I thought that Ben Ali had been pushing a more benign Koran interpretation?

Submitted by Charles Martel (United States), Jan 18, 2011 at 14:37

I was surprised by the statement in bold italics:

"...A former interior minister, however, he underestimated Islamists, seeing them more as criminals than as committed ideologues. His not allowing alternate Islamic outlooks to develop could now prove a great mistake..."

I thought that Tunisia (and thus presumably Ben Ali) was sponsoring and/or hosting some kind of revisionist Moslem scholars who were working toward a more benign Koran exegesis.

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