This seems to be a bit of a schizophrenic article. On the one hand Islam is all wrong and those who adhere to it are grievously mistaken, and on the other both the serving Egyptian President and the former head of Saudi Arabia's religious police are quoted as being in the forefront of current Islamic enlightened thinking.
Does anyone really think those two are the only Muslims to see the problem of medieval Islam and the need to reform it?
Radical Islam can only be changed from within. This would happen much quicker if we in the West could refrain from stirring the pot. Arguably Abu Ghraib has done more to radicalise today's young Muslims that Mohammed ever did or could.

<<Arguably Abu Ghraib has done more to radicalise today's young Muslims that Mohammed ever did or could>>

BS!

TOTAL UNABULTERATED BS!

Some peoples playing up of Abu Ghraid for their own narrow purposes have given the Islamists a free excuse --but if it wasnt Abu Ghraib it would be the crusades or a million other imagined infringments/offenses --and besides Haldy old chap get real, the Muslim world is stacked full of halal Abu Ghraids

The problem is not specific to Islam but endemic to all religions and all other ideologies as well. Wherever the claims of an ideology are held to be true without empirical testing, it becomes possible for extremists to make any claims they like and attribute these to the ideology. A belief based on 'faith' thereby becomes a licence to do what you like, since there's no objective way to tell who has the 'correct' faith and who does not.

Throw in a large ambiguous holy book, with enough contradictions and ambiguity to be read any way you want, and you have a licence for bloodshed and mayhem.

This article pretty much nails it. There is no moderate or radical Islam, just Islam. All Muslims accept the hate and violence in the Quran and the evil deeds of Mohammed without question. Oh yes, they condemn terrorism, but they are selective about the terror they condemn, and never explicitly link it to their religion. There is always an excuse.

For Muslims, Mohammad’s despicable attacks on his neighbors are just fine; the hate and violence emanating from the Quran is, at best, a matter of “out of context”, “you don’t understand” or “others did it too”. The human rights violations, oppression and discrimination in Islamic societies is never linked to either the theory or practice of Islam, but always blamed on others.

There is no enlightened Islamic thinking, Halduell, only wishful thinking. The so-called moderate Muslims make excuses and pretend that some unspecified type of reformation will save Islam and give us peace, but it wont.

Islam is beyond reason, hope, reformation or salvation. Muslims have blind faith so they are impervious to any of these. To them, what ever happens is never the “real” Islam that exists in their minds, but some unexplainable aberration. How Muslims can claim that Islam is perfect and the Quran flawless, considering obvious facts and current events, is a case study in ignorance, denial or deception.

There is no hope for us, either. Our leaders and elite have infected us with Islam and now we, too, are doomed.

And yes, intervening in the Muslim world, even for the best of purposes (or worst), will only, has only, contaminated us. After 30+ years of trying to “help” Muslims around the world, what do we have to show for it? Not much, and it will get worse. Our leaders have brought millions of immigrants to live among us, people that do not share our values, and we will pay dearly for this stupidity.

Good article.

Anyone with passing familiarity with the Koran and hadith can see that the problem is Islam. The difference between so-called Muslim extremists, and so-called moderate Muslims, is that the former are doing what their religion tells them to do, and the moderates are not acting on their religious beliefs - for now.

As for reform from within, the hopes of this would appear to be slim, because any person, Muslim or not, has only to point to Koran and hadith and the example of Mohammed to prove the reformers wrong, and since Islam means submission to the will of Allah, that means the reformers are offending Allah - and we know what Allah's representatives on earth think of that, don't we? Plus, when people are prepared to die for their beliefs, it's difficult for the State to do anything about it.

On the other hand, Islam would seem to be compatible in some conditions with modern life for some time, as we see from photographs of Syria, Afghanistan and Iran in the 1970s, which were quite socially liberal compared to today. So I do think the long history of political interference from the West has had a radicalising effect.

How appalling to realise that an ethical and intellectual creed from the lowest levels of the worst traditions of the desert Arabs of the 7th century, has been preserved and projected holus-bolus into, and all around the modern world; and that "our leaders" (*cough*) are determined to pretend that the problem of widespread common atrocities has nothing to do with the belief system motivating the atrocious behaviour.

I don't know whether to laugh or spew when I hear one of these standard-issue political amoralists tell all that the problem is "not religion". Well the guys doing the shooting and beheading and raping are telling us it's about religion, so therefore it's about religion.

Interesting to see the left wing turn themselves inside out and the back-the-front with apologies, two freedom-hating religions, united in fake moral superiority, hate and illogic.

I'm with both the author and Halduell - Islam does need a revolution and of course it has to happen from within; 'pot stirring' by outsiders will not help.

However, perhaps encouragement - working with leader from the enlightened Muslim majority - will. Here is a link to some wonderful words on the Hebdo tragedy by a Muslim Scholar:
http://www.onbeing.org/blog/9-points-to-ponder-on-the-paris-shooting-and-charlie-hebdo/7193?utm_source=On+Being+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ed36703192-20150110_Parker_Martin_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1c66543c2f-ed36703192-69823373

Such people could I believe initiate a revolution in Islam, from the safety of more liberal non-Islamist countries.

Islam is still where Judaism was before Christ, who was the revolution. The genocidal (Joshua - kill all the Canaanites- men women and children) and totalitarian (Leviticus - put homosexuals and people with short hair and a whole list of 'transgressors' to death by stoning), are still there in the Bible but safely contextualized in the minds of modern Christians. These books are taken as an historical account of the ancient Jewish history part of the Bible - that which through Christ (Love thy neighbour as thyself), our religion has evolved from. To most Christians the Bible is NOT a 'flat book', to be taken literally in its entirely.

Note: None of this is to deny that evil people in power (e.g. Inquisitionists, and quite recently Nazis) have not tried to use these texts to their own evil ends.

My question is, can any such reformation - separation of core, enlightened scriptures from the primitive errant ones - happen with the Islamic scriptures?