Despite what you see daily in mainstream media, Islam has nothing to do with cruelty... nothing at all.
The famous medieval Islamic scholar Shams al-Din Abu ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Ayyub al-Zurʿi al-Dimashqi al-Ḥanbali commonly known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (The son of the principal of [the school of] Jawziyyah) [1292–1350 CE / 691 AH–751 AH] and student of the infamous Ibn Taymiyyah pointed this out very clearly and without any doubt in his saying:
Islam is a mercy. If you see its opposite, cruelty, than know that is not Islam.