If you think I'm trying to defend Islam you have me way wrong. In my opinion it's a pathetic religion (just covering the women proves that) and we should probably intern the lot of them. The only point is that Islam has a complex history with gradations of belief in the same way Christianity has evolved with fundamentalist and liberals and everything in between. To ignore this complexity and lump ALL Muslims together is an over simplified view of history and the world.
"Remember Allah inspired the angels: I am with you. Give firmness to the believers. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: you smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips off of them." (Koran, 8:12) For newcomers, smite means chop off.
Do you have trouble interpreting those commandments? Is ther any way a person can be a Muslim and repudiate those commandments? Have I heard an authoritative repudiation of these and a hundred other such commandments?