Column suggests binary worldview

Andrew Gerst's Aug. 30, 2006 column "Where are the moderate Muslims?" appeared in The Chronicle on the same day as the first class meeting of my graduate seminar on Islam and Modernism. We devoted the second half of the class to discussing the article. Who are the moderate Muslims, those whom Gerst pleads to stand forth in the name of Islam and break "this fortress of lies and hate" that beguile "thousands of college-aged Muslims caught in a labyrinth of radical clerics' terror propaganda" ?

According to Gerst, most are nameless, but in the next to last paragraph he cites three representatives of what he terms "moderate Islam." He also claims that they are "virtually unknown." The first is Azar Nafisi, author of the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran, who is at once famous and infamous for her allegiance to Paul Wolfowitz as well as support of a public campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The second is Kamal Nawash, a Republican political candidate from Virginia who appears on Fox News, and whose Free Muslims Coalition Against Terrorism, promotes secularism as the answer to Islamic, and all forms of religious, extremism. The third is the Lebanese Sufi Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, whose virulent denunciation of Saudi influence on American mosques and Muslim student associations has itself been denounced by American Muslim leaders, including Imam W. D. Mohammed.

In short, far from being unknown, these three examples of what Gerst lauds as "moderate Islam" are well known for their stand on behalf of certain political positions that would not be deemed moderate or representative by most Muslims either in the United States or abroad.

But even more regrettable is Gerst's advocacy of a simplistic, binary worldview. He seeks "a unified and well-publicized moderate Muslim condemnation of terror," but by whom on behalf of whom? As more and more mainstream commentators are making clear, there is a huge debate about whether terror is itself a canard that hides the real danger facing Americans and others: the growing asymmetry of resources, education and hope to build a better collective future beyond the ravages of war. As James Fallow argued persuasively in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, we should declare victory against the war on terror, recognizing that al-Qaeda has been severely damaged, its potential for future destruction reduced. Yes, political extremism, of both Islamic and non-Islamic varieties, will persist and annoy Americans as a peripheral threat, but let us get on with the real challenge, in Fallow's words, of "including the people left behind in the process of global development." A coalition of the bold and the visionary is better than one reinventing religious wars under the guise of a crusade for moderation.

Bruce Lawrence

Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor of Humanities

Director, Islamic Studies Center