What is moderate Islam?

Submitted by Rusty Rivet (United States), Jun 10, 2002 at 21:29

Dear Daniel Pipes,

I read all of your articles which consistently offer insight and have not the tiniest trace of demagoguery. Don't ever change. I am also glad that you have found a way into the news rooms of CNN--a news agency with a solid history of bias as well as ABC's nightline.

I would like to make one comment on the talk above concerning your suggestion to create effort to replace militant islam with a better version of the same religion, called moderate islam.

But what is moderate islam? Islam is not a fad. When a poll shows that 95% of arabs in palestine support suicide bombings, that an overwhelming majority of muslim clerics supports and preaches suicide; when not a single arab nation is democratic, when antisemitism permeates the one holy book of islam, where are we to find moderation? I could quote your own recent article (islam after 9/11).

Also, is there a moderate version of Fascism? A human version of Marxism-Leninism perhaps? There isn't! So, let us not delude ourselves with an idea of moderation in islam (cnn people can go on deluding :). Just like christianity before it, it has to be separated completely from any form of government apparatus, politics, or policy to be turned into a benign religion and this may take centuries to achieve!

thank you!

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