I stumbled across this article, provocatively titled “Why I am not a Moderate Muslim.” It is yet another addition to the tired and bloated genre of Islamic apologetics. I sympathize with what the author (Asma Khalid) is trying to do here – reclaim Islamic discourse from extremists. But the article comes off as defensive, with the usual clichés about “Islam is peace,” and “jihad really means something other than holy war.” Yes, as a Muslim, I personally happen to think that Islam – in its original, revealed form, as God intended it – does not condone violence or the slaughtering of “infidels.” But Islam does not – and cannot – exist in a pure form. It exists only in its interpretive form, channeled through human understanding, an understanding that is, by definition, imperfect and compromised. (in other words, while Muslims believe that the Koran is perfect, this perfection cannot be realized by humans because once they begin to interact with the text, they invariably do so within their own limited prism, a prism which transforms the eternal into the ephemeral).

Therefore, there is no such thing as Islam as “pure” doctrine. Rather, there is only Islam as it has been constructed and re-constructed by human interaction and social context. To use social science terminology, then, Islam is a dependent, as opposed to an independent variable. Thus, to say that Islam is peace or Islam is violence, or Islam condones terrorism, is to say something which, in effect, has little meaning. Islam cannot be anything. Just the same, it can be everything. At the end of the day, because of the interpretive anarchy that has been a staple of modern Islam, it’s my word against Bin Laden’s. I can say all I want that the religious extremists are wrong, but I don’t suppose that’s much solace to the victims of religious extremists. When Muslims say that Islam is peace, they are (usually) making a sincere claim, but it is a doctrinal claim, not one that is necessarily grounded in a realistic appraisal of how Muslims behave. Whether Islam is peaceful from a doctrinal standpoint (what God intended when the Quran was revealed) is irrelevant to the question of whether Islam is peaceful from the practical standpoint (what actually happens in real life). So, yes, while Islam may be peaceful doctrinally (I think it is, although I can’t really prove it), it is not (now) peaceful as far as the daily practice of Muslims is concerned, and I think most non-Muslims would consider the latter to be more relevant. I hope that makes some amount of sense.