Original Article at: JihadWatch Archives

Robert Spencer:

When I speak of "moderate Muslims," I refer to people who identify themselves as Muslim but have genuinely renounced violent jihad and any intention, now or in the future, to impose Sharia on non-Muslim countries. The situation is complicated by many factors, however:

1. Taqiyya and kitman. Many Salafis and other radical Muslims have no trouble deceiving the unbelievers, in line with Muhammad's statement, "War is deceit."

2. Since most Muslims today are not Arabs but all Islamic worship must be in Arabic, and because the Qur'an itself is in difficult classical Arabic, a significant number of nominal Muslims in the U.S. and around the world have no clear idea of what the Qur'an actually says, or what the traditions of their religion in fact do teach.

This group, of course, is the radicals' largest recruiting ground: again and again they have radicalized such "moderates" simply by teaching them what the Qur'an says.

The smallest number is a third group: Muslims who know that the Qur'an and other Muslim sources teach violence against unbelievers but are ready to set that aside in all circumstances.

Also complicating the picture is the fact that jihad, while it has meant warfare against unbelievers throughout Islamic history, has indeed also meant, as Islamic apologists routinely claim, a spiritual struggle. A "moderate" may renounce violence but not jihad, which is similar to but not necessarily identical to the renunciation of terrorism by terrorists who prefer to call what they are doing "jihad."

In any case, Daniel Pipes in this FrontPage piece provides a useful summation of groups that tend more to be actual moderates as opposed to those that do not.

This material must be approached with caution, because of the complications I have noted here and others — not least of which is the fact that the "moderate Islam" which is "the solution" is still in an inchoate state theologically, and is still a-borning as something more than a cultural habit that is ever-vulnerable to being overturned by by-the-book radicals.

Of course, another moderate Muslim spokesman, Stephen Schwartz, vehemently denies this. He recently reacted with supercilious and contemptuous indignation to the claim, advanced by an unnamed non-Muslim, "that Bosnian moderation has no basis in Islamic tradition, and that the absence of such means the country will always be susceptible to extremist infiltration." Of course, the problem isn't that Bosnian moderation, whose charms I believe he somewhat overstates, has no basis in Islamic tradition, but that it has but a slim basis in Islamic theology. In the same piece he notes that he "was alarmed during my recent trip to see a resurgence of 'street Wahhabism' among young people and others easily swayed by superficial influences." He asserts that "the appeal of Wahhabism in Bosnia has little to do with the history of Islam or its theology, and everything to do with poverty, hopelessness, and the failure of Europe and the United Nations to effectively assist in the reconstruction of the wartorn country." Yet this fails to explain why places that are relatively untouched by poverty and hopelessness — most notably, Wahhabism's birthplace of Saudi Arabia, but by no means limited to the Kingdom — have not been able to stop resurgences of "street Wahhabism."

(No, Stephen, I am not attacking you. Your characterization of my earlier attempts to raise questions about your assertions as "attacks" was false. In free societies we call this "dialogue.")

Anyway, here is Pipes:

There is good news to report: The idea that "militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution" is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.

The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims have found their voice since September 11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly of Harvard), Kemal Silay (Indiana), and Bassam Tibi (Göttingen). Important Islamic figures like Ahmed Subhy Mansour and Muhammad Hisham Kabbani are speaking out.

Organizations are coming into existence. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, headed by Zuhdi Jasser, is active in Phoenix, Arizona. The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism appears to be genuinely anti-Islamist, despite my initial doubts about its founder, Kamal Nawash.

Internationally, an important petition posted a month ago by a group of liberal Arabs calls for a treaty banning religious incitement to violence and specifically names "sheikhs of death" (such as Yusuf Al-Qaradawi of Al-Jazeera television), demanding that they be tried before an international court. Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries rapidly signed this petition.

With time, individual Muslims are finding their voice to condemn Islamist connections to terrorism. Perhaps most outstanding is an article by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a Saudi journalist in London: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists," he writes, "but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. … We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women."

Other analysts have followed al-Rashed's example. Osama El-Ghazali Harb writes from Egypt that "Muslim and Arab intellectuals and opinion leaders must confront and oppose any attempt to excuse the barbaric acts of these [terrorist] groups on the grounds of the suffering endured by Muslims." From Virginia, Anouar Boukhars holds that "Terrorism is a Muslim problem, and refusal to admit so is indeed troubling."

The bad news: There are lots of fake-moderates parading about, and they can be difficult to identify, even for someone like me who devotes much attention to this topic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations still wins mainstream support and the Islamic Society of North America still sometimes hoodwinks the U.S. government. The brand-new Progressive Muslim Union wins rave reviews for its alleged moderation from gullible journalists, despite much of its leadership (Salam Al-Marayati, Sarah Eltantawi, Hussein Ibish, Ali Abunimah) being well-known extremists.

Fortunately, the authorities kept both Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam out of the United States, but Khaled Abou El Fadl got through and, worse, received a presidential appointment.

