What is Moderate Islam?

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"Richard L. Benkin has put forth a solid collection of chapters on one of the most critical topics of the day-distinguishing between moderate Muslims and Islamists. With the growing threat of Islamist groups in the Middle East and their affiliates in the West, the issue of identifying moderates necessitates a clear and guided answer, which is detailed throughout these chapters. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities and nuances of the Muslim world at large."

Radical Islam is a major affliction of the contemporary world. Each year, radical Islamists carry out terrorist attacks that result in a massive death toll, almost always involving noncombatants and innocents. Estimates of how many Muslims could be considered followers of radical Islam vary widely, and there are few guides to help distinguish moderates from radicals. Observers often sit at the extremes, either seeing all Muslims as open or closeted jihadis or recoiling from any attempt to link Islam with international terror. Both positions are overly simplistic, and the lack of rational principles to absolve the innocent and identify the accomplices of terror has led to governments and individuals mistakenly accepting jihadis as moderate. What is Moderate Islam? brings together an array of scholars and activists-Muslim and non-Muslim-to provide this missing insight. This wide-ranging collection examines the relationship among Islam, civil society, and the state. The contributors investigate how radical Islamists can be distinguished from moderate Muslims, analyze the potential for moderate Islamic governance, and challenge monolithic conceptions of Islam.

After a 2013 human rights trip to Bangladesh, I wrote an article entitled "The Real War in South Asia." It noted that "having just returned from Bangladesh where Islamists and their appeasers are eliminating its Hin- du population, I can confidently say that on the ground this is not a war between Hindus and Muslims but one between decent people and people who have no decency regardless of religion" (Benkin 2013). It took quite a few tries to get the piece published and after finally succeeding, I sent an email to Dr. Daniel Pipes-one of the contributors to this book and some- one whose Middle East Forum is in part responsible for my being able to conduct these human rights missions to South Asia and educate the world about the fate of Bangladesh's Hindus. Had I written an article, I wrote, that condemned Islam and all Muslims or one that denied any meaningful tie between Islam and Islamic terror, I could have gotten it published easily. Because I instead wrote a piece that eschewed such simplicities, however, finding an outlet for it was not easy despite the firsthand data and verified incidents.