&gt; <i>Should it be left to Islamic religious leaders who can leverage Islamic texts to spread a more peaceful (and accurate) teaching, or should the focus be to discredit Islam from the outside?</i><p>Here you are attempting to equate accuracy with peacefulness, with nothing given to support that link.  To be clear, I don&#x27;t have a strong opinion on whether Islam is a peaceful religion or not.  I have not done enough research to be confident in that sort of claim.  I do, however, find it disingenuous to claim that the ISIS interpretation is wrong when the only support given for that claim is that it differs from some other muslims&#x27; interpretations.<p>&gt; <i>It is no less valid to talk about a correct interpretation of religious texts than it is to talk about the correct interpretation of any other text.</i><p>Sure, it&#x27;s reasonable and valid to say &quot;Here&#x27;s a thing ISIS believes about Islam.  Here is the context around that thing.  And here is the reason ISIS is wrong.&quot;  That&#x27;s not what&#x27;s happening here, though.  This is more like &quot;Here&#x27;s a thing ISIS believes.  I promise you that there is some context that makes them wrong.  See, other Muslims agree that ISIS is wrong.&quot;