Moderate Muslims are no myth - Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes writes in an article originally published in the New York Sun (A Million Moderate Muslims on the March, May 8, 2007):

"Moderate Unicorns," huffed a reader, responding to my recent plea that Western states bolster moderate Muslims. Dismissing their existence as a myth, he notes that non-Muslims "are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities."

It's a valid skepticism and a reasonable demand. Recent events in Pakistan and Turkey, however, prove that moderate Muslims are no myth.

In Pakistan, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated on April 15 in Karachi, the country's largest city, to protest the plans of a powerful mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, to establish a parallel court system based on Islamic law, the Shari‘a. "No to extremism," roared the crowd. "We will strongly resist religious terrorism and religious extremism," exhorted Altaf Hussain, leader of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement, at the rally.

[Hyphenated_Canadian: How much does Pipes know about the MQM? According to an article by Stewart Bell, it has been linked to violence of a kind I consider terrorism. Another website says the MQM was the most potent threat to Pakistan’s internal security in the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties.]

In Turkey, more than a million moderate Muslims in five marches protested the bid of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take over the presidency of the republic, giving it control over the two top government offices (the other being the prime ministry, currently filled by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan).


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Read all of Daniel Pipes' article.

Over the years Daniel Pipes has taken a lot of abuse from people who accuse him of being Islamophobic. I don't see that at all. If you read what the man actually writes, you'll see he consistently makes a distinction between Islamism, which is a modern, politicized interpretation of Islam, and the traditional religion. Pipes opposes Islamism because he sees it as totalitarian, but he always points out that most Muslims aren't Islamists.

When Pipes uses an article to argue that moderate Muslims definitely do exist, that shows he doesn't hate Muslims. The people who say he does either don't know what they're talking about or are deliberately maligning him. I'm not saying I agree with everything Pipes writes, but it's obvious that despite whatever faults there may or may not be in his arguments, he respects Muslims.

I find this particular article interesting, because as far as I'm concerned it's still an open question whether Islam is compatible with liberal democracy. A big reason I'm undecided is that Muslims have different interpretations of their religion. Obviously, you can't judge all Muslims by what al-Qaeda and other Muslim terrorists do, but I think Robert Spencer, among others, make it clear it's equally wrong to assume Islam is a benign religion of peace. There is a lot happening in the Muslim world and not being an expert in Islamic history and theology, I find it hard to make sense of it all. That's why I'm interested in what people like Daniel Pipes have to say.

See also:

Secular Turks say, "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."

Begum Nawazish Ali - Pakistan's answer to Dame Edna Everage.

The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives

Can Islam and democracy co-exist in Indonesia?