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Keyword: moderateislam

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  • Islam's two paths

    10/08/2009 7:15:16 PM PDT · by nuconvert · 12 replies · 583+ views
    National Post ^ | Oct. 08, 2009 | Salim Mansur
    In an authoritative essay published in The Wall Street Journal, Abdurrahman Wahid, the first president of newly democratic Indonesia from 1999 to 2001, described what constitutes "right Islam" as distinct from "wrong Islam." He warned people of good will to recognize that "a terrible danger threatens humanity." This peril, Wahid wrote, emanates from an "extreme and perverse ideology in the minds of fanatics," specifically "Wahhabi/Salafist ideology -- a minority fundamentalist religious cult fueled by [Saudi] petrodollars." The importance of this essay, and the warning in it, comes from the prestige of the author. Abdurrahman Wahid is an Islamic scholar who...
  • Al-Qaradawi Center for "Moderation"

    09/19/2009 12:20:21 AM PDT · by Cindy · 6 replies · 361+ views
    INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT.org - IPT News ^ | September 17, 2009 | n/a
    SNIPPET: "In an amazing bit of irony, a Qatari government fund is creating the Al-Qaradawi Centre for Islamic Moderation and Renewal, named after leading Sunni scholar and self-proclaimed "Mufti of martyrdom operations" Yousef Al-Qaradawi. Its director claims that the center will direct its "moderation" towards "politicians and economists," train imams, and show the "huge difference between terrorism and jihad." Yet all of these stated goals directly contradict Al-Qaradawi's statements in support of terrorism, his desire to overthrow capitalism, and his position as a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood." SNIPPET: "With all of his radical statements and hate speech, it...
  • Cairo speech worrisome for moderate Muslims

    06/14/2009 7:36:27 AM PDT · by Clive · 7 replies · 609+ views
    Toronto Sun ^ | 2009-06-12 | Peter Worthington
    President Barack Obama's speech last week in Cairo to the Muslim world has had wide and diverse reaction -- some ecstatic, some skeptical. In the adulatory category, a Newsweek editor, Evan Thomas, rhapsodized: "Reagan was all about America ... Obama is 'we're above that now' ... Obama's standing above the country, above the world; he's sort of God." So much for journalistic objectivity. Another, more considered view of the speech is Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, who knows more about Islam and Muslims than Obama, and certainly more than the exuberant Evan Thomas. In an exclusive interview on the insightful Newmajority.com blog,...
  • British "Voice of Moderate Islam" Arrested in Stabbing (video)

    03/14/2009 9:01:40 PM PDT · by nysuperdoodle · 9 replies · 430+ views
    Evil Conservative Radio ^ | 15 March 2009 | EC
    On the heels of the beheading in the offices of Bridges TV comes more confirmation of just how "moderate" moderate Islam is. Inayat Bunglawala, who advised the British government in the wake of the 7/7 attacks, was held on suspicion of attacking another man at his home.
  • Obama mulls reaching out to moderate Taliban: report

    03/07/2009 2:53:11 PM PST · by Mr. Mojo · 117 replies · 4,807+ views
    Reuters ^ | Mar 7, 2009
    NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is open to the idea of reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban, The New York Times reported on Saturday. In an interview with the newspaper published on its website, Obama said that some of the U.S. success in Iraq involved reaching out to Islamic fundamentalists who had been alienated by the tactics of al Qaeda in Iraq. "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region," he said. "But the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex." Obama, who last month approved the deployment of 17,000 more...
  • Obama: US should reach out to Taliban moderates

    03/07/2009 4:50:20 PM PST · by Free ThinkerNY · 78 replies · 2,111+ views
    Associated Press ^ | March 7, 2009
    WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he hopes U.S. troops can identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation. Asked in an interview with The New York Times if the United States is winning in Afghanistan, Obama said "no," while adding "our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation." "But you've seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think ... in the southern regions of the country, you're seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen previously," Obama said in...
  • Moderate Islam Needs to Condemn Jihadism Unequivocally

    02/24/2009 5:21:40 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 25 replies · 461+ views
    Thaindian News ^ | February 22nd, 2009 | Dr. Bhamy V Shenoy
    There has been an outpouring of sympathy for India from all over the world after the recent Mumbai carnage just like what the US received after 9/11. In recent years there have been such senseless killings in Bali, Indonesia (October 2002), Madrid train killings (March 2004), and the London bombings (July 2005). Between 9/11 in the US and 26/11 in India, there have been regular jihadi killings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Algeria, China and Russia. But jihadi terrorism involving the World Trade Center (New York), Madrid, Bali and London has been getting the world attention without any attempt to...
  • Beheading in Buffalo--How “moderate” was Muzzammil Hassan after all?

