslims and Muslims while carrying out its massacres, asking tourists in Kashmir about their religion before killing them in the recent 2025 massacre in Kashmir. This is why so many Muslims support it.

Lashkar-e-Taiba’s position is that it is dedicated to wiping out Hindus and Jews, but that it will not harm fellow Muslims who ‘profess the faith.’ That is enough of a difference for its level of support among Pakistanis to climb from a third to a majority. And this embodies the gap in Muslim support between terror attacks against Muslims and against non-Muslims.

Here’s another example.

In 2004, 67% of Jordanians were supportive of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq (ISIS) and only 10% considered it a terrorist group. In 2005, Al Qaeda in Iraq bombed several hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing 59 people, including a wedding party, and the backlash was so severe that its leader released a tape claiming that they had actually been targeting “Zionist intelligence” only to somehow blow up a wedding.

Al Qaeda’s approval rating in Jordan, after it killed fellow Sunni Muslims, dropped from 67% to 20%, and the number who considered it a terrorist group shot up from 10% to 48%.

Did Jordanian Arabs, who are 97% Muslim, fundamentally rethink their support for Islamic terrorism? Not very much. After Al Qaeda killed fellow Muslims, the number of Jordanians who considered Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks to be terrorism rose from 35% to 61%, but support for Hamas only fell from 86% to 73%. The number opposed to killing civilians in an ‘occupied’ Muslim country rose from 77% to 92%, but many supported terrorists killing non-Muslims.

“We ask Allah to have mercy on the Muslims, who we did not intend to target, even if they were in hotels which are centers of immorality,” the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq apologized.

The central issue was not terrorism: it was terrorism against Muslims. Or, more specifically, Sunni Muslims, since Al Qaeda in Iraq had already been bombing Shiite mosques in Iraq.

By 2014, with a clearer distinction between Al Qaeda and ISIS (Osama bin Laden had taken pains to distance Al Qaeda from the ISIS targeting of fellow Muslims), only 44% of Jordanians considered Al Qaeda to be a terrorist group, while 62% thought ISIS was a terrorist group.

So do the majority of Muslims oppose Islamic terrorism? Only when it kills Muslims.

Islamic terrorism is not an absolute for Muslims. Support for it or opposition to it depends on who is carrying it out, why and who the victims are. Islam is both highly legalistic and tribal, and support for Islamic terrorist attacks depends on clerical approval of particular groups and their tactics as well as whether they are attacking a hated non-Muslim group or fellow Muslims.

The Muslim terrorist groups with the broadest approval from Muslims are religiously nationalistic, attacking a non-Muslim religious group with the aim of expelling them from land claimed by Muslims, such as Israel and India, in purported defense of an aggressive Muslim colony, such as Kashmir or Gaza. Such attacks most closely parallel the founding genocides carried out by Mohammed in the early days of Islam, and are the least controversial among Muslims even when terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas kill women and children.

Devout Muslims are more drawn to Islamic terrorist groups seeking to firmly establish Sharia law by seizing power in Muslim countries, e.g. Al Qaeda and ISIS: however such groups are controversial among many Muslims who remain loyal to their governments, worry about being targeted and don’t necessarily want to live in a proper Islamic state. Al Qaeda initially won a good deal of Muslim support by focusing its attacks on America even though its larger aim was toppling the Saudi monarchy. Osama bin Laden had built a reputation as a devout global Jihadist who was fighting the Russians and then the Americans. The Iraq War, more than anything else, destroyed Al Qaeda’s reputation among Muslims and birthed ISIS.

Many Muslims are not at all certain that they want to live in the ISIS version of an Islamic State. They are much more comfortable with Islamic terrorists focused on killing non-Muslims in defense of Islamic expansionism than they are with the idea of toppling their own governments. ‘Good’ Muslims terrorists distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims: another reason that some Muslim terrorist groups make a point of sparing non-Muslims during terrorist attacks by quizzing them about Islam as Somalia’s Al-Shabaab did during the Kenya mall attack.

An Islamic terrorist attack in Israel or India isn’t terrorism. An attack in America or the UK might or might not be. While an attack in a Muslim country is almost always seen as terrorism. To Muslims, targets matter more than tactics. Rather than opposition to terrorism, they oppose being terrorized. And they are quite willing to support Islamic terrorism as non-Muslims die.

The majority of Muslims don’t oppose Islamic terrorism. They don’t even view attacks like September 11 or Oct 7 as representing ‘terrorism’ until they end up on the wrong side of them.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: islam; jihad; no

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To: MtnClimber

Well, when I worked in Saudi in the 80’s, I camped out on the Red Sea a lot.....one day a group of Palestinians who camped nearby invited me for goat dinner.....in the morning I found they raided my camp and stole all my Tina Turner tapes and home made wine....


21 posted on 09/17/2026 8:38:05 AM PDT by delta7
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To: MtnClimber

NO! THEY DON’T! THEY PIMP IT!!!


22 posted on 09/17/2026 9:17:36 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Stop the genocide of the Jews by the pork chop munching Nazi DSA Muzzie Terrorists!!! NOW! )
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To: MtnClimber

NO! THEY DON’T! THEY PIMP IT!!!


