What is a moderate Muslim?

Submitted by Steve Klein (United States), May 4, 2008 at 13:36

Dr. Pipes posits, moderate Islam is the solution. What is a moderate Muslim? Is a moderate Muslim one who does not take the commands of the prophet literally? Is a moderate Muslim a practitioner of Sufism like Stephen Schwartz or Sheikh Professor Palazzi?

So-called fundamentalist Muslims consider these 'moderate' Muslims unbelievers, hypocrites, heretics.

More importantly, what is a good Muslim? Isn't Osama bin Laden a good Muslim? Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc., these groups represent authentic Islam.

Steven Schwartz is not a good Muslim by the standards of the vast majority of Muslim scholars and clerics in the Middle East; Egypt's Al Azhar University and elsewhere? No.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".