    02/18/2009 5:55:55 AM PST · by SJackson · 36 replies · 1,088+ views
    Frontpagemagazine ^ | 2-19-09 | Robert Spencer
    Beheading in Buffalo   By Robert SpencerFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Last Thursday, a woman named Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was founded decapitated in Orchard Park, New York, a village near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, was charged, rather oddly, with second-degree murder in the case. But the specter of someone who beheaded his wife being charged only with second-degree murder was the least of the oddities in this case: Aasiya Hassan’s body was found in the offices of the cable channel, Bridges TV. Aasiya Hassan was the inspiration for Bridges TV, and Muzzammil Hassan was its...
  • WHEN THE “SECULARISTS” BURN THE “HERETICS”

    02/05/2009 4:21:16 AM PST · by Shellybenoit · 2 replies · 188+ views
    Yidwithlid ^ | 2/5/09 | Barry Rubin
    The terrible truth is that the Muslim-majority Middle East is not yet, for most practical purposes, even at the starting point of social, political, and intellectual modernity. Indeed, this region is sunk so deeply into that syndrome that one of Adonis’s critics accused him of ignoring the alleged religious domination of everywhere else in the world by, "The Jewish rabbis in Israel, the religious people in the White House, or the pope in the Vatican, who heads a theocracy in the middle of Europe…." This is partly the old accusation that any critic in the Arab world is part of...
  • The Hidden Face Of Political Islamism

    07/14/2008 6:38:51 PM PDT · by Free ThinkerNY · 8 replies · 260+ views
    timesonline.co.uk ^ | July 15, 2008 | Dean Godson
    It is increasingly hard to draw a line between the agendas of the violent and non-violent -- Who says that Islamists can't learn a trick or two from the West when they have to? Take a glance at the glossy brochure of Islam Expo - billed as Europe's “biggest Islamic cultural festival” - which ended at Olympia yesterday. You could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at the catalogue for the forthcoming Boden sale that comes to the venerable London exhibition centre in a few weeks' time. Visitors to Islam Expo would have witnessed such innocent activities as...
  • The Moderate Supermajority

    03/02/2008 6:38:31 PM PST · by MadIsh32 · 19 replies · 65+ views
    http://www.michaeltotten.com/ ^ | 2/29/08 | Michael Totten
    My Contentions colleague Abe Greenwald takes a gloomy view of a new Gallup survey that shows 93 percent of the world’s Muslims are moderates. “We need to find out from one billion rational human beings why they largely refuse to stand up for humanity and dignity instead of cowering in the face of fascist thugs,” he wrote. First of all, I’d like to agree with Abe’s point that even this sunny survey suggests we still have a serious problem. If seven percent of the world’s Muslims are radical, we’re talking about 91 million people. That’s 65 times the population of...
  • In Search of Moderate Muslims

    01/28/2008 7:39:40 PM PST · by forkinsocket · 62 replies · 255+ views
    Commentary ^ | February 2008 | Joshua Muravchik and Charles P. Szrom
    Ever since his first post-9/11 speech summoning the nation to a war against terrorism, President Bush has stressed that “our war is against evil, not against Islam.” Indeed, his administration has branded the terrorists as “traitors to their own faith”—outlaws who are “trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.” There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of such pronouncements. But they also reflect a strategic imperative—namely, to prevent the jihadists from attracting wide support in the Muslim world. The goal of Bush’s policy is, rather, to call forth the Muslim majority against the acts and ideology of the terrorists....
  • American Muslims Strive to Become Model Citizens

    10/01/2007 3:35:30 AM PDT · by america4vr · 57 replies · 195+ views
    Spiegel Online ^ | September 13, 2007 | Marc Hujer and Daniel Steinvorth
    After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim immigrants were seen as a potential threat in the United States. They have since become model citizens -- and now they want a greater say in politics. Why shouldn't we wear head scarves? It is almost 1 p.m., time for noon prayers, and Abdul Malik Mujahid, 55, is in his office on the second floor of Chicago's Downtown Islamic Center, preparing for his sermon. On his desk are a Koran, a pad of paper and a Blackberry. A telephone rings in the next room as people hurry through the corridors. Soon Mujahid...
  • PBS Affiliates to air ABG Film's- "ISLAM V. ISLAMISTS: VOICES FROM THE MUSLIM CENTER

