It is not just an inabilty to engage in self criticism, but to engage in any debate/criticism about their religion. A person very close to us married into a muslim family, and for the first time in our lives we have an issue that just cannot be discussed, in any form at all. All debate is shut down and prevented, and the family in now slit.

Having been brought up in a house where we had a round table in the kitchen, and no subject was ever taboo, we have been reduced to walking on eggshells for fear of offending, and this is an environment where all parties have high levels of tertiary education.

These are the same people who will now not permit even the mere presence of alcohol at a mixed social gathering, but then get on a plane back to Malaysia where the state airlines is quite proud of its offerings of fine wines. The hypocrisy of it all is simply stunning.

Slowly but surely we are all being driven backwards.

bigmal

Of course you can't have a discussion because you can not defend the indefensable. I had a friend who married a muslim man from Algeria. After she married him she found out he had other wives (I know silly girl). He saw nothing wrong with this and of course after milking her dry dropped her like a hot cake. If this was just an isolated incident you could dismiss it but this man told me quite plainly that Mohammed allows this as the ratio of men and women is not even on the earth (try that in China). It is the practices of Muslims that need changing not the rhetoric whether from clerics or academics.

They have not/cannot/will not criticise islam at all because along with the very quiet and invisible islamic "moderates?" they do not- to put it in an Australian term - have the guts of a two bob watch. Secondly being brainwashed by their cultish pagan death-loving religion they also want an islamic "victory" over the 'pigs and monkeys' otherwise called 'the infidels', we refer to them as US!-Jews and Christians. regards, numbat

I think Islamic moderates are in quite a difficult position, as they are exposed to attack from both sides. The Islamic extremists attack them for not being better Muslims, while non-muslims berate them for not speaking out more strongly against the extremists. And all the while the anti-muslim brigade abuses them just for being muslim at all.

It takes courage to stand up to extremists. At least in Australia, they can hopefully do so with less risk than in some other countries.

To the first few posters;

Is the example of split families appropriate to any fierce clannish group? I imagine the same happens to people marrying into any group that defines 'them' and 'us', including extreme Christians or extreme Amish for example.

Maybe the issue is that Islam is used as an identifier by ethnic groups, and is more and more being used as a tool to be for or against a particular group, in the same way that being Jewish has always been, or being communist or being dark-skinned or being Irish or whatever.

I have a lot of respect for writers such as this author, and I fully agree with him. I would also like to see moderate muslims offer more to the wider community - all we ever hear is the nutters. Surely there is more to Islam than we get from Hilali et al?

Read up on what happened in Eastern Europe to the Jews in the 1930s, before the Nazi's got going. Very similar demographic part of the population, same misinformation, same fear, same silence. As Rhys says, thankfully in Australia we have democracy and free speech to dicuss it.

gw

AS far as I can fathom it, Muslims are not taught, encouraged to analyse themselves,their religion. But to accept blind obedience to the book, to conduct their whole life by the book.
If they have any doubts in today's climate, it would perhaps be dangerous to voice those doubts. To question the word of a religious leader, even one so stupid as Hilali, would be seen as being close to being an infidel.
A mob of sheep must go where the drover sends them.