In the comments sections of several blogs and via email I’ve been trying to get a handle on what would seem to be a simple question: what is a moderate Muslim? What do they look like? Who are they? What do they believe? Apparently I’m not the only one asking this question. Abu Aardvark responds to a commenter’s question with an interesting post, Defining “moderate Islamism”:
…For now, let me put it like this: what signifies a moderate in Islamists, for me, is their position on the value of dialogue. Moderates like Qaradawi embrace dialogue as a core political value, which has a whole range of spinoff implications: a rejection of violence, a rejection of tyranny, a rejection of intolerance; and a commitment to something which can offer important links towards democracy and co-existence. It isn’t specific political positions, but rather a political orientation.
Radicals, for comparison, tend to embrace concepts such as a notion of “jihad” which embraces violence, and a notion of “jahiliyya” which denotes existing society as fundamentally corrupt. They do not see dialogue as important, since they already know the “truth” and see their enemies as impossible to persuade.
I don’t know if I agree with this definition. But I do believe that if in a quest for moderate Muslims, you’re looking for Muslims who are pro-Western, it may not be moderates you’re looking for.
Dave: a point of clarity here. There’s a difference, I think, between a moderate Muslim and a moderate Islamist.
A moderate Muslim would be someone like the posters on Muslim Wakeup! A moderate Islamist would be someone like Tariq Ramadan, who would be defined as laid out above. The key difference is that an Islamist is in favor of sharia, whereas an ordinary Muslim can be secualar.
As usual, praktike, your point is well-taken. However, I’m not entirely convinced that any Muslim secularist can be characterized as a moderate. Liberal, yes.
But I’ve been bugging about half of the blogosphere on this issue backchannel for a while now and I’ve gotten precious few nibbles. I sincerely think that this is an issue that deserves a lot more discussion than it’s receiving.
Dave, have you read this?
No I haven’t, praktike. Thanks for the reference. It appears to be an interesting read. I’ll get back to you when I’ve taken a look at it.