Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

There's one sect kinda-sorta preaching violence. And that is the Wahhabi Islam that followed Osama Bin Laden. Beyond that, your mainstream Shiite / Shia Muslims are rather peaceful folk within the Western World.

Frances 7%+ Muslim Population is a testament to that. Its pretty much those who get converted to the extremist violent sect that we have to worry about.

And as I stated in another thread: geo-political issues prevent the US from calling out the sect specifically. Saudi Arabia has a relatively large number of Salafists.

Even then... Wahhabi / Salafi aren't the same. But since they're more closely related (same geo-political area and a shared history)... I'll keep the terms close to each other. But honestly, these sorts of things are important to see.

You can't just paint Islam with a broad brush and make generalizations. At best, I'd say the attacks (Sept. 11, Anwar Al Awalki, Bin Laden, etc. etc.) are all derived from Wahhabi Islam at best.

The most accurate is probably "Violently Motivated Extremist Wahhabi Islam"... which is a rather small subset of Muslims. (Basically just ISIS and Al Qaeda)

Credit belongs to the Islamic world for keeping classical knowledge alive and reintroducing it to Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance. However the Enlightenment refers to a later period in European history where people came to terms with the result of decades of very nasty civil wars over Protestant vs Catholic, and came up with principles which allowed people of different beliefs to peacefully coexist within society.

That is the source of Western ideas like "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech". Which very importantly say that while you can take offense at another's words or beliefs, you can't actually do anything about it. Like go over and kill them. And they have to reciprocate by not killing you in turn.

The Muslim world has nothing like this. Sure, they say that you're free to follow another religion of the book. But their teachings are very explicit that this only works so long as you don't do anything offensive to muslims. Like mock the prophet, convert muslims to your faith, and so on. Do that, and you die. Unless the Muslim world internalizes the Western version of that idea, we're going to continue having problems reconciling Islam and Western civilization.

Incidentally the golden age of Islam that you refer to traditionally ended with the sack of Baghdad in 1258. However contemporary scholars point to evidence that relative enlightenment continued until the great economic decline that resulted from Western countries establishing direct trade routes with the East, which reduced commerce along the Silk Road.

> What the Muslim world needs is a Gandhi.

That would be a good thing indeed.

What I meant with the Ataturk reference - in case that wasn't clear - is that it should be possible to have an enlightened muslim state, one where the trend to fanaticism can be stopped maybe even reversed, and that such a state could set an example for the rest of the muslim world.

Right now Turkey is once again in turmoil, it's not unlike former Yugoslavia in composition and I fear for how that will all turn out. You are right in that this directly links back to how the union was achieved in the first place (mostly by force, rather than by consensus).

> And as I stated in another thread: geo-political issues prevent the US from calling out the sect specifically. Saudi Arabia has a relatively large number of Salafists.

We're in violent agreement here, as long as our dependency on oil continues this likely will not change. That's one of the factors holding back meaningful progress on a quite a large number of stages.

Islam believes in inerrancy of the Qur'an. The Qur'an encourages violence. The faces of organized Islam in the west engage in apologetics and argue that this isn't so, but anyone can read this for themselves. Claiming that the Qur'an doesn't encourage violence is just doublethink. Most Muslims believe that the Qur'an espouses peace, only because they haven't read it. But if they actually do read it and realize it espouses violence, then they are faced with a choice: either give up the idea that the Qur'an is inerrant, or begin spreading Islam through violence. All it takes to turn a peaceful Muslim into a violent Muslim is that they actually read and understand their holy book.

Even peaceful Muslims aren't great. Even in its milder incarnations, Islam is sexist and hostile to science.

The interests of Islam are not aligned with my interests. They are, in fact, directly opposed to my interests.

I believe that one of the most powerful ways in which I can act politically is through economics. There is a diner in my town which is well-known for its owners being racist. I don't go there, because I don't want to support racists monetarily. Similarly, I wouldn't hire a person who made racist comments. I believe that there should be significant repercussions for that kind of behavior.

Likewise, I don't want to go to Muslim businesses or hire Muslims. Islam is every bit as harmful as racism, and I believe that there should be significant repercussions for that behavior.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class