As the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) uses Islamic arguments to justify its barbaric acts of killing, immolation and slavery, Muslims need to ask critical questions about the use and misuse of their tradition in the modern world. Using Islam to justify violence and a lust for power betrays a disturbed mindset rather than being an indication of religious devotion. While prominent Muslim scholars and ordinary Muslims reject it, such a mindset disrupts peace, security and trust in Muslim societies. Yet, ISIS, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and the like, continue to twist and abuse Islamic law to legitimate their claims to violence. Furthermore, as Caner Dağlı notes: "The vast majority of victims of jihadist groups are other Muslims, and when an attack takes place in the West it is the Muslim community that suffers the backlash from the society in which they live."How does one respond to this?Three factors play a key role here. The first is the misuse of the Islamic legal tradition, whereby ISIS ideologues pick and choose those aspects that suit their violent agenda. In most cases, these ideologues have decided to turn violent before they turn to the sources of Islam. As Karen Armstrong argued in a Guardian piece in September 2014, violence can be justified by any distorted notion of country, nation or class struggle and violence committed in the name of religion can use any source for its justification.The second factor is the cultural traditions that take precedence over religious principles. A case in point is the status of women in Islam. The two sources for Islam – the Quran and hadith, provide the general outlines of the status of women in society. From Turkish and Arab to Persian and Indian, however, each cultural tradition has, over time, given its own hue to the implementation of these principles. Some societies enforce a strict code of behavior in regard to women. This has very little to do with religion and especially the practice of the first Muslim community in Mecca and Medina where Muslim women were part and parcel of social, economic and cultural life. The same holds true for tribal loyalties, education and relations with non-Muslims. The third factor is the twisted interpretation of the conditions of modernity. In a great irony, violent groups reject modernity only to end up adopting its most extreme argument and instruments. In the name of fighting against the injustices of the modern world, they employ modern techniques and technologies that reproduce violence and extremism in a religiously coded form. The 9/11 attacks on the U.S. are a case in point. The recent terrorist acts by ISIS and its ilk are not any different in nature.All these play a role in the twisted ideology of extremist and violent groups. There is no easy way to stop these groups. The critical task is to rob the extremist of both their conceptual and practical means of justification. It is of critical importance to reassert the authority of established religious scholars and reclaim the Islamic juridical tradition. Last year, a large number of Muslim scholars and jurists signed an open letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, repudiating his claims to legitimacy. The overarching principles and goals of religion already provide the general framework of religious and juridical reasoning based on the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet of Muhammad. Both this principle and the larger context of Islamic jurisprudence delegitimize the ideology of ISIS. This fact needs to be stated with clarity and force.This fact needs to be supplemented with a critical understanding of what passes as "culture," the sum of the traditions, mores and practical norms of a community. It is not enough to admit the pervasive nature of culture and its coloring of religious principles. A critical question for Muslim scholars is how culture sidesteps and trumps clearly-established ethical-religious principles and why even a devout society allows such a culture to disfigure the core teachings of its religion. No cultural practice can be tolerated if it violates the fundamental principles of faith, reason and human decency. Whether we are talking about the use of force, women or tribal relations, the principles of virtue, justice and freedom should take precedence over societal and tribal norms that undermine religious ethics.The third element is our state of humanity in late modernity – a theme that is usually overlooked, but its role in the rise and appeal of extremist ideologies needs to be considered in a serious manner. The aesthetization of violence through modern means of communication and the great injustices inflicted upon millions of people around the world prepare the ground for all sorts of violent acts including school shootings, gang violence, racial killings, hate crimes, religious and sectarian conflict and civil wars. To surmount this is no easy task, but the fact that it is difficult does not mean that we should give up on it. The challenge is to fight the beast without becoming one.Muslims need to critically address these issues so that they can produce genuine solutions to real problems. Understandably, they also have to stand up against Islamophobic smear campaigns. And they ought to expose the hypocrisies of the current global order and fight for justice. But none of these should be an excuse for using Islamic heritage to justify what ultimately is a very modern and worldly struggle for power and cruelty.