Bush’s infamous claim that Islam is the “religion of peace” reminds me of his great line about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
by David Shephard, ©2026
(Sep. 15, 2026) — Whenever I hear someone, usually a professor, CNN anchor, college student, social influencer or a Bernie Sanders follower claim that Islam is the religion of peace I always wait in the vain hope that they will finally and firmly provide some evidence to back up such an ahistorical claim, a claim often made but thoroughly debunked by numerous passages from the Quran and hundreds of years of historical experience. But they never fail to disappoint me. Instead of offering real evidence, they cite the alleged fact that since most Muslim adherents want peace, therefore Islam must be a religion of peace.
Well, that’s a very low bar to cross because virtually all human beings want peace. Most Catholics want peace – go to any Knights of Columbus Hall in America on a Friday night and the place will be full of men who desire peace. Most Mormons want peace, most Seventh-Day Adventists and Christian Scientists want peace. Most atheists and most Rotarians want peace. Even the vast majority of Episcopalians are opposed to violence, provided we don’t count abortion or the severing of a penis on a healthy minor as violent acts. And even the late Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple based in San Francisco, I daresay wanted peace and was non-violent, at least up until that unfortunate day when he distributed the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid to his poor and unsuspecting followers. So, the claim that Islam is the religion of peace because most adherents want peace is absurd.
Well, last Friday I was reminded of the claim that Islam is the “religion of peace.” Friday marked the 25th anniversary of 9-11, a day that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar described as “a day when some people (Muslims motivated by their Holy Book) did something (fly hijacked airplanes into buildings in order to kill the infidels, that is, non-Muslims).” Like most of us who lived through it, I reflected on that day, its meaning and its aftermath. I also thought of President Bush, a man I voted for twice.
First, I do think Bush did a good job rallying the nation on September 11, and he said many of the right things. He helped lift up our nation and fashioned a response. But he did say one thing which I must take exception with.
My disagreement with George W. Bush was with his decision to go to the Islamic Center in Washington, DC on September 17, 2001, and give a speech in which he claimed that Islam is the religion of peace, and that “the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.”
I remember at the time thinking that this was an extraordinary claim. Just 6 days earlier, 19 men who had spent years studying Islam carried out the planned attack which killed nearly 3,000 people, and here was an American President, who my guess is had never read the Quran, telling us to ignore the motives of the terrorists and believe that Islam is a religion of peace. Say what you want about Osama Bin Laden, he was very familiar with the Quran and the teachings and traditions of his religion.
In Bush’s speech he tried, borrowing an expression, to thread the needle. That is, he tried to differentiate between Islam and “radical Islam.” Well, Islam, like all religions, has an ideology that is a set of beliefs about the world and how it should be ordered. We should pay attention to a religion’s ideology and from there, we can judge whether it is radical or not.
As far as the claim that there is a moderate form of Islam and that Bin Laden represented a radical version, well, as an ideology Islam is very radical, perhaps more radical than anything else ever written. It is based on the belief that there is a struggle between the believer and the infidel, that is, the non-believer. On the positive side, the non-believer may be allowed to live, but not if they contradict or even express doubt about the faith. Either keep quiet or die. That’s not what I’d call peaceful.
According to this ideology the two sides are in a state of continual war, so when their holy book says to kill the infidel, when it talks about deceiving the infidel, and when it says, “Kill them wherever you find them,” we should take that seriously.
I would also point out that the laws in Islamic countries come from their scriptures and Islamic traditions, hence they have some of the most repressive laws on earth. So, for an American President, or any Western leader, to claim that Islam is the religion of peace must be galling to the 100 million or so non-believers in the Islamic world who are denied freedom, and the gay people, adulteresses, heretics and free thinkers sitting in jail.
David Shephard is a native and very proud Virginian. Raised in Fairfax County, David graduated from George Mason University and majored in Government and Politics. He spent decades in politics, campaign consulting, raising money and lobbying. He is also a longtime conservative blogger writing for numerous blogs. He is also the host of “The Virginia Gentleman Podcast.”
David is the author of Elections Have Consequences, A Cautionary Tale, and his latest book, Norton’s Choice: An Inside Politics Exposé.
Leave a Reply