faithstreet.com: lslam is always in the news, and we get it wrong much too often. This is part of a broader problem about understanding religion, but I think it has particular resonance in the case of the most familiar yet most misunderstood religion.

While I’m still not sold on the listicle form of an essay, I thought I should give it another crack, this time for the tradition with which I’m most professionally familiar. Thus, in short order, here are 10 things I wish everyone knew about Islam.

1. The Qur’an is to Jesus as Muhammad is to the Bible.

Too often, people make this error of analogy: the Qur’an is to the Christian Bible as Muhammad is to Jesus. In fact, something like the opposite is the case. For Muslims, the Qur’an, especially in its recited form, is an incarnation of God on earth, and is thus not just a book, nor even a holy text deserving of respect. Instead, it is God’s words in the proverbial flesh.

And much like the Bible is for Christians, Muhammad is the vehicle by which the Muslim conception of the divine was made known.

While this doesn’t (I don’t think) fully explain the occasional riot or protest that erupts when news of some desecration of the Qur’an comes out, those of the Christian persuasion might well wonder how they’d react to seeing Jesus (again) trampled upon and abused.

2. Muslims LOVE Jesus.

Like, a lot. While Muslims do not hold that Jesus was divine in and of himself, he is considered a prophet of high standing, born to a virgin named Mary, who delivered a revelation to the Jewish people.

For many Muslims, especially those of the mystical, Sufi variety, Jesus is a close second only to Muhammad in terms of honor, and Jesus is believed to be the al-Masih (the Messiah) who will come again to usher in the end of times. He is popularly referred to as ruh allah, the Spirit of God.

There’s a reason Muslims protested The Last Temptation of Christ when it was released and have protested revivals since — they really dig him.

3. Most Muslims aren’t Arab.

While you might know that Indonesia is, by population count, the largest Muslim nation, the next three are Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Egypt rounds out the top five, but to consider Egyptians “Arab” is somewhat debated. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has only the sixteenth largest Muslim population, behind countries such as Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Turkey, and Iran.

For what it’s worth, Saudi Arabia’s Muslim population is roughly equivalent to China’s. All of this should make us reconsider how we perceive not only Islam, but also the locus of its power and influence. While the Saudi government routinely casts itself as the protector and defender of the faith, they represent only a small fraction of the world’s Muslims.

4. (I’m gonna catch some hell for this, but . . .) Islam is NOT a “religion of peace.”

But wait! Neither is it a “religion of violence” or the heinous acts ISIS gins up hoping to generate YouTube views and goad the United States into war. While I laud former president George W. Bush for his helpful PR announcement following 9/11, it’s a conceptual error to think of a — indeed, any — religion as inherently peaceful or inherently barbaric. Instead, as is the case with any religious tradition, a vast majority of Muslim people are peace-loving, and there are a few really bad apples.

Whenever someone makes an argument that a tradition is or is not a particular way, what you are really hearing is his or her own interpretation of the tradition. Clearly, there are other ways to think about the same faith, as human history too well illustrates.

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