    08/10/2007 5:49:38 AM PDT · by nuconvert · 23 replies · 1,007+ views
    AIFD ^ | August 9, 2007
    PBS Affiliates to air ABG Film's- "ISLAM V. ISLAMISTS: VOICES FROM THE MUSLIM CENTER with follow-up Panel Discussion" August 9, 2007 AIFD Press Release Phoenix, Arizona: 1. AIFD Calls your attention to the official release and national distribution by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) of Islam v. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center with a follow-up discussion. This documentary was set to be part of the high-profile Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) Crossroads Program released in April 2007 before CPB reviewers refused to allow its release. Now through an agreement reached between CPB and ABG Films, Inc. and OPB, the film...
  • A Bridge to 'Moderate' Islam Is In Fact a Road to Hell

    08/07/2007 11:40:06 AM PDT · by Posting · 32 replies · 1,105+ views
    globalpolitician ^ | August 2007
    A Bridge to 'Moderate' Islam Is In Fact a Road to Hell Amil Imani - 8/8/2007 Islam is a religion of peace and the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals’- so claim academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists. The incantation of these “authorities” is the lullaby that puts the people into a sleep of complacency. Complacency and appeasement on the part of the free world and those well-meaning, non-practicing Muslims, can only serve Islam. There is no chance for co-existence with Islam. All one needs to know is to...
  • Thumbs down on Talibanisation

    04/27/2007 6:57:26 AM PDT · by Valin · 198+ views
    'Mullahgardi band karo': Peaceful rallies against violent mullahs Citizens of Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Thursday staged a peaceful protest against the violence of religious extremists who have been, trying to force their version of Islam on other people for sometime now. "Where's the writ of the state?" asked the biggest and the most prominent placard at the protest. The protest was a mix of women and extremists who had also launched the move to enforce sharia with seminary women in the lead. Strategic Analyst Shirin Mazari led the protestors who gathered barely a kilometre away from Constitution Avenue and walked...
  • Moderate Muslims Speak Out, But Not on PBS-Accused of Same Tactics Radicals Use Against Moderates

    04/25/2007 5:42:25 AM PDT · by SJackson · 10 replies · 488+ views
    CNSNews.com ^ | April 25, 2007 | Kevin Mooney
    Moderate Muslims Speak Out, But Not on PBS(CNSNews.com) - Islamists are working to build "parallel societies" with the aim of imposing strict Islamic law in parts of the West, according to a documentary the Public Broadcasting System has chosen not to air. "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center" highlights the work of moderate Muslims who oppose the Islamist agenda and are willing to speak out. PBS officials decided against airing the film, which PBS's Robert MacNeil told the Diane Rehm Show earlier this month was "one-sided" and "alarmist." Some of the key Muslim figures featured in the documentary...
  • Citizens of North African Origin in the French Electoral Process

    04/20/2007 6:50:10 AM PDT · by Valin · 2 replies · 246+ views
    MEMRI ^ | 4/20/07 | Nathalie Szerman
    The 2007 presidential elections in France have been characterized by the participation of a large number of French citizens of North African origin in the electoral process. Four applied for candidacy: the former mufti of Marseilles Soheib Bencheikh, [1] ambassador to France's Supreme Audio-Visual Council (CSA)Leila Bouachera, entrepreneur Rachid Nekkaz, and Zakaria Ben Mlouka, who holds both Tunisian and French citizenships. Only 12 of all applicants for candidacy managed to obtain the 500 mayors' signatures required to run - the most prominent of whom are Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolčne Royal, François Bayrou, and Jean-Marie Le Pen. None of the four prospective...
  • Road Map for Moderate Network Building in the Muslim World (long read)

    04/16/2007 4:09:23 PM PDT · by Valin · 9 replies · 837+ views
    RAND Corp. ^ | Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell H. Schwartz, Peter Sickle
    Identifying Key Partners and Audiences A critical part of U.S. network-building efforts, as well as in its broader public diplomacy and strategic communications policy, is identifying key partners and audiences. Difficulties in distinguishing potential allies from adversaries present a major problem to Western governments and organizations attempting to organize support for moderate Muslims. Work done by the RAND Corporation—in Cheryl Benard’s Civil Democratic Islam and Angel Rabasa et al., The Muslim World After 9/11—has begun to lay the framework for identifying ideological tendencies in the Muslim world,1 which is necessary in order to identify the sectors with which the United...
  • PBS at a Crossroads - Why is a film on moderate Islam being suppressed?

