The Qu'ran has some content that seems to justify religious violence, and other content that quite clearly rejects it. I'd say it's overall message on violence is 'mixed' or perhaps even inconsistent. I think calling it a religion of violence on the basis of the content that seems to justify violence is dishonest, because it cherry-picks the passages that support violence and defines the religion by them, while ignoring the parts that reject violence and call for peace, tolerance, and non-violence. I could just as easily do the opposite, cherry-picking the peaceful parts and ignoring the rest, and thereby claim that Islam is a religion of peace. The reality is more complex than either of these characterizations; Islamic scripture contains messages that can be used to support both violence AND non-violence/peace/tolerance, and which of these messages a given interpretation emphasizes are going to depend on extra-scriptural factors. That doesn't make a very good smear line for some right-winger's anti-Muslim website, though. "Islam is a religion of violence" is a lot snappier than "Islam can be used to rationalize violence by people who are already inclined towards violence for other reasons, just like all other religions".
Also, the Tanakh contains plenty of violent and bloody-minded passages where people are told to kill others for religious reasons (often quite horribly), but no-one uses this as a basis to accuse Judaism of being a "religion of violence". So the fact that people try to label Islam a "religion of violence" has more to do with stereotyping, contemporary prejudices, and the current politico-cultural climate than with the actual content of the Qu'ran. If these people were honestly trying to identify "religions of violence" on the basis of scriptural content, they'd be denouncing Judaism right along with Islam. The fact that they're not proves that they're really trying to grind an axe against Islam, not honestly and objectively determine which religions are "violent" in their scriptural message.
Plus, bear in mind that a religion's scriptural content apparently does very little to guide the behavior of many of it's putative adherents; because Christianity's scriptural message is unambiguously pacifistic, yet the history of Christianity is drenched in the blood of religious warfare and persecution. So obviously a religion doesn't have to be even slightly violent in it's scriptural content in order for people to commit hideous acts of violence in it's name. I have to roll my eyes when people, often Christians, assert that Islamic violence/terrorism stems from the violent message of the Qu'ran; don't they realize that their own religion has acted just as violently despite having a completely non-violent message? The human ability to twist and rationalize is unlimited, scriptural content is almost totally divorced from how people actually act. The violence comes from non-religious sources.
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