Looking for “Moderate Muslims”?

If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi
Shahid Malik, the Labour MP, explains why he told fellow Muslims that if they don’t like Britain they should pack their bags

Scotland Yard described it as a plot “to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale”. John Reid concurred: “The terror threat to the public was unprecedented, the biggest that Britain had ever faced.”

As it transpired, there was nothing melodramatic about these descriptions. It was to be a “terror spectacular” beyond our worst nightmares, involving blowing up a dozen aeroplanes in mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean, with the wilful massacre of more than 1,000 innocent men, women and children.

Last Tuesday, after a 90-minute meeting with John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, to discuss the challenges of extremism and foreign policy, I emerged and was immediately asked by the media whether I agreed that what British Muslims needed were Islamic holidays and sharia (Islamic law). I thought I had walked into some parallel universe.

An often heard refrain: “Moderate Muslims don’t speak out against extremism.”

But they do, actually. This article from today’s edition of The Sunday Times (UK) can only be characterized as “moderate” and it’s by a Muslim who also happens to be a Member of Parliament. He’s fed up with the extremists, but also those who forget what country they are living in and the freedoms they have there. Worth reading in its entirety.

FILED UNDER: Europe, Media, Religion, Terrorism, World Politics, , , ,
John Burgess
About John Burgess
John Burgess retired after 25 years as a US Foreign Service Officer, serving predominantly in the Middle East. He contributed 35 pieces to OTB between February 2006 and April 2014. He was the proprietor of the influential Crossroads Arabia until his death in February 2016.