Yes, there is a moderate Islam

'What moderate Muslims?" is the near-inevitable retort to my stating that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution.

Where are the anti-Islamists' demonstrations against terror, their combating of Islamists, their reassessments of Islamic law? I am asked.

Moderate Muslims do exist, I reply. Admittedly, they do not constitute a movement but represent mere wisps in the face of the Islamist onslaught. This means, I argue, that the US government and other powerful institutions should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering and celebrating those brave Muslims who, at personal risk, stand up and confront the totalitarians.

A just-published study from the RAND Corporation, Building Moderate Muslim Networks, methodically takes up and thinks through this concept. Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell H. Schwartz and Peter Sickle grapple intelligently with the innovative issue of helping moderate Muslims grow and prosper.

They start with the argument that "structural reasons play a large part" in the rise of radical and dogmatic interpretations of Islam in recent years - one of those reasons being the Saudi government's generous funding over the last three decades for the export of the Wahhabi version of Islam. Saudi efforts have promoted "the growth of religious extremism throughout the Muslim world," permitting the Islamists to develop powerful intellectual, political and other networks. "This asymmetry in organization and resources explains why radicals, a small minority in almost all Muslim countries, have influence disproportionate to their numbers."

The study posits a key role for Western countries here: "Moderates will not be able to successfully challenge radicals until the playing field is leveled, which the West can help accomplish by promoting the creation of moderate Muslim networks."

DOES THIS sound familiar? It resembles the late 1940s, when Soviet-backed organizations threatened Europe. The four authors provide a helpful potted history of American network-building in the early Cold War years, in part to show that such an effort can succeed against a totalitarian enemy, in part to glean ideas for use at present. (One example: "a left hook to the Kremlin is the best blow," implying that Muslims can most effectively batter Islamism.)

Reviewing American efforts to fight Islamism, the authors find these lacking, at least with regard to strengthening moderates. Washington, they find, "does not have a consistent view on who the moderates are, where the opportunities for building networks among them lie, and how best to build the networks."

They are only too right. The US government has a disastrously poor record in this regard, with an embarrassing history of twin delusions: either thinking Islamists are moderates, or hoping to win them over. Such government figures as FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, State Department undersecretary Karen Hughes, and National Endowment for Democracy head Carl Gershman wrong-headedly insist on consorting with the enemy.

Instead, the RAND study promotes four partners: secularists, liberal Muslims, moderate traditionalists, and some Sufis. It particularly emphasizes the "emerging transnational network of laicist and secularist individuals, groups, and movements," and correctly urges cooperation with these neglected friends.

In contrast, the study proposes de-emphasizing the Middle East, and particularly the Arab world. Because this area "offers less fertile ground for moderate network and institution building than other regions of the Muslim world," it wants Western governments to focus on Muslims in Southeast Asia, the Balkans and in the Western diaspora, and to help make available their ideas in Arabic.

This novel stratagem defies a centuries'-old pattern of influence emanating from the Middle East, but it is well worth a try.

EVEN THE generally hard-headed RAND study sometimes lets down its guard. Dismayingly, the quartet refrains from condemning Washington for dialoguing with lawful Islamists even as it cautiously endorses European governments treating some Islamists as partners. It mistakenly characterizes the US-based "Progressive Muslim Union" as promoting secular Islam, when it is really another Islamist organization, but with a hip tone. (No other Islamists dared host a feature called "Sex and the Umma.")

Building Moderate Muslim Networks is not the final word on its subject but it marks a major step toward the systematic reconfiguring of how to implement Washington's policy to combat Islamism. The study's meaty contents, clear analysis and bold recommendations usefully move the debate forward, offering precisely the in-depth strategizing Westerners urgently need.

