If some deranged criminal and his gang from a crazy Christian cult used their AK-47’s and shotguns and pistols to rape and pillage the countryside, and then they kidnapped a whole school of young girls,forcing them to become their “wives” and insisting these women were now “true believers” in this form of Christian fanaticism, would we blame such violent insanity on the Christian scriptures?
No, of course not.
To do so would show ignorance of both the scriptures themselves and the long tradition of daily practicing Christians. “These are violently insane murderers,” we might agree, “who simply use Christianity as an excuse, a front for their violently aberrant lusts.”
Sadly, we need to remind ourselves and others that this is equally true with the deranged criminal gang now running for their lives in Nigeria who call themselves a name which translates as “committed to the Prophet’s teachings,” and Boko Haram (which means, “Western education is forbidden.”) These are murderers and criminals, and in no way can they claim even a penny’s worth of legitimacy based on Muslim teachings, any more than could our Christian example claim theirs was a “legitimate” Christianity.

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA With a malevolent laugh, the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremists tells the world that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off, dashing hopes for their freedom.”If you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you … to die from grief,” Abubakar Shekau sneers, addressing the parents of the girls and young women kidnapped from a remote boarding school more than six months ago.

via Nigerian extremist says kidnapped girls married | The Miami Herald.

Let’s be clear:
1. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent
2. It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert
3. It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights
4. It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights
5. It is forbidden in Islam to mistreat–in any way–Christians or any other “People of the Scripture.”

(See Muslim Scholars from around the world respond to ISIS, which can be directly applied to Boko Haram.)
For most of the last 1400 years, these tenets were agreed and practiced by the vast majority of the world’s Muslims. They are still practiced by the vast majority of Muslims today. Let’s don’t let a wacko Muslim cult leader in the lineage of Christian cult leader David Koresh taint our view of the billion people–our brothers and sisters– who practice the true Islam.
It’s unfortunate, but we have to remind ourselves, and others, time and time again, Boko Haram is not Islam!