Radical Islam Revealed, Part 7: Where Are The Moderate Muslims?

One of the most common defenses of Muslims and Islam is that these terrorists are a very small percentage of the whole faith, and that most are actually very moderate. We've already addressed what the faith itself professes about peace and violence, but what about that question of moderate Muslims? Are they really a majority of the faith? Have the terrorists, as a very small piece of the Muslim world, hijacked a noble, peaceful religion? Let's take a look.

The Muslim population in the world is well over 1 billion. If even 1/10th of 1 percent of those were radical extremists, that would still be well over 1 million radical extremists. At the very least, experts estimate several hundred thousand who could be considered jihadists. I know our troops have done a bang-up job of killing or capturing jihadists in the past few years, but they're nowhere near that number! Despite the potentially huge problem here, many countries (England and the U.S. included) are simply ignoring the threat in favor of soft political correctness, even after attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 (the British subway bombings). The problem is that this only encourages further violence. And, research has indicated that if popular elections were held in Muslim-dominated countries, it is very likely that all but one (Turkey) would elect a government that would require Sharia law rather than some form of democracy. Back in part 2, Irshad Manji illustrated why Moderate Muslims allow extremist Muslims to operate: to condemn them would be to incriminate Islam, and they won't do that. So, even the so-called moderates are part of the problem.

One of the biggest Muslim advocate groups (a 'civil rights' group) in America is CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), which has been linked to the terrorist group Hamas (which, incidentally, has links to Al Qaeda), and has had several of its top leaders indicted or sent to prison for terrorist activities. It is currently part of an investigation into terrorist financing operations, and the fact that it is still even operating in the U.S. is mind-boggling.

Still, the question remains: are American Muslims moderate? Debbie Schlussel writes:

For almost six years, we've heard the constant chorus: "Muslims in America are different." On 9/11, we were told that American Muslims would never commit the attacks like those perpetrated upon 3,000 Americans by 19 foreign Arab Muslims in our midst. The 19 men were different than Muslims in America, because they "hijacked their religion," we were told. On 7/7, we were told that European Muslims are different. We were told that American Muslims would never try to blow up subways and train stations here, unlike those in London who did it...twice, and those in Madrid who killed far more on their trains. We were told -- and continue to be told -- that American Muslims would never continuously riot in the streets, burning hundreds of cars a day, as they've been doing throughout France, going on 3 years, and violently attacking and injuring more than a dozen police per day. American Muslims are different, we're told. They're far more assimilated, far more successfully financially (as if jihad and Islamism are motivated by finances, not an extremist religion). Well, now we've come to find out that Muslims in America are not so different from their co-religionists around the world.

American Muslims Support Homicide Bombings
* 31% -- almost a third -- of young American Muslims (ages 18-29) support suicide bombings.
* 22% of foreign-born Arab Muslims said that suicide bombing can be justified often/sometimes.
* 18% of all foreign-born U.S. Muslims said suicide bombing is justified; 13% of all native-born U.S. Muslims said suicide bombing is justified.

American Muslims Support Al Qaeda
* 26% of American Muslims (aged 18-29) support Al-Qaeda.
* Of all American Muslims, only 58% have a very unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda. 32% of American Muslims either openly like Al Qaeda or don't want us to know what they really think.

Muslims Don't Consider Themselves Americans
* 60% of Muslims under the age of 30 consider themselves "Muslim first"; only 25% consider themselves "American first."
* 41% of Muslims over the age of 30 consider themselves "Muslim first"; only 30% consider themselves "American first."

Most American Muslims Don't Believe Al Qaeda Perpetrated 9/11
* 60% of American Muslims claim Al Qaeda was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Here's some more information from another expert. Professor Akbar Ahmed is the former Pakistani high commissioner to Britain and member of the faculties of Harvard, Princeton and Cambridge, and current chair of Islamic Studies at American University. He took three of his students on a six-month journey around the world to investigate what Muslims were thinking. "His conclusion: Due to both misjudgments by the United States and regrettable developments in Muslim attitudes, 'The poisons are spreading so rapidly that without immediate remedial action, no antidote may ever be found.'"

