Like with all religious books, it all depends on which verses you pick. One can write a long list of verses in the Quran that seem to imply religious tolerance, peaceful coexistence, etc. There is no absolute truth about what the Quran says, just like there is no absolute truth about god and prophets. It is up to each Muslim to "interpret" the Quran. This really means that each Muslim can cherry-pick the verses that she or he prefers. Here is the list of the ones that are violent, racist and sexist in nature. (I have compiled a similar list for the Christian/Jewish scriptures here). Jihad is one of main duties of Muslims Christian martyrs: believers who let themselves be killed by unbelievers (as Jesus did) Muslim martyrs: believers who were killed while fighting against unbelievers (as Mohammed did) From the Quran (jihad): Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage (Q 2:190-3) "When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them (Q 9:5) "Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them (Q 9:73) "Those who believe fight in the cause of God."(Sura iv, 76) "Fight those who have not faith in Allah nor in the hereafter and who forbid not what God and his Prophet have forbidden, and who are not committed to the religion of truth" (9:29); "Strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah" (8:60) "I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite them above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. It is not you who slew them; it was Allah" (8:12,17). "The unbelievers follow falsehood while the believers follow the Truth. When you meet the unbeliever strike off his head, and when you have laid him low, bind him firmly" (sura 23). "When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives." (Sura xlvii.4) "Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of Allah" (Sura viii, 39-42) "Kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever you may find them."(Sura ix, 5-6) Kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191) "Murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123) "Fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, attack them" (9:5) "Slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers" (5:34) "Seize them, and bind them, and burn them in the blazing fire" (69:30-37). "If there are 20 amongst you, you will crush two hundred: if a hundred, you will crush a thousand of them" (8:65) Peace "Peace" in Islam means something different from "peace" in other religions The peace in Islam is conditional on the surrender of all people to Islam, i.e. on the submission to Allah's will as explained in the Quran Al-islam in Arabic means both submission and peace Islam is derived from the root SLM, like Salam that means "peace/ serenity" (NOT "peace/ no war" that would be sulh/salaha) Peace is only available to one who has first surrendered to Allah and it is denied to those who refuse to surrender Mohammed signed his treaty offers with the words, "aslem taslam", 'surrender and you will be safe'. "We are men of peace" (Osama bin Laden) The Quran is divided into two periods, the revelations in Mecca and the revelations in exile, in Medina The Meccan revelations are peaceful. The Medina revelations are not. No conversions out of Islam Death penalty for Muslims who convert to other religions "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back," says Ansarullah Mawlafizada, the trial judge [of the Afghani court trying a Muslim who converted to Christianity]. "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity." From the Quran (women): Men are allowed to marry up to four wives and to sleep with their slave maids and keep as many captive women as they like (4:3) Women cannot enter a tribunal (2:282) Mohammed married at least 9 women and up to 25 After a "revelation" from Allah, Mohammed forced Zeinab, his cousin, to divorce her husband Zeid, his adopted son, and then married her In 624 Mohammed (then 54) was engaged to the six-year old daughter of Abu Bakr and married her when she was nine. From the Quran (slaves): Equivalence is the law decreed for you when dealing with murder - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female (2:178) No believer shall kill another believer, unless it is an accident. If you cannot find a slave to free, you shall atone by fasting two consecutive months (4:92) The Arabs invented the African slave trade Islam vs Christianity The two religions are profoundly different, no matter what your well-intentioned priest is telling you Christianity was born out of persecutions (Christians were persecuted for three centuries) Islam was born out of military conquest and expansion Mohammed personally killed people. He is the only founder of a major religion who personally killed. Jesus let his accusers kill him. Mohammed yielded to the three temptations of Satan that Jesus rejected (used his power for personal ends such as his various murders and marriages, used his power to make his religious teaching into an earthly empire). Islam is the only major religion that was born out of a war, a war specifically waged to expel all other religions. Christianity (or, at least, the Catholic religion) is "universal": Christians wish "Merry Christmas" to "all people of good will" Islam is about the "brotherhood": Muslims wish "Eid Mubarak to all Muslims around the world" Any non-Christian can enter the holiest Christian places, e.g. the city of Rome, the Vatican, and even St Peter's cathedral. Christianity is inherently universal. No non-Muslim is allowed to enter the city of Mecca, let alone the mosque or the Kaba. The whole point of Mohammed's war that founded Islam was to expel the "infidels" from Mecca. Islam is inherently racist. Any religion can be worshipped in Rome, the capital of Christianity, and in any other Christian city. The largest mosque outside the Islamic world is in Rome. Absolutely no other religion is allowed in the Arabian peninsula. It is absolutely forbidden to build a Christian church or Jewish synagogue or Buddhist temple or Hindu temple in Arabia. The percentage of Saudi Arabian citizens who are not Muslims is officially zero: every Saudi citizen is born a Muslim and Saudi Arabia punishes with the death penalty a religious conversion from Islam to another religion. Islam and Jews Mohammed worshipped the god of the Jews or at least was heavily influenced by the Jewish religion (see my history of Islam)... ... although Mohammed's troops beheaded 700 Jews in 627 (the survivors were killed in 629) Jews were generally treated a lot better in the Islamic world than in the Christian world until the creation of Israel in 1948 Christians accuse Jews of killing Jesus. Muslims do not accuse Jews of killing anyone. The Muslim animosity against Jews started with the creation of Israel, a state in which Jews are no longer second-class citizens (like they had been throughout the history of Islam). Since the creation of Israel, many more Muslims have been killed by Jews than Jews by Muslims Many more Muslims have been killed in the wars between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam than in all the wars with Israel There is nothing in the Quran that specifically targets Jews.

Is the Christian Bible a book of Peace? A timeline of the Arabs Mohammed and Islam Jesus and Christianity