Actually, religion is neutral, said Professor James Piscatori, who is deputy director of the Australian National University’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies.

“Religion can lead to conflict and it can also lead to peace.

“We should not assume that religion is automatically violent.”

He said in order for religion to be used as an instrument of peace, one of the important factors was that there must be leaders who are willing to speak up against violence.

“You need political leaders to stand up against violence.

“There have been those who speak up and the more who do that the better. There is progress from this but it’s a slow push.

“I’m always annoyed at those who question why Muslims aren’t speaking up against terrorist groups like IS (Islamic State).

“The fact is that they do so on a regular basis.”

Piscatori said this at a public lecture on “Religion, politics, and the pursuit of peace” at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (Ikmas) at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia here today.

The professor said another important step was to change the religious curriculum being taught to the public.

“This is a political issue and must be dealt with by the government as it is the government that decides what curriculum is being taught.”

He believed that religious education in many societies creates people who are more prone to conflict.

He said the problem with most religious education — whether it be Islam or otherwise — was that pupils are being taught not only that one religious group is right and the other is wrong, but also that one has the right to dehumanise the other and in effect commit acts of violence towards the other.

Piscatori said in order to combat this, both the government and the people must “shatter” the monopoly of religion by certain religious classes.

“This is going to take some time but the more people who appropriate to themselves the authority to speak about religion the better.”