MUST READ: IN SEARCH OF 'MODERATE' MUSLIMS

In Search of Moderate Muslims
by 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. As the Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has put it: “radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution.”

This is one facet of U.S. policy on which there has been virtually no dissent. But it begs the question: what exactly is moderate Islam, and where can we find it?

The term itself is perhaps unfortunate. “Moderate” implies a lesser quantity or degree of something. A moderate leftist, for example, is not too far Left. Is a “moderate Muslim” not too Islamic? To put it this way is to concede that Islam is, properly understood, antithetical to the West, and that at issue is only the intensity of the antipathy. By implication, this is to accept that terrorism is a natural corollary of an exacting fidelity to Islamic tenets—the very premise we presumably deny.

It is true that Islam’s fierce dogma of monotheism insists that the world in its entirety must come to acknowledge Allah and the teachings of his unique messenger. Passages of Islamic Scripture imply a relentless war until this goal is achieved. But, as always with Scripture, contrary inferences may be drawn from other passages. In any case, non-Muslims clearly cannot accept a Muslim doctrine of war against them and, if need be, will surely meet war with war. At the same time, it is scarcely the place of non-Muslims to tell Muslims how pious their practice ought to be or how intense their devotion to their faith. If the premise of our fight against terrorism is that Muslims must become less devout, then the prospects for success will be both poor and beyond our control.

When we speak of moderate Muslims as a counterweight to extremists, then, what we seek has nothing to do with the ardor of their religious convictions. Rather, it centers on the acceptance or rejection of pluralism. In this view, Muslims may still hope and pray for the eventual recognition by all mankind of the truth of Muhammad’s message. (Christians and Jews do something similar.) But they may not take up the sword to hasten the advent of that goal or pursue disputes among or within countries by violent means. That implies democratic methods and a spirit of tolerance.

But if this explains what we mean—or ought to mean—by moderate Muslims, where can we find them, and how can we tell the real thing?





Pertinent Links:

1) In Search of Moderate Muslims