Listening for Islam's silent majority: "where are the moderate Muslims?"

Christian Science Monitor ^ | Monday, November 5, 2001 | By Peter Ford

[snorkeler]

An excellant letter to the editor on this subject HERE

[Tijeras_Slim]

Memo to Islamic Moderates:
They will kill and subjugate you first. Freedom isn't free, and evil never rests.

[Teacher317]

"There has always been politics in the sermons," said Mr. Shah, a clean-shaven computer specialist dressed in Western clothes. "Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't agree. But in Islam we can all think what we like."

I don't think this guy has been anywhere near the Middle East for the last hundred years. Would this be the appropriate place to post a few Muslim execution photos?

[Zorobabel]

"The major problem Muslims have is not that there is a single power that has hegemony in the world," such as the US, "but that we are not that single power," Esack argues. "

Therein lies the crux of the matter. They want what we got, and are willing to kill us to get it.

[DonQ]

Ummm, it's not PC to say this but there really aren't any Moslem moderates. If they're "moderate", then they're not really Moslem. It's a bit like talking about Jews who are both Orthodox and soft on eating pork. Or maybe it's like talking about "moderate Nazis".

[dennisw]

bttttttttttttttttttt

[Austin Willard Wright]

You sir, have just given the most powerful argument against those who want to entangle us more deeply into the screwed up Middle East. Our goal needs to remind simple and realistic: kill Bin Laden and his group. Then we should get the hell out and get out for good. If we try to "reform" the middle east or play power politics there, we are asking for a lot of heartache.

[MarkWar]

ping

Could you remove me from your ping lists, please? No offense, but I get around to seeing most of the threads anyway, and I'd rather keep my self-search page clear of posts that are not directed to me.

Mark W.

[dennisw]

Done. I get annoying pings myself. It's too easy now to ping en masse.

[BenF]

You sir, have just given the most powerful argument against those who want to entangle us more deeply into the screwed up Middle East. Our goal needs to remind simple and realistic: kill Bin Laden and his group. Then we should get the hell out and get out for good. If we try to "reform" the middle east or play power politics there, we are asking for a lot of heartache.

Killing bin Laden is only the beginning. He has a lot of supporters throughout the ME. If we get out for good, i.e., abandoning Israel, we would force them to use their nuclear weapons to defend themselves. If we are getting out for good, as you advocate, I assume you have no problem with this. Right?

[Whilom]

If we try to "reform" the middle east or play power politics there, we are asking for a lot of heartache.

A lot of heartache will be the least of our travail. You're right, we must keep out objectives clear (destroy terrorist organizations root and branch, and punish the states which have supported and harbored them), keep focused on those objectives, accomplish them, get out.

[Aquinasfan]

Listening for Islam's silent majority: "where are the moderate Muslims?"

I've been asking that question myself for a while.

[Lazamataz]

And yesterday, Amr Mussa, the head of the Arab League, resoundingly rejected bin Laden's call to join in a "religious" war against the Christian West. "Bin Laden does not speak in the name of the Arabs and Muslims," Mr. Mussa told journalists in Damascus.

"I now feel responsible to preach, actually to go on a jihad [holy war] against extremism ... and to urge other religious leaders" to do the same, says Siraj Wahaj, the imam of the Tawqa mosque in Brooklyn, New York, and a prominent voice in American Islam.

FINALLY! Some sane Muslim voices.

[JohnHuang2]

Bump!

[Lazamataz]

Then we should get the hell out and get out for good.

Several holes in you thesis:

1. Just because we leave the Middle East and Islam alone, does not mean that Islam will leave us alone. The radical fundamentalists want nothing less than total global domination by religious governments, worldwide. We could pull out and they would still continue to strike at us, until we are all dead.
2. If we pull out, where exactly are you planning to get that gasoline you need for your car? Or are you willing to go backwards 100 years in standard of living? If you are, be aware I am not.
3. If Israel is abandoned totally, within three years time there will be a nuclear exchange in the Mideast. Of course, unfortunately, I predict that there will be a nuclear exchange in the Mideast whether or not Israel is abandoned.

Islamic Fundamentalists will not be left alone. They will not be ignored. They have stated, and repeatedly, their goal is a goal of worldwide Islam and the complete elimination of all Western society. They pretty much want the entire world to live like Afghanistan, which is their ideal state. You can retreat into your tortoise shell and they will be here to pry it open and pick at your flesh.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

"Moderate" Muslim's (and odd term) have been as rare as White Tigers and skittish as buck with a rack during October. Maybe some will begin to be forced out by the circumstances, but they haven't shown very well during all of this - they have been more fearful than useful, perhaps terrorized more than anyone by all this. Haven't shown us much.

[George Smiley]

Sounds like my neighbors across the street.

They're scared s**tless and keeping a VERY low profile- she doesn't wear the hijab when she shops any more.

[ZULU]

"Moderate" muslims are few, far-between and intimidated by the vast majority of their fellows who don't think that way at all.

Also, they are silent because they know better than most of us that Islam is not a "peaceful" religion. It is a faith that spread slavery, intolerance and violence wherever it goes. Non-Muslim minorities in every Muslim country have been the objects of persecution and Muslims minorities in other countries have always been in the forefront of terrorist anti-government activities.

In doing so, they are only following the inhjunctions of the Mad Prophet himself. Read the Koran and the Hadiths and be enlighted about "true" Islam, unbelievers!

[crystalk]

Islam teaches violence, teaches that it will overcome all other peoples in the world by violence. Any person who is in any usual sense of the word "moderate" is no Muslim at all, but merely a worldly apostate.

I am not convinced that bin Laden is even the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, though of course he could have been, and he would have been if able. More likely it is state sponsored terrorism out of Damascus, the DFLP, PFLP etc.

We are often told that we Christians should be ashamed that there were instances in the past when Christianity was "spread with the sword." What we are not told is that Islam was spread ONLY with the sword, never in any other way, no one was peacefully convinced of its validity; no one saw a vision of its truth.

ISLAM ITSELF TEACHES THAT IT WILL SPREAD OVER THE WORLD BY VIOLENCE, will conquer the whole world by presenting it with the choice of: live an Islamic life or die. We are now down in the latter days when this prophecy must either be fulfilled, or Muhammad be shown to be a false prophet. Already, it is WITHIN the "Ummah" that the "chaos" is seen to exist, and if there is any peace and love in the world it is in Christendom, not in the Ummah.

There is a book well worth reading called "When Prophecy Fails," which certainly bears on the level of insanity and yes, violence, that a believer can exhibit when his prophet proves false; when the prophecies fail to materialize and in fact the contrary happens.

The very existence of Spain and Israel, for two, show that Islamic prophecy is failing fast. Note that any Muslim who can, flees from the Ummah and lives in the Christian West. The rich oil barons first. Poverty, illiteracy, disease, corruption, despotism, and vice mark every inch of land where Islam has raised its ugly head. But few Muslims have dared risk the death penalty by openly converting to Christianity or Judaism...