Originally published by the Gatestone Institute
After his recent electoral victory, it emerged that Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, had described moderate Muslim groups as “Uncle Toms”—a notorious racial slur used against blacks perceived to be subservient to whites, or, in this context, Muslims who embrace “moderate Islam” as a way of being subservient to the West.
One of Iran’s highest clerics apparently shares the same convictions. After asserting that “revolutionary Islam is the same as pure Muhammadan Islam,” Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad recently declared:
Some say our Islam is not revolutionary Islam, but we must say to them that non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be firm against the enemies and be kind and compassionate toward each other and not be afraid of anything….
According to AB News Agency, “Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad stated that revolutionary Islam is this same Islam. It is the Islam that is within us that can create changes. The warriors realized that Islam is not just prayers and fasting, but rather they stood against the enemies in support of Islam.”
How many Muslims share these convictions, one from a Sunni living (and now governing) in London, the other from a Shia living and governing in the Middle East?
An Arabic language article offers perspective. Titled (in translation) “The Truth about the Moderate Muslim as Seen by the West and its Muslim Followers,” it is authored by Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr in 2011.
According to the findings of this article,
Islamic researchers are agreed that what the West and its followers call “moderate Islam” and “moderate Muslims” is simply a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them. They also see that the division of Islam into “moderate Islam” and “radical Islam” has no basis in Islam—neither in its doctrines and rulings, nor in its understandings or reality.
Khadr goes on to note the many ways that moderates and radicals differ. For instance, radicals (“true Muslims”) aid and support fellow Muslims, especially those committed to jihad, whereas moderates (“false Muslims”) ally with and help Western nations.
This sounds similar to Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad’s assertion that “non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be firm against the enemies [“infidels”] and be kind and compassionate toward each other.”
Among the more important distinctions made in Khadr’s article are the following (translated verbatim):
- Radicals want the caliphate to return; moderates reject the caliphate.
- Radicals want to apply Sharia (Islamic law); moderates reject the application of Sharia.
- Radicals reject the idea of renewal and reform, seeing it as a way to conform Islam to Western culture; moderates accept it.
- Radicals accept the duty of waging jihad in the path of Allah; moderates reject it.
- Radicals reject any criticism whatsoever of Islam; moderates welcome it on the basis of freedom of speech.
- Radicals accept those laws that punish whoever insults or leaves the religion [apostates]; moderates recoil from these laws.
- Radicals respond to any insult against Islam or the prophet Muhammad—peace and blessing upon him—with great violence and anger; moderates respond calmly and peacefully on the basis of freedom of expression.
- Radicals respect and reverence every deed and every word of the prophet—peace be upon him—in the hadith; moderates don’t.
- Radicals oppose democracy; moderates accept it.
- Radicals see the people of the book [Jews and Christians] as dhimmis [third class “citizens”]; moderates oppose this.
- Radicals reject the idea that non-Muslim minorities should have equality or authority over Muslims; moderates accept it.
- Radicals reject the idea that men and women are equal; moderates accept it, according to Western views.
- Radicals oppose the idea of religious freedom and apostasy from Islam; moderates agree to it.
- Radicals desire to see Islam reign supreme; moderates oppose this.
- Radicals place the Koran over the constitution; moderates reject this.
- Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
- Radicals embrace the wearing of hijabs and niqabs; moderates reject it.
- Radicals accept killing young girls that commit adultery or otherwise besmirch their family’s honor; moderates reject this.
- Radicals reject the status of women today and think it should be like the status of women in the time of the prophet; moderates reject that women should be as in the time of the prophet.
- Radicals vehemently reject that women should have the freedom to choose partners; moderates accept that she can choose a boyfriend without marriage.
- Radicals agree to clitorectimis; moderates reject it.
- Radicals reject the so-called war on terror and see it as a war on Islam; moderates accept it.
- Radicals support jihadi groups; moderates reject them.
- Radicals reject the terms Islamic terrorism or Islamic fascism; moderates accept them.
- Radicals reject universal human rights, including the right to be homosexual; moderates accept it.
- Radicals reject the idea of allying with the West’ moderates support it.
- Radicals oppose secularism; moderates support it.
Khadr makes other charges outside of his chart, including that moderates believe religion has no role in public life, that it must be practiced in private, while radicals want it to govern society; that moderates rely on rationalism, while radicals take the text of the Koran and hadith literally; that the first place of loyalty for moderates is the state, irrespective of religion—marveling that the moderate “finds hatred for non-Muslims as unacceptable”—whereas the radical’s loyalty is to Islam, a reference to the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity.
Khadr’s conclusion is that, to most Muslims, “moderate Muslims” are those Muslims who do not oppose but rather aid the West and its way of life, whereas everything “radicals” accept is based on traditional Islamic views.