I agree with your thinking. I went to Turkey with a Catholic Tour group, and we were welcomed warmly by the Turks...everywhere. We went into several mosques, which were spectacular in their design and architecture. We met with other Catholic groups in the area, and attended mass at a Catholic church. The people were of all types and from all areas of Turkey. There may be some antiquated law on the books in some small area somewhere, but the vast majority of the people here are very accepting of all religions. From my experience christians congregated in large public groups, and even worshiped together without fear. It was a wonderful place to visit, and I would encourage all of you that doubt that there are moderate muslims to do some research on the area.

The problem is you and others here buy into the Wahhabist/Salafist version of Islam.
If what you are saying is true please explain why in the last elections in Malaysia & Indonesia the Islamist parties lost...badly...very badly? Or maybe you could explain why so many (Muslim) Iraqi soldiers are fighting along side American soldiers?
I guess these aren’t “Real” Muslims either.
Pakistanis Rally Against Mosque
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6560921,00.html
Monday April 16, 2007 8:01 AM

By ZARAR KHAN

Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - About 100,000 people rallied in Pakistan’s largest city Sunday against a radical Islamic mosque and seminary that launched a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign in the country’s capital last week.
(snip)

Or this guy
If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi Arabia [Brit muslim speaks out]
The Times (UK) ^ | August 20, 2006 | by Shahid Malik
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1686929/posts

What Do Muslims Think?
Amir Taheri
The American Interest
May/June 2007
http://www.able2know.com/forums/a2k-post2630847.html#2630847

If you do not know who Mohamed is then you do not know what a Muslim is. Muslims worship Mohamed, period. Mohamed was a murderous pedohpile warrior who slaughtered and conquered vast lands. If Muslims do not follow and submit to Mohameds teachings then they are NOT faithful Muslims.

Only unfaithful Muslims are "moderate". There is no such thing as a moderate form of Islam. "unfaithful" Muslims are more peaceful, but peaceful Muslims may only be waiting their time. Islamic clerics will tell Muslims moving to a non-Muslim It is okay to lie if it advances their goals. It is okay to feign support of the US Constitution until they have acquired sufficient power to change it themselves.

‘Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth’ --Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
"In reality Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebiuld it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals... ...Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam..." -- From Sayeed Abdul A'la Maududi, Jihad in Islam

"Jihad and the rifle alone. NO negotiations, NO conferences and NO dialogue" -- From Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, Join The Caravan

"What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you? (1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. (a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; " -- From Osama Bin Laden "Letter to America" Nov. 24, 2002

"... the march of resistance will continue until the islamic flag is raised not only over the minarets of Jerusalem but over the whole universe," -- Hamas Leader Mahmoud Zahar, January 16, 2004

The Coming Islamic Takeover of the U.S.: "Saudis often discuss the issue of the U.S. becoming a Muslim state in the future. On a March 17 broadcast on Iqraa TV, Saudi preacher Sheik Said Al-Qahtani discussed this issue, as well as the cases in which Muslims are permitted to declare a defensive Jihad: "… We did not occupy the U.S., with 8 million Muslims, using bombings. Had we been patient, and let time take its course, instead of the 8 million, there could have been 80 million [Muslims] and 50 years later perhaps all the US would have become Muslim…" -- from "Incitement to Jihad on Saudi Government - Controlled TV" MEMRI

IRAN: "The Internal Debate in Iran: How to Respond to Western Pressure Regarding Its Nuclear Program" of June 17, 2004.(6) The main threats were:

1. The recruitment and training of thousands of Iranian volunteers by Iran's Revolutionary Guards for suicide attacks against Western, European, and U.S. targets in Iraq, and their dispatch to Iraq.(7)

2. Resumption of Iran's project for long-range Shihab 4 and Shihab 5 missiles, capable of reaching Europe and the U.S., by order of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei.(8)

3. Statements by senior Revolutionary Guards officials about a plan to eliminate "Anglo-Saxon civilization" using missiles and martyrdom [suicide] bombers, and about "29 sensitive targets" in the West, already identified by Iranian intelligence with the aim of blowing them up.(9)

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