23 posted on 09/17/2026 9:18:32 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Stop the genocide of the Jews by the pork chop munching Nazi DSA Muzzie Terrorists!!! NOW! )
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To: jmaroneps37

Not all 2,000,000,000 muslims want to murder me, but 200,000,000 probably do.


24 posted on 09/17/2026 9:18:40 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (When your Supreme Leader is easily whacked by Jews, reconsider how Akhbar your Allah is!)
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To: MtnClimber

Does a chicken have lips?


25 posted on 09/17/2026 9:38:25 AM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)
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To: MtnClimber

This whole article is beating a sick horse. Thee are ways to get round the term “support” when dealing with terrorist activities and groups. There are no major domestic financial institutions, political groups, or prominent organizations in the United States that legally or openly provide financial support to the government of Iran. However where there’s a will...

The Alavi Foundation is one. U.S. federal prosecutors alleged that the Alavi Foundation—a charitable organization tied to certain Islamic centers and Shia mosques in the United States—funneled rental income and assets back to Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli in violation of economic sanctions. But they are still active.

European authorities have occasionally investigated or shuttered specific foreign-backed Islamic centers (such as actions in Germany and probes in Denmark) over allegations that institutions or their leadership acted under the direct authority or funding streams of the Iranian government. Mosques are part of that as they send funds overseas to charitable groups sponsored for terrorist activities.

According to a study by the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, Muslim Americans donate an estimated $1.8 billion annually in zakat (obligatory almsgiving). Rather than mosques directly transferring these funds overseas, the distribution typically follows specific channels to keep the appearance of inappropriteness and violation of US law and the Patriot act. And they don’t know it? Sure.

wy69


26 posted on 09/17/2026 10:05:23 AM PDT by whitney69
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To: MtnClimber

Most of the article is BS. Muslims support muslims to the core. They will not assimilate nor can they assimilate because of peer pressure.


27 posted on 09/17/2026 10:08:55 AM PDT by chopperk (,)
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To: Red Badger

Obozo’s reverend write preached like a jihad muzzi.


28 posted on 09/17/2026 10:15:14 AM PDT by Track9 (Liberal tears make me smile. Thank you DJT! ABM = anything but muslim )
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To: Track9

Marxists and Muslims are practically indistinguishable ideology-wise.........


29 posted on 09/17/2026 10:18:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: Uncle Miltie
"Not all 2,000,000,000 muslims want to murder me, but 200,000,000 probably do."

And the other 1,800,000,000 will buy popcorn to watch.

30 posted on 09/17/2026 10:24:49 AM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: MtnClimber

NO. Muslims do not care about fine distinctions made about them. Taqiyya. it’s in the Muslim Manifesto. MoFos are mentally ill. They belong to an EVIL collective whose singleness of purpose is jihad. It is carried out by “handsome” means or violent means. Individually they are not compatible with civilized human beings. Otherwise, they would have no connection to the collective.


31 posted on 09/17/2026 10:55:34 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: MtnClimber

An Extremist Muslim wants to kill you.

A Moderate Muslim wants an Extremist Muslim to kill you.


32 posted on 09/17/2026 12:36:51 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (TDS: Trump Deification Syndrome)
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To: Responsibility2nd
NyanChuu🔮🇯🇵🍭 on X:

33 posted on 09/17/2026 12:40:08 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (TDS: Trump Deification Syndrome)
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To: MtnClimber

bump


34 posted on 09/17/2026 1:49:04 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. --DJT)
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To: MtnClimber

“We’re told that most Muslims oppose Islamic terrorism and that it’s only a tiny fringe of radicals and extremists”

“Taqiyyah: the Holy Deception — Lying to non-Muslims in advance for Islam is allowed till Judgement Day Quran 3:28, 16:106”

Says it all.


35 posted on 09/17/2026 2:41:28 PM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: MtnClimber

The 2023-24 Arab Opinion Index found very high support for the Palestinian cause and substantial support for describing the October 7 operation as legitimate resistance. That does not automatically mean that 67% endorsed the killing of civilians or terrorism as such. Those are different questions.

Most importantly, Islamic doctrine cannot be established by polling Muslims. The Qur’an explicitly prohibits transgression in warfare (2:190), commands justice toward people who are not fighting Muslims (60:8) and condemns the killing of an innocent person (5:32). Muslims can certainly act contrary to their religion, just as Christians, Jews, atheists, or anyone else can.


36 posted on 09/18/2026 4:42:41 AM PDT by Rategoods
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To: Rategoods

Does a Muslim consider an Infidel to be an “innocent person”?


37 posted on 09/18/2026 4:45:15 AM PDT by Kudsman (Killing and raping infidels, it's a cultural thing. )
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To: Rategoods

Welcome to FR. I will be awaiting an exact answer please.


38 posted on 09/18/2026 4:46:16 AM PDT by Kudsman (Killing and raping infidels, it's a cultural thing. )
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To: MtnClimber

Muslims want to come to the West for better economic opportunities, because polygamy invariably leads to corruption in Muzzie lands. However, they don’t want to reject Islam, which causes the corruption in the first place. They just bring chaos and destruction where they emigrate because they don’t assimilate. The children who are required to memorize the Bad Book, learn it’s sanctioned to kill the infidel, and do so when they realize that they are socially and economically inferior to the local population. Thus, the Muzzie population is a ticking time bomb in the West.


39 posted on 09/18/2026 4:52:05 AM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it.")
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