Even anti-terrorist rallies are not always what they seem to be. On Nov. 21, several thousand demonstrators, some of them Muslim, marched under banners proclaiming "Together for Peace and against Terror" in Cologne, Germany. Marchers shouted "No to terror" and politicians made feel-good statements. But the Cologne demonstration, coming soon after the murder of Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2, served as a clever defense operation. The organizer of the event, the Islamist Diyanet Işleri Türk-Islam Birliği, used it as a smokescreen to fend off pressure for real change. Speeches at the demonstration included no mea culpas or calls for introspection, only apologetics for jihad and invocations of stale and empty slogans such as "Islam means peace."

This complex, confusing record points to several conclusions:

• Islamists note the urge to find moderate Muslims and are learning how to fake moderation. Over time, their camouflage will undoubtedly further improve.

• Figuring out who's who is a high priority. It may be obvious that Osama bin Laden is Islamist and Irshad Manji anti-Islamist, but plenty of Muslims are in the murky middle. An unresolved debate has raged for years in Turkey whether the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is an Islamist or not.

• The task of identifying true moderates cannot be done through guesswork and intuition; for proof, note the American government's persistent record of supporting Islamists by providing them with legitimacy, education, and (perhaps even) money. I too have made my share of mistakes. What's needed is serious, sustained research.

Ethelred Comment:
I think it is important to differentiate Islam the belief-system/ideology from Muslim, the believer. If there were no Muslims, Islam would be a phantasm, a dead ideology akin to Nazism, and nothing to worry about. It is the believers that make Islam dangerous. We in the West want so hard to believe in the good in people and religion that we just cannot seem to recognize evil when it is staring us in the face.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been faced with the 'nice Muslim next door' argument. They are polite, have nice kids, dress in Western garb, have normal jobs - what possible reason is there to worry about them? My answer is to start asking questions, the first of which is, "What do they believe?" This is important because if they believe that the Qur'an is the immutable word of Allah, true for all time, past, present and future, then I have a problem. Assume that they are ignorant of the full message of the Qur'an (ignoring for now the Hadith), and hence are more like robots, going through the motions, perhaps not even understanding what is said in the mosque (which is bizarre to me!). I then perceive them as landmines, which are not dangerous if left untouched, but disturb them and look out!

Spencer, above, says that this kind of Muslim is the easiest kind to 'radicalize' (that is, to become a 'real' Muslim in all his jihad, hateful, death-to-the-Infidel glory). That is most certainly true, but it really serves to reveal the original mindset of this 'nominal' Muslim. Islam, if it teaches anything, stresses the solidarity of the Muslim umma, the collected believers, ostensibly promoting brotherhood that is beyond race, tribe or nation. Thus, a Muslim living in America has no real allegiance (in theory) to this country. If there is such a thing as an Evangelical voting block (for instance), then there most certainly would be a Muslim voting block. These nominal, non-violent, 'moderate' Muslims can then easily be used to further the agenda of activists like CAIR. They are a fifth column, a Trojan horse. Every new Muslim immigrant will further Muslim political power until we become like France, Holland or Sweden. Islam always was and is political, and we must continually ask "Why are they here?".

I my own humble opinion, I firmly believe that we simply cannot afford to wait for a 'moderate' Islam and hence REAL moderate Muslims to appear while we continue to allow Muslim immigration. I also strongly believe that we must expose Islam and show that it is essentially fascism, Nazism, and is not entitled to the protections we afford to other religions. A key question to ask is, "Why should we give Islam and Muslims more rights here than it gives other religions and peoples in Saudi Arabia?".

I will give Hugh Fitzgerald the last word, taken from a letter to me where we were talking about the possibility of Islam reforming. He gave a resounding NO! and why, along with some of his usual juicy extras:

1) the canonical texts are immutable
2) the gates of ijtihad slammed shut a millennium ago
3) anyone who does not know the full Qur'anic teachings is always open to learning them -- and then, instead of rejecting them, many people will embrace them -- so strong is the brainwashing of Islam
4) should we Infidels take a chance that a sufficient number of Muslims will NOT accept the full teacings of Islam? Why? What is the evidence from history -- the evidence all goes the other, more painful and distressing way. Why should we act on anything other than Ibn Warraq's formulation: "There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate." To which I would add: One never knows precisely in what that "moderation" consists -- is it the result of ignorance, or of knowledge and then deliberate rejection of some of the tenets of Islam? Only the latter is acceptable, because ignorance can always be replaced by knowledge and then acceptance. And if there is at this point "deliberate rejection" by a few Muslims of the worst and most dangerous teachings of Islam, so what? They are a very small number. They do not speak out. They help to render Infidels unwary, and more susceptible to Da'wa, demographic conquest, and the other kind as well. And finally, they can always change their minds, and become more insistent on jihad, etc. And besides, again, WHY should Infidels base their entire way of thought, way of life, achievements as a civilization, legacy that ought to be tended, however imperfect we are, and handed down to some pathetic posterity (god knows we don't deserve the legacy of those centuries), on the assurances of "some" Muslims or the belief by some non-Muslims that "some" Muslims, are neither 1) ignorant of Muslim teachings nor 2) practicing taqiyya or 3) embarrassed to admit to themselves, or to others, what those teachings really mean and actually do not wish non-Muslims ill. What a chance to take! What folly!

As you can see, I am hardly original.