ISIS rebels hunting for wives: Iraq crisis

"...those who would literally follow what bible says would be hard to differentiate from the Muslim reactionaries (I don't think of them as radical. Radical would be things like equality between sexes, tolerance of other dogmas, etc)

I revisited your post again because it didn't seem clear the first time. I believe your saying Christians (because you cite the bible) would be indistinguishable from Muslim "reactionaries" were they to literally follow the bible's injunctions? I am not Christian but am quite familiar with Judeo-Christianity and while I can cobble together some examples to support your assertion, I generally find it is incorrect. There exists today both Christian and Jewish sects that are wholly intolerant, militant, and reflect your point, but they must do theological gymnastics to conclude this mandate. The bible in both its dispensations and generally accepted practices does motivate proselytizing, but not eternal genocide against others- big difference.

Islam requires few contortions to grasp the edicts. I will not make an argument based on countless examples but only submit the source documents are most definitely qualitatively different in the motivation to violence on fellow man.

(For my second book I elected to bridge the mystical similarities between Islam and the Judeo-Christian traditions. Excepting the Sufi experience I had to continually return to the Quran to find the communion examples, the transcendent injunctions, the sources that should have jumped off the pages evoking surrendering in God. What I found instead was that I was doing the theological gymnastics to try and stretch mostly unrelated Sura passages into mystical comparisons. After a time, the voluminous references to pain, and suffering, and killing, and hell, and more suffering, and more killing became exhausting and I tired and gave up. I could not for the life of me distill a transcendent mystical manuscript from any where in that book).

I do not practise Islam but I am interested in metaphysics. If you research 'Tawhid' (doctrine of Oneness) maybe it would provide some insight.

If you are truly interested in research into Islam you may be interested in the content at the URL below, some quotes

“God is the Outward and the Inward”

“God is the Light of the heavens and the earth, the likeness of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp, the lamp is a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star kindled from a blessed tree, an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil well-night would shine, even if no fire touched it; light upon lights; God guides to His light whom He will. And God strikes similitudes for man, and God has knowledge of everything. (Qu’ran 24:35)”

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-mysticism/