We want Austrian-style Islam, not one controlled by other states.
If radical Islam is ever to be shunted aside it will be by other Moslems with alternate interpretations.
The most pressing challenge that the Arabs have yet to confront is the reform of Islam. If the Arab world can’t or won’t accept the concept of the secular state as being consistent with Islam, then neither high-speed economic growth, nor liberal democracy have much chance in the Middle East.
Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past.
I realised that the idea of enforcing sharia is not consistent with Islam as it's been practised from the beginning. In other words, Islam has always been secular, and I had been totally ignorant of the fact.
From the Muslims I learned from the extraordinary pluralism of the Koran, the fact that the Koran endorses every single one of the major world faiths, but I was particularly enthralled by the Sufi tradition, the mystical tradition of Islam, which is so open to other religious faiths.
To speak of the Muslim world is not to endorse a totalitarian project, nor to bolster an Islamist narrative, nor to suggest that variety, plurality, and diversity are lacking in what Muslims think, believe, speak, and do as Muslims.
I do not believe that the totality of the Islamic world recognizes the Taliban interpretation of the faith as being representative of its own view. There is no unanimity in Islam with regard to this interpretation. Generally you will see as much diversity in the Islam as you do in the Christian world today. But the West does not really understand the pluralism of the Islamic world.
Islam is, to be sure, a big tent, and the one and a half billion Muslims in the world run the gamut from mystical, moderate, pacific Sufis to Salafists.