    04/15/2007 11:31:56 PM PDT · by neverdem · 18 replies · 1,137+ views
    National Review Online ^ | April 13, 2007 | Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
    April 13, 2007, 1:37 a.m. PBS at a CrossroadsWhy is a film on moderate Islam being suppressed? By Frank J. Gaffney Jr. On March 21, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the federal budgets of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) challenged the leaders of those two organizations concerning their handling of the film Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center. The film was produced at a cost of some $675,000 in taxpayer funds for the PBS series “America at a Crossroads,” which will begin airing next week. As...
  • Finally: Muslims Speak Out Against Jihad

    03/12/2007 7:33:51 AM PDT · by Valin · 8 replies · 1,298+ views
    We can have hope for the future now that, for the first time, moderate Muslims collectively are speaking out against Jihad. FSM Contributing Editor Walid Phares explains why the recent Secular Islam Summit could be key to the success of this effort. ________________________________________________ A unusual conference, taking place on the West coast of Florida, drew the attention of many observers of the War of Ideas: The first Secular Islam Summit. Organized by the Center for Inquiry Transnational and various activists, the meeting included two dozen speakers and about two hundred participants from various backgrounds and nationalities. It took place at...
  • Abdullah says moderates must fight extremists(exclusive interview)

    11/30/2006 4:32:00 PM PST · by mylife · 14 replies · 471+ views
    Hindustan Times ^ | November 30, 2006 | Vir Sanghvi
    Abdullah says moderates must fight extremists Vir Sanghvi New Delhi, November 30, 2006 The time has come for moderate Muslims all over the world to stand up and fight the extremists within the community. In an exclusive interview to the Hindustan Times, King Abdullah of Jordan said, "Let the silent majority win the street back." King Abdullah said that Islam had been hijacked by a minority of extremists who had imposed their own agenda on the community. Further, he said, this agenda relied on miscommunication of Islam's tenets. All over Asia, Muslims who did not speak Arabic were often misled...
  • What is a truly liberal Muslim to do?

    11/24/2006 3:54:01 PM PST · by billorites · 65 replies · 981+ views
    Firmas Press ^ | November 21, 2006 | Carlos Alberto Montaner
    Is there a liberal Islam? Liberal International is betting that there is. In mid-November, several hundred representatives from some 90 liberal parties and institutions worldwide met in Marrakesh, Morocco, to talk about democracy and development. However, while not proclaimed out loud, there was another, delicate underlying purpose: to strengthen the weak liberal tendencies that exist in Muslim nations.Liberal InternationalTwenty-nine parties from the Islamic world were represented in the event, in addition to the Moroccan hosts. The delegates came from countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and Indonesia. There was even an invitee from the Palestinian Authority.It was the 54th Congress...
  • Help Islamic extremism, shut up

    09/23/2006 6:16:26 PM PDT · by thehumanlynx · 33 replies · 813+ views
    Shut up. When all is said and done -- when protestors junk their placards, when burning churches cool, when a murdered nun's grave grows grass -- "shut up" is the underlying message of Pope Rage, the latest fulmination to come from Islam, this time over Pope Benedict's recent lecture on faith and reason. When the pope argued, quoting a Byzantine source on Muhammad, that the practice of forced conversion -- key to Islamic expansion over the centuries -- is inimical to both faith and reason, the reaction of anger and violence was instantaneous. Just shut up, the umma exclaimed. Pakistani...
  • Why We Cannot Rely on Moderate Muslims

    09/08/2006 6:56:51 PM PDT · by tobyprissy · 36 replies · 441+ views
    http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/why-we-cannot-rely-on-moderate-muslims.html
    CAIRAccording to Dr. Daniel Pipes, Omar Ahmad, the long-serving chairman of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, reportedly told a crowd of California Muslims in July 1998, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” The arrest of Ghassan ElashiIn 2005, three Dallas-area brothers were convicted of supporting terrorism by funnelling money to a high-ranking official in the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Ghassan and Bayan Elashi and their company were found guilty of all 21...
  • They Are Fascists

