Mistake of Generalisation

MISTAKE OF GENERALISATION is an exception as a general rule. This would be a completely wrong generalisation, which would be academically unacceptable. This same sort of wrong generalisation has been made with regard to the Quran. Taking some verses about war in the Quran, some people claim that the Quran is a book of war and violence. Now, this is actually a very erroneous generalisation. The fact of the matter is that more than 99% of the verses of the Quran are those that are related to such positive themes as peace and humanity. Less than 1% of the verses of the Quran provide instructions for defence in case of open aggression by an opponent. In this context, asserting that a few verses represent the overall teachings of the Quran is entirely inaccurate and lacks scientific validity. This evil of making generalisations is very widespread in our society. Many people’s mentality is such that if there is someone they adore, they select some of his virtues and project them in a grossly exaggerated manner, using these few virtues to present a supposedly complete picture of the person. On the other hand, they ignore the virtues of someone they dislike, and, instead, search for and extract some of his faults. They express these faults in a very exaggerated fashion in order to create a misleading general impression about the person as a whole.