Book Details

About the Book

"Richard L. Benkin has put forth a solid collection of chapters on one of the most critical topics of the dayódistinguishing 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." - Asaf Romirowsky, Middle East Forum

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.

CONTRIBUTORS
Navras Jaat Aafreedi; Anonymous, a Pashtun Muslim woman; Aziz Baloch; Meerain Baloch; Richard L. Benkin; Naseer Dashti; Umar Duad Khattak; Sunil Kukreja; Daniel Pipes; Amitabh Tripathi; Kulbhushan Warikoo.

RICHARD L. BENKIN received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: The Murder of Bangladeshís Hindus.