Identifying Moderate Muslims
Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 8:09:02 pm PST
A good piece by Daniel Pipes on Identifying Moderate Muslims:
With time, individual Muslims are finding their voice to condemn Islamist connections to terrorism. Perhaps most outstanding is an article by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a Saudi journalist in London: “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists,” he writes, “but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. ... We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.”
Other analysts have followed al-Rashed’s example. Osama El-Ghazali Harb writes from Egypt that “Muslim and Arab intellectuals and opinion leaders must confront and oppose any attempt to excuse the barbaric acts of these [terrorist] groups on the grounds of the suffering endured by Muslims.” From Virginia, Anouar Boukhar holds that “Terrorism is a Muslim problem, and refusal to admit so is indeed troubling.”
The bad news: There are lots of fake-moderates parading about, and they can be difficult to identify, even for someone like me who devotes much attention to this topic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations still wins mainstream support and the Islamic Society of North America still sometimes hoodwinks the U.S. government. The brand-new Progressive Muslim Union wins rave reviews for its alleged moderation from gullible journalists, despite much of its leadership (Salam Al-Marayati, Sarah Eltantawi, Hussein Ibish, Ali Abunimah) being well-known extremists.
