With all of the religious traditions drenched in the blood of those who dared disagree with them, why is it appropriate to single out Islam as particularly objectionable?

Mohammed himself took up the sword and encouraged his followers to do so. The idea of Jihad as a holy war is built into Muslim tradition. It is much, much more difficult to lay that claim at the feet of most of the other religions in whose name people have shed blood. One has a hard time reconciling the Inquisition with Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek."

At least regarding Christianity, there is a very strong argument to be made that those who did violence in the name of Christ were betraying the Christian tradition. Islam's tradition, by contrast, includes violence from the very beginning by its founder. That makes a huge theological difference with enormous practical consequences.


(And of course atheistic ideologies have shed the most blood of all.)