If true—and disturbing polls certainly lend credence to Khadr’s findings—the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.
Good article Raymond.
yep – if one reads Islam’s texts and laws – there is no moderate islam. If a moslem tells us differently there is no way to tell if they are telling the truth since lying is a form of jihad – there is no way to believe that person. Unless someone can tell me how to tell the difference between a jihadist by the word/pen (liar), and a truly ignorant and/or peaceful moslem. And that doesn’t even mean that the moslem won’t change their mind as many have done in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Those ‘nice moslem neighbors’ disappear.
Yet, someone always pipes up about their ‘nice moslem neighbor’ or their many Muslim friends. Either their Mohammedan friend is lying or they are ignorant of their own religion. Sometimes, Mohammedans prosper without an imam and they come up with a reasonable version of their religion. Once an imam shows up, though, perhaps a Wahhabi trained in Saudi Arabia or an Al-Anzar university graduate, the nice Islam goes away. They have the entire corpus of Islam behind them. There’s no refuting them. When the imam gives the order, the nice christian neighbors then disappear.
Indeed, the traditional Islam’s (what we in the west misleadingly understand as radical) inherent intolerance and calls to violence/annihilation against Non-Muslims is deeply incompatible with the diverse and globalized contemporary world, and even more antagonistic with basic democratic principles, equality of all human beings and human rights. More importantly, the Islamic communities trying to emulate the VII-th century muslim medieval ones are so economically outdated that, besides related problems of bad governance, the entire Middle East is bankrupt, except the free riders benefiting from huge oil reserves. There are no economic success stories in the Muslim countries, which don’t have oil bounty to export.
Right now, the Muslim soul is tormented between their commitment to Islam, as theology, political ideology and social organizing principle, and their until now failed search of a viable socio-economic model compatible with their religion’s teachings and expansionistic imperatives. Some Muslims, especially in the West, gave up to this unsolvable contradiction and adapted to the liberal democratic order prevalent in Europe and the US, but they are few, and furiously attacked and ostracized by the majoritarian traditionalistic Muslim communities. They badly need an ideological underpinning for their secular and tolerant attitudes.
However, the relationship of Muslims with their religion is primarily a matter of internal reflection and debate. We have to admit that our capacity to influence the Muslim debates is limited, since “Kuffars” have a priori such a negative connotation attached and are traditionally seen with suspicion, if not with outright hostility. Outside means thus have to be used sparingly, in order not to become counterproductive. What we can do, is to ban and deport the Salafis and Wahhabies living in Europe and the US and poisoning the Muslim-West interaction, cut the Saudi Arabian and Iranian funding of extremism in the West, Africa, South-East Asia, integrating the Muslims here by offering them intensive language courses and inducing them democratic values in the schools, helping them and especially the women to enter the job market, investing in ecological industrial and energy sources to stop using oil and gas as strategic energy resource for our economies and societies, etc. Other measures are at hand for smart and visionary policy makers, but this is not the subject discussed here.
The problem is not with the people who are Islamic being traditional (radical) or moderate.
The problem is that all Muslims follow what are called hadith’s,
sunnah’s and sirah’s (along with the Quran) to the letter and that is
how they become known as traditional or radical. Those so called
biographical words/sayings/teachings supposedly come from either the
prophet Mohamed or his followers and they if taken literally create
radical Muslims.
Just like many people say that the bible consists of ‘mans’ or a
“Christians” interpretation of God’s words and Jesus’s actions and can
be fallible; so can those sayings coming from the hadith’s, the Suhhah’s
and the Sirah’s (those Islamic books) in my opinion. Some are outdated
notions that do not take into consideration modern times (the Christian
Old Testament) and some I think are still being created in modern times
to suit the will of powerful clerics in the Muslim faith who may follow
those older works in the books to the letter to this day.
The Muslims kinda use those so called books like we use the
Constitution and they are continuously clarifying and updating it.
Expecting all Muslims to follow them just as we “follow” our
Constitution. Those books (which get added to all the time) is the
basis of Sharia Law. And Sharia Law is how Muslims govern themselves.
They do not have a so called nonreligious Constitution for governance
unless they move into a country that uses one. That is where much of
the problem lies. Those books encourage Muslims to convert all the
locations on earth into the Muslim faith and incorporate the laws of the
Muslim faith. This can create much conflict if someone decides to
follow those books to the letter when they are not living in a land
which is Muslim by birth like Saudi Arabia.
So it is not about moderate or radical Muslims but those Muslims who
try to force the works, words and testament of Mohamed and his followers
(Clerical Muslim leadership typically in modern times) on to those who
do not believe or follow those books.