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To Rescue Islam From Jihad, Muslims Must Look Within
(Los Angeles Times) Donald K. Emmerson - For three years now, acts of violence done in Allah's name have made terrorism and Islam almost synonymous, not just in Westerners' vocabularies but around the world. Who will rescue Islam from the jihadists who have distilled their faith to sacred hatred - of Americans, Christians, Jews, and the millions upon millions of moderate or secular Muslims who disdain this perversion from within? For some in the West, the enemy is not jihadists but all Islamists. Never mind that the vast majority of Muslims who promote their faith do so peacefully. Reformers deserve American support. But preventing the status quo from getting worse may be a more realistic goal of such help than winning "hearts and minds" for humanism, let alone making the Muslim world look as secular and democratic as, say, Turkey. The democracy Americans espouse remains popular in the Muslim world. American notions of equal treatment for women are less welcome. It is not up to Americans to rescue Islam. Non-Muslims can facilitate liberal reform. But it is Muslims, acting in diverse local circumstances, who will or won't break the cycle of jihadist demonization and naive denial that is ruining the image of their religion. Whether to rescue their faith is a choice only they can make. The writer is a senior fellow in the Stanford Institute for International Relations.