He divides Muslim attitudes into three categories named after Indian Muslim cities that have historically championed them: Ajmer (represents peaceful Sufi mysticism), Aligarth (represents the instinct to modernize without corrupting Islam) and Deoband (represents non-fatalistic, practical, action-oriented orthodox Islam).

"The progressive and active Aligarth model had become enfeebled and in danger of being overtaken by the Deoband model ... I felt like a warrior in the midst of the fray who knew the odds were against him but never quite realized that his side had already lost the war."

He likewise reported from Indonesia -- invariably characterized as practicing a more moderate form of Islam. There, too, his report was crushingly negative. Meeting with people from presidents to cab drivers, from elite professors to students from modest schools (Dr. Ahmed holds a respected place in the Muslim firmament around the globe), reports that 50 percent want Shariah law, support the Bali terrorist bombing, oppose women in politics, support stoning adulterers to death. Indonesia's secular legal system and tolerant pluralist society is being "infiltrated by Deoband thinking ... Dwindling moderates and growing extremists are a dangerous challenging development."

Further proof of the lack of moderation is the increasing demands of Muslims in America, ranging from refusing to transport blind people with seeing eye dogs to people carrying alcohol to associating with anyone who has any pig product to erecting dividers to separate men and women while working out at a gym to installing footbaths in airports and schools.

Raymond Ibrahim, editor of the The Al Qaeda Reader, writes that these are just more reasons for Muslims to live in constant animosity toward non-Muslims, even while they live amongst us.

Those who actually are moderate Muslims -- apparently much fewer than we are led to believe -- are guilty of not doing anything to stop their more extremist faith counterparts. Hassan Butt, a former jihadist himself, says that the first step is to admit that Islam permits violence (and that terrorist attacks have been conducted by Muslims). He reveals a culture of denial, however, that is deeply held in Muslim communities: "Within Muslim families -- like any kind of family where its members are expected to live up to demanding traditional standards of behavior -- there has always been the habit of burying their heads in the sand whenever there is something unfavorable happening." He says this is precisely the problem with British Muslims - the older generation is largely law-abiding, and favorable toward the British government and laws. But, since the younger generation is bringing shame and embarrassment to the older generation, they ignore it. Butt calls on Muslims to debate the teachings that are used to radicalize young men and legitimize the killing of innocent people.

Butt is right. The only true solution is for the Muslim community to stop radical Islam from within. Some are doing it, as evidenced by the large terrorist bust in Canada a while back - those terrorists were turned in by a local Muslim leader who disagreed with their methods. This man did the right thing, but one man is not enough. This needs to become the norm, not the exception.

I think a good example of internal cleanup is how the Catholic church handled the various scandals with pedophile priests in the past few years. Not only was such vile behavior not accepted, it was not tolerated. The guilty priests immediately came under huge pressure, losing their positions and going to prison. Who was the driving force behind the reaction? Catholics. All religions have their weak members; part of being human is failing. What counts is how the larger organization deals with those who fail. The Muslim community has yet to step up and address their radical members' failings, and until that happens, there will be the permanent stigma of a total lack of 'moderate' Muslims.



References:
Counting Jihadis
Toronto Muslim Informer
Footbaths at Michigan U.
Islamophobia Idiocy
Muslim Heads Stuck Firmly In The Sand
Meet Your Moderate American Muslim Neighbors
Time Bombs In Our Midst
This Tiny Lunatic Fringe Adds Up
Tiny Minority, Big Problem
Frank Thoughts On Islamist Extremists
Author Says Muslim Group Unwilling To Distance Itself From Jihad
How Big A Problem
What Do Muslims Want
Airport Adds Foot Basins
Taxi Firm Settles With Blind Man
Muslim Cab Wars
You Can Swim But You Have To Wear Muslim Dress
Muslims Call For Special Bank Holidays
Journey Into Islam
CAIR Executive Director Placed At Hamas Meeting
CAIR Fingered By Feds
Coming Clean About CAIR
Hamas Has Contacts With Al Qaeda