The militants who declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria last June have little in common with the average westerner, but they do agree on this: violence and Islam are inextricably linked.

The events of the past dark year might seem to bear them out. New forms of militancy emerged in Syria, long host to a multitude of faiths. Islamist gangs targeted Christians in Libya. The Yazidis, inheritors of ancient pre-Islamic traditions who had lived innocuously in northwestern Iraq for millennia, were set upon in August by jihadi fighters, their homes seized, the women among them kidnapped and sold as slaves.

Extremist interpretations of Middle Eastern history promote a narrative of narrow-mindedness and violence. And yes, persecution has happened to the Yazidis before — 72 times, by their count. Yet the history of the Middle East is far from being an uninterrupted sequence of persecutions. If it were, neither the Yazidis nor the 10m or more other non-Muslims who live in Arab countries would be anywhere to be found. They would have gone the way of Europe’s pre-Christian religions, few of which survived into the Middle Ages.