Moderate muslims

Submitted by Vijay Dandapani (United States), Mar 14, 2006 at 08:41

There are moderate muslims who speak out - most recently Dr. Wafa Sultan on Al-Jazeera. In mosques around the US and Canada it is usually women who speak up if at all. That is unsurprising as they are the most affected by extremist Islamic thought. But there are others who have done so long before that most notably Ibn Warraq (a nom de plume) who in 1995 wrote "Why I am not a Muslim" in which he was critical not only of Islam but of organized religion in general.

The Muslim sense of alienation though is a problem that stems from the presence of states such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan devoted exclusively to Islam. When a state expressly forbids the mere presence of any other religion or even sect (as in the case of Pakistan) it is hardly conducive to tolerance.

Separately, Daniel Pipes is not entirely right in clubbing the 9/11 hijackers with other Sudden Jihadis - they were here in the US expressly for committing acts of terror. That they led quite lives was part of their MO to get their dastardly job done

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