    08/14/2006 7:26:05 AM PDT · by Valin · 20 replies · 943+ views
    Asharq Al-Awsat ^ | 8/14/06 | Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
    Many of us are only concerned with reputation and image, our image in the media, and the reputation of the Muslims in the world, but they do not care about reforming the original source, their children. When US President George W. Bush described those who plotted to kill thousands of passengers in ten airliners as Muslim fascists, protests from a number of Islamic societies in the west and the east were voiced against this description. What is wrong with using a bad adjective to describe a terrorist as long as he is willing to personally call himself an Islamist; declares...
  • Islam in the modern century (an abomination in the eyes of others)

    06/04/2006 2:22:45 PM PDT · by IrishMike · 23 replies · 960+ views
    Many liberal Muslims in South-East Asia are trying to find a non-violent, middle way for their religion, writes Marian Wilkinson. SITTING in his prison cell in Malaysia on September 11, the former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, knew almost immediately the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington would irrevocably change his country, his religion and the whole Islamic world. "Never in Islam's history have the actions of so few of its followers caused the religion and its community of believers to be such an abomination in the eyes of others," Anwar wrote passionately in Who Hijacked Islam?, a...
  • Mark Steyn: Not Fit to Print

    03/13/2006 8:11:34 AM PST · by quidnunc · 15 replies · 1,226+ views
    The Western Standard ^ | March 13, 2005 | Mark Steyn
    Why expect "moderate Muslims" to stand up to the Islamist radicals when our own newspaper editors won't? As Pericles told the war-battered Athenians, "To a man of spirit, cowardice and disaster coming together are far more bitter than death striking him unperceived at a time when he is full of courage and animated by the general hope." Yes, I know. Bit of a downer for an opening number, but that's the way I feel. I am by nature a happy warrior, but in this last month I've seen way too much cowardice and disaster coming together. The Danish cartoons story...
  • Where are the moderate Muslims?

    03/12/2006 9:41:54 AM PST · by KeyLargo · 33 replies · 717+ views
    The Star (Chicago suburban) ^ | 03/12/2006 | MIchael Bowers , Star Columnist
    Where are the moderate Muslims? Sunday, March 12, 2006 Once I read that the number of Germans directly involved in the Holocaust — giving orders in Berlin, building the infrastructure of the death camps, rounding up victims, piloting trains, releasing the gas, hunting down escapees and so forth — was 100,000. In 1939 the population of the Reich was 80 million, so slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Germans were actually involved in murdering Jews. Yet, somehow, I never see anyone trying to clear the German volk of the guilt of the crimes of Hitler's "tiny extremist...
  • Where are the moderate Muslims?

    03/12/2006 7:27:48 AM PST · by SmithL · 145 replies · 2,089+ views
    The Star [South Chicago] ^ | 3/12/6 | Michael J. Bowers
    Once I read that the number of Germans directly involved in the Holocaust — giving orders in Berlin, building the infrastructure of the death camps, rounding up victims, piloting trains, releasing the gas, hunting down escapees and so forth — was 100,000. In 1939 the population of the Reich was 80 million, so slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Germans were actually involved in murdering Jews. Yet, somehow, I never see anyone trying to clear the German volk of the guilt of the crimes of Hitler's "tiny extremist minority." No, the verdict of history is that all...
  • Viewpoint: Many Muslims 'do' condemn terrorism

    12/13/2005 12:42:48 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 27 replies · 1,130+ views
    Middle East Times ^ | December 9, 2005 | Samar Dahmash Jarrah
    FLORIDA -- It's true. Many Muslims do condemn terrorism - we just don't hear about it in the American news media. Yet Americans continue to ask: "Why don't Muslims condemn terrorism? We keep waiting for the so-called moderates to speak out against violence and yet no one comes forward." A man in the audience asked me this question recently when I was invited to speak at a Unitarian Fellowship about what Arabs think about the US and Americans. I had just finished saying that many of the Arab people I interviewed for my book a year ago in Egypt, Jordan...
  • Mothers of Cdn. hostages plead for their release

