This is one of the more postive things I’ve read about developments among Islamic moderates. Dr. Ahmed Abaddi, the Director of Islamic Affairs in Morocco, has been in Washington explaining to America’s leaders how Morocco is fighting militant Islam. I know many Christians have used the Koran to suggest that Isalm is not a peaceful religion and that there can be no moderation. But I have to believe we should respect their voices of moderation just as we expect them to respect ours. One could misquote our Bible to paint Judeo-Christianity as a mighty violent religion, and couple that with our less than perfect history, and it would not be difficult to reverse the same arguments we use against Islam and apply them to Christianity.
Yet Christians will be quick to object and say this is not what Christianity is about, and when people act ways ways antithetical to our faith, we do not acknowledge that as Christian. And I agree. I just think we might give the same respect to moderate Islamic voices who say that radical Isalm does not reflect their faith. If we are to live in peace, we must find some places of dialogue and mutual respect.
December 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Doug,
I came upon your BLOG entry while reviewing my own post. I have argues the *exact* opposite of what you have said.
http://myminddroppings.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/fundamentalists-vs-moderates/
I do not doubt the sincerity of your intent – but I do seriously question in validity of your argument.
Moderates – despite their good hearts and good intentions have little leverage upon the extremists simply because they are not “true believers”. They pick and choose which segments of the doctrine they want to follow and they use their conscience to make that choice. To that extent they are “damaged goods” and hence carry no weight with extremists.
Extremists are not pathologically murderous – they are convinced in their mind (based on the religious doctrine) that they are following the path of GOD. If they stopped to evaluate their actions, they would see the evil in them – but the specific characteristic that makes a fundamentalist a fundamentalist is the fact that they do not apply human judgment to assess divine mission.
The perpetrators of 9/11 we regular folks who were surrounded by other regular people in regular neighborhoods. This “moderate” lifestyle did not dampen their enthusiasm for Jihad.
The bombers of London were raised in UK and came from privileged backgrounds which enabled them to be trained physicians and engineers. All along they were surrounded by regular moderate people and yet they went about their murderous ways.
To think that moderates have any sway on extremists may be tempting for us who prefer a non-combative approach – but too much evidence is stacked against such a claim to be taken seriously.