What the antagonists miss...

Submitted by Alim Javid (Canada), Aug 14, 2002 at 10:54

I think in his article, Daniel Pipes noted an important question that has been missed or clearly avoided by some of his readers and colleagues.

Militant Islam as Pipes calls it, or fundamentalism, or Bin Ladenism, has been quickly losing appeal even among those some less than 10% of total 1 billion Muslims in the world which according to Pipes were potential sympathizers of this ideology. The number of real activists was far less. After the horrors of September 11, Bin Ladenism is already on sharp decline in Muslim world and will probably vanish in a few years. The question for the western world, now, is the relationship with the rest of the Muslims.

A large majority of Muslims, myself included, do not interprete the Islamic texts and Koran the way Bin laden or other militants do. Now many of you are coming back at us, telling us that the real Islam is what Bin Laden preaches, not what we believe. Is that what you indeed want to see? To force anybody who wants to be a devote Muslim, to Al Qaida camp? A religious war with one billion people?

There are indeed religious zealots among the conservative Christian camps in the west who welcome such idea, who think they have a chance to compensate for the Crusaders' defeats centuries ago or have the wishful thought of eradicating Islam from the world. But Dr. Pipes and most other scholars and thinkers on the right already note that Islam is not going to go away. It is there, and has been there for 15 centuries alongside the Christian world, sometimes in war but most other times in rather peaceful coexistence.

A very large majority of Muslim population do believe in such peaceful coexistence. They interpret the Muslim texts differently than what you do. Don't tell me you would really like them to abondon their interpretation and join militant Islam instead.

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