    12/04/2005 12:23:36 PM PST · by Actuality · 14 replies · 572+ views
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051204/hostages_momspleas_051204/20051204?hub=TopStories The Iraqi Islamic party said such kidnappings tarnish the image of Islam and will have a "grave negative effect among those who call for ending ...
  • International Terrorist Reveals Secrets (Moderate Islam leads to radicalism)

    11/30/2005 10:50:00 AM PST · by jb6 · 17 replies · 1,178+ views
    The Moscow News ^ | 30.11.05 Wednesday | Bakhtiyar Akhmedkhanov
    Shukhrat Masirokhunov met with Osama bin Laden, was trained by Khattab, recruited mujaheddin and fought Americans in Afghanistan. He also has firsthand knowledge about the situation in Chechnya A Tashkent city court delivered a guilty verdict against members of the Akromiylar movement who took part in the Andizhan events (May, 12-13, 2005). The authorities allege that militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) were also involved. Shukhrat Masirokhunov, 34, a former chief of the IMU counterintelligence service who was extradited from Pakistan several months ago, is now awaiting trial in Tashkent. He faces 20 years in prison. It is...
  • A Man of Light Passes Away in Indonesia (Good article)

    09/09/2005 8:04:00 AM PDT · by Valin · 27 replies · 549+ views
    Asharq Al Awsat ^ | 9/9/05 | Amir Taheri
    It must be a sign of the times that while the latest diatribe from the fugitive terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri gets top media billing, the passing away of one of contemporary Islam’s most enlightened scholars receives virtually no mention. And, yet, Nurcholis Madjid, is certain to have a more lasting impact on the development of Islamic thought than either al-Zawahiri or his fellow fugitive Osama bin Laden. Madjid, who died last Monday aged 66, was one of Indonesia’s most daring Islamic thinkers and in large part responsible for the defeat of extremist and obscurantist currents that have emerged there in the...
  • U.S. Muslim Leader Seeks Bush's Support

    08/24/2005 4:52:20 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 43 replies · 634+ views
    AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/24/05 | Ken Kusmer - AP
    PLAINFIELD, Ind. - A leading U.S. Muslim group called on President Bush Wednesday to show his support for mainstream Islam in this country and worldwide by meeting with the group next week in Chicago. Bush could make a powerful statement to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims by appearing at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America, just as he showed his support for adherents of the religion when he visited a Washington mosque a few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Sayyid Syeed, the group's secretary general. ISNA, an umbrella organization of largely immigrant...
  • Moderate Muslims are a Tiny Minority

    08/16/2005 12:19:25 PM PDT · by ZGuy · 46 replies · 1,238+ views
    One of the nation's leading experts on Islam says that "moderate" Muslims are actually a tiny minority of the entire Islamic movement, with most Muslims either being jihadists or supportive of jihadists. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades'. He says there is a gross misunderstanding about moderate Muslims. "People talk about a tiny minority of extremists, [but] actually in terms of the truth about the Islamic world, it's the moderates who are the tiny minority -- not the jihadists," he says. Spencer says while...
  • How "Moderate" Muslims Can Help (Save) Themselves, WND

    07/22/2005 9:06:06 AM PDT · by quesney · 14 replies · 465+ views
    Friendly advice to peaceful Muslims Posted: July 21, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com There is a fast closing window of opportunity for the large majority of "peaceful Muslims" living in the United States and the United Kingdom. It is long past time for those Muslims who are not complicit with these radical Islamic clerics and their disciples who are preaching violence and hatred toward your host countries to actively get involved in exposing them. You are in the best position to know who these fanatics are. They live among you. They use your mosques to preach, teach and...
  • The myth of the 'moderate' Muslim

    07/20/2005 3:35:51 AM PDT · by Clive · 19 replies · 1,266+ views
    Since at least Sept. 11, 2001, the non-Muslim world at large has been waiting for that segment of the Muslim population designated as "moderate" to resolutely denounce terrorists who, in defiling its faith-tradition, have subverted Islam into a cult of death. The expectation there is a large, identifiable segment of "moderate" Muslims is a transposition to the Muslim world of the idea of "moderation" in politics and religion that sustains democracies. It is also a natural expectation that the sort of extremism associated with "jihadi" (war-mongering) politics of Muslim terrorism and suicide bombings would generate a counter-offensive by "moderate" Muslims,...
  • Where are "Moderate" Muslims in the Pew Survey (asks Washington Post's Howard Kurtz)

