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Reader comment on item: [Finding Moderate Muslims:] Do you believe in modernity?
in response to reader comment: Islam appears to be inherently radical

Submitted by Abdul Rahman Reijerink (Australia), Jun 28, 2006 at 09:53

We exist.

Come and find us.

Of course Islam can only be reformed by Muslims.

Mark says "Even the moderates HAVE to believe in some ideas that the West would consider extreme (rights of women, supremecy of Islam over all religions, etc)."

I say: Who says? on what authority?

Mark says " It is an inherently radical religion."

I say: yes, it is. Radical means getting back to basics (check any decent dictionary, even your American Webster, tongue in check self assuredness based on favouring Oxford). In the end, all that counts is your relationship with the Creator and how you spend your life. All you can take with you when you die cannot even be touched, so why waste your life pursuing what can be? Radical huh?

As an aside, Christian Evangelicals in my city are quite frankly scary.... even to my (practising) Christian friends. They are a lot more "my religion is the only way" than most muslims who read the Qur'an thoroughly are (see verse 5:69).

muslims as a whole are a bit like the silent majority so popular with rightwing commentators in the eighties. they don't speak out a lot but it does not mean they don't have opinions. Dr. Pipes himself admits elsewhere in this site that the terrorists are unrepresentative and largely have a voice well out of proportion to their following.

in Peace.

Submitting....

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