Yeah it's not a simple issue is it. I know it can be tempting to blame it all on Islam-belief but I myself haven't read the Koran so I can't vouch for it.
I would say personally that we can ask ourselves a question about sin, and what sin is, we are told the heart is "desperately wicked above all things". This doesn't mean everyone is willing to chop another's head off of course, but I think it can be easy to ATTACH sin to certain groups but this shouldn't be done really as it's individual.
Right now it's easy to say that the Muslims are the cause because of Islam. There is certainly some truth in that, but ultimately people sin for their own reasons. Perhaps the people that wrote it were of the same sinful inclinations as their descendants? Here is my question:
Do we suppose that if Islam did not exist, that the people who chop off heads would not find SOME OTHER JUSTIFICATION in their hearts, for chopping off those heads?
In prayer this morning, I was saying to God, "how can it get that bad? How can another person saw someone's head off". I looked at the 7-foot Muslim standing there with his knife, ready to do his chopping, and I wondered what it must be like to be like that person. How could that be your purpose in life? How could you physically destroy someone in such an evil way, it makes me shiver almost with fear to be in this world sometimes. I also wondered how, with my anxiety disorder as intense as it has always been in me, I would cope before my slaying, I should think perhaps what I went through before my death would match the actual event.
The answer I can only come up with, is that people have always been this bad. Look at the past, the Romans and so forth, look at the bloody histories. It's as though God wants to thoroughly prove our sin-state beyond a shadow of a doubt by showing us just how thoroughly disgusting we are as humans, in the things that we do. I also saw a Rhinoceros-baby, left with it's head half-chopped off, slowly dying, so someone could make a profit and I again, just can't understand how a conscience can be so seered as for a person to act so cruelly toward a gentle and harmless little Baba-saurus. it is unbelievable to me, and the only answer that satisfies me is
SIN. It is the only explanation, that people left to their sin-nature can end up doing terrible things.
I can only be a witness and tell the truth, that personal sin can be dealt with, on a personal level, whatever your problems are, through the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't say this if I had not experienced it. It's not something you can fabricate. What can I say? I watch none-believers and how lax their morals can be because they don't answer to God or worry about what He will do, but I certainly worry, I think this is the "conviction" of the Holy Spirit - that now, I can't even steal five pence, whereas before belief, it was just a personal call, I did not worry as to what God thought because I didn't know He was there, for sure, but now I do, I can't get away with even those small things, and nor would I want to! I don't boast but I'm trying to show you the SOLUTION to
SIN in this world - by dealing with what is wrong on the inside of us, and getting it put right!!!!
So I won't blame "Islam" perse, because that is not fair to the ones who practice it without doing any harm, they should be allowed to do that, and to show that it can be done without violence, to show up the ones that choose the extreme version.