Islam and Barbarism

Can Islam be barbaric?
I pose, in my head, rhetorically,
meaning, I suppose, that it can’t.

But I can’t be sure.
Apologists spin out attentively
Islam’s message of peace
& co-existence, past the rivers
of commands that gleam
in blood of infidels, sufficient color
to make a carnival.
Truth is, Islam’s religion of compassion
Needing to purge the barbaric within.”