    07/19/2005 8:23:20 AM PDT · by quesney · 24 replies · 883+ views
    From media guru Kurtz, hardly a conservative or anti-Islamofascist radical. The veil of comfort in "moderate" Muslims is being pulled from everyone's eyes... A Real Bombshell By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 19, 2005; 8:12 AM I'm going to take a brief break from the Rove wars to talk about the real war. Maybe I'm just a glass-half-empty kinda guy, but I found some recent poll numbers on attitudes toward terrorism pretty depressing. Others are spinning the study from Pew as good news because it shows a drop in support among Muslims for Osama and suicide bombers....
  • The Very Bad News in the Pew Report on Muslim Attitudes (Wash Post's Kurtz)

    07/19/2005 8:21:33 AM PDT · by quesney · 56 replies · 1,823+ views
    From media guru Kurtz, hardly a conservative or anti-Islamofascist radical. The veil of comfort in "moderate" Muslims is being pulled from everyone's eyes... A Real Bombshell By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 19, 2005; 8:12 AM I'm going to take a brief break from the Rove wars to talk about the real war. Maybe I'm just a glass-half-empty kinda guy, but I found some recent poll numbers on attitudes toward terrorism pretty depressing. Others are spinning the study from Pew as good news because it shows a drop in support among Muslims for Osama and suicide bombers....
  • Doug Giles: Dear Moderate Muslims

    07/16/2005 8:24:57 PM PDT · by wagglebee · 6 replies · 605+ views
    Townhall.com ^ | 7/16/05 | Doug Giles
    Dear Moderate Muslims, What’s up? I see that you guys have been in the news a lot lately. I thought I’d write you a letter and ask you some questions because it seems as if some Muslims are involved in some very bad stuff around the globe, i.e. targeting and killing innocent people and all in the name of your god. After the damnable 911 terror attacks, President Bush stated that, “Islam is a religion of peace” and the people who carried out these atrocious acts of war are the evil fringe adherents of a good religion. We’d all like...
  • Fear Factor

    07/15/2005 7:23:44 AM PDT · by Valin · 18 replies · 518+ views
    Tech Central Station ^ | 7/14/05 | Ralph Kinney Bennett
    Concerning the "paralysis of modern Muslims" in the face of Muslim extremist terror, which fellow TCSer Arnold Kling wrote on recently, I would suggest that a big reason for Muslim silence is, simply, terror. Steven Schwartz in a recent TCS article points to a type of spiritual renewal and reinforcement of traditional Muslim principles sans the "bloody stain" cast upon them by the Islamic terrorists. But the state of fear in which many Muslims find themselves is a formidable barrier to such a transformation. Americans and Britons have mainly shown anger and contempt for the Islamofascist terrorists. The Spanish? Well,...
  • Move may reduce attacks in Islam's name Top Muslim leaders denounce some violence,..

    07/12/2005 7:48:20 PM PDT · by bayourod · 18 replies · 392+ views
    The Dallas Morning News ^ | July 12, 2005 | JEFFREY WEISS
    Top Muslim leaders denounce some violence, aren't clear on West Days before the London bombings, many of the Muslim world's top religious leaders declared that much of the violence committed in Islam's name is not spiritually legitimate. More than 150 Muslim imams and scholars met in Jordan, called by King Abdullah II. The unprecedented statement they released could drain some of the faith-based power behind wars between Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere, some experts say. The impact on attacks like the ones against non-Muslim nations – the U.S., Spain and England, among others – are less obvious. It does not...
  • Progress via a Muslim Spong?

    07/09/2005 9:37:42 AM PDT · by sionnsar · 4 replies · 399+ views
    GetReligion ^ | 7/08/2005 | tmatt
    Driving back from the North Carolina mountains tonight, I heard an amazing commentary on NPR that fits into our discussion of the MSM’s heated search for a “moderate” version of Islam that it can hold up as some kind of majority viewpoint. This is part of the whole template that there are “fundamentalists” in all faiths who are equally dangerous in their often violent quest for the illusion of certainty and moral absolutes and then there are “moderates” who, if they all had their way, would all get along as they search for the Eternal Other.Here is the NPR link...
  • Vanity: Dad's conversations with Muslim shop owner about London bombing (chilling wake up call)

    07/08/2005 7:13:25 PM PDT · by NZerFromHK · 131 replies · 4,597+ views
    vanity | 9 July 2005 | NZerFromHK
    My father owns a business in the CBD area here in Auckland. We have a shop selling Persian rugs next to us and the owner is Iranian himself. He is a moderate Muslim (yep, the MSM definition of it no less) and seems to be very nice to us and other nearby shops' owners. Dad had this conversation with the owner yesterday regarding the London bombing: Dad: Did you read the papers this morning? Owner: Yes, a big news event. Dad: It's sad, isn't it? Owner: Well, the British got it upon themselves. You know that Americans and British have...
  • Iran: Moderate candidate resigns, confirming vote-rigging in poll

    06/20/2005 3:10:55 PM PDT · by Wiz · 4 replies · 280+ views
    AKI ^ | 2005 Jun 20
    Tehran, 20 June (AKI) - Iran's former parliamentary speaker and reformist candidate in the presidential elections, Mehdi Karrubi has resigned from his official posts, including that of advisor for the Beit Rahbari, the secretariat to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. At the same time, the head of the Pasdaran or Revolutionary Guard, the elite hardline armed force that answers directly to Khamenei, has called on its commanders to "mobilise the troops" for the second ballot on Friday. In a letter published on Monday afternoon to confirm accusations of vote-rigging in the vote on Friday, Karrubi spoke of the...
  • Zarqawi’s Islamic Challenge: Terror Leader Throws Down Gauntlet to Moderate Muslims

    06/03/2005 6:15:16 PM PDT · by CHARLITE · 9 replies · 546+ views
    HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE.COM ^ | JUNE 2, 2005 | ROBERT SPENCER
    While the world media has been consumed with speculation about the health and whereabouts of jihad leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it has hardly noted at all a challenge he issued just before he was injured. Yet this challenge could in the long run prove to be more potent than the suicide bombings he continues to inspire in Iraq. It came in the form of an audiotape he released on May 20, in which he presents a detailed justification of his operations. His defense unfolds not on prudential, but on theological grounds: making copious reference to Islamic sources, Zarqawi does his...
  • Zarqawi’s Islamic Challenge: Terror Leader Throws Down Gauntlet to Moderate Muslims

    06/02/2005 6:32:47 AM PDT · by StoneGiant · 8 replies · 550+ views
    Human Events Online ^ | 6/2/2005 | Robert Spencer
     Zarqawi’s Islamic Challenge: Terror Leader Throws Down Gauntlet to Moderate Muslims by Robert Spencer Posted Jun 2, 2005 While the world media has been consumed with speculation about the health and whereabouts of jihad leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it has hardly noted at all a challenge he issued just before he was injured. Yet this challenge could in the long run prove to be more potent than the suicide bombings he continues to inspire in Iraq. It came in the form of an audiotape he released on May 20, in which he presents a detailed justification of his operations. His...
  • Muslims use Quran to wage war against terror

    04/04/2005 6:10:38 PM PDT · by Halfmanhalfamazing · 120 replies · 1,238+ views
    Associated Press ^ | 03/27/2005 | Brian Murphy
    Moderate Muslims are increasingly turning to Islam's sacred core - the Quran and the laws and traditions it inspires - to defend their views and discredit radicals as part of a ''counter-jihad'' for Islamic hearts and minds. Terrorist attacks by al-Qaida and other militant groups add urgency to the ideological debate, which challenges the dominance of Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist Wahhabist strain that has used its wealth and influence to mute moderate Islamic voices. ''The long and painful silence of moderate theologians and experts in Islam jurisprudence - who had been bought off or intimidated into silence - is finally starting...
  • The Moderate Voice of Islam?? (Islam-online.net)

    02/27/2005 12:54:36 PM PST · by abu afak · 13 replies · 1,145+ views
    A self-proclaimed 'moderate' Islamic website condones Palestinian suicide bombings against civilians. All decent human beings recoiled at the headline of January 5, 2003: Double-Suicide Bombing Kill 22, Wound 120 in Tel Aviv We all know how radical Islamists support these terrorist murderers. But what do the voices of "moderate" Islam have to say? Are we hearing an outcry from Islamic religious leaders in the Western world? The following Fatwa (Islamic legal religious opinion) is from the "Ask the Scholar" feature of www.Islam-Online.net. The question was asked and answered on January 5, 2003, the day of the double-suicide bombing in Tel...