What Muslims Really Think by Dinesh D'Souza

This was a rather interesting article I came across on TownHall.com today. And one can only "hope" that it's a correct assessment found there in. But from personal experience with the Muslim communities, (both home and abroad,) I have the same thought as one of the commenter's; "It will take more than a few surveys to convince me."

The article is entitled "What Muslims Really Think," and was written by Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza's article is about a recently released book by Dalia Mogahed and John Esposito. The book, "Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think," is supposedly to be one of the first books available that puts tangible data behind the question of muslim thought.

The authors apparently have some weight to put behind the work according to the article. It lists Esposito as being "one of the most respected American authorities on Islam," and credits Mogahed as being the head of a study group of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The data mentioned above, was gathered through both the above listed Gallup group as well as the World Values Survey, which collects info over decades.

D'Souza's article lets on that in actuality, most muslims do appreciate the freedoms, (for the most part) that the rest of the world enjoys. But it abhors LIBERALISM. I know that's gonna get some panties in a bunch. But it specifies that there are TWO types of liberalism.

As described in the article, "There is the classical liberalism of the American founding. Call this Liberalism 1. This liberalism is reflected in such principles as the right to vote, to assemble freely, to debate issues, to trade with others, to practice one’s religion, political and religious toleration, and so on.... Then there is the modern liberalism of the 1960s. Call this Liberalism 2. This liberalism is defined by such tenets as the right to blaspheme, the complete exclusion of religious symbols from the public square, the right of teenage boys and girls to receive sex education and contraceptives, the right to abortion, prostitution as a worker's right, pornography as a protected form of expression, gay rights and gay marriage, and so on."

It's liberalism 2 that's getting under the skin of the islamic world, and allowing personages such as Bin Laden, Sadyr and the likes to pull more traditional muslims into their folds. Hence an almost continuous string of cannon fodder for bombings and such.

This is all fine and great that it's simply liberalism that's causing the problems. Like we didn't all already know that in the first place. But when I find news of about 35% of muslims in England supported the 7/7 bombings, and are sympathetic to Al-Qaeda and other organizations, it kind of puts a damper on positive thought in relating to said religion.

As I said above, one can only "HOPE" that the data is correct, and some form of detente can be reached. But I'm not going to